How Your Motives Influence Motor Oil Selection - Have You Heard About the New GF-4 Motor Oils?

Shahidul Alam
When it comes to automobiles, people have sharply different motives and objectives. This is reflected not only in the cars they own but also in the way they drive, the fuel they purchase, routine maintenance and general upkeep. Therefore, a good starting point in customizing motor oil selection and lubrication practices for automobiles is to get a better handle on car owners’ objectives and how they relate to lubrication. Perhaps you will recognize yourself in the list that follows.
Manipulating Engine Life Expectancy For many people, the only thing they care about engine failure is that it doesn’t occur while they own the car. These are often the same people who buy only new cars and sell them after just a few years. Others buy new cars too but hold on to them for many years, even decades. They take great care of them by nurturing the car with painstaking effort and detail. Conversely, those who buy used cars know that engine reliability and life expectancy are less certain due to the possible lack of maintenance vigilance by the previous owner.
Most automobile engines have a life expectancy of 150,000 to 500,000 miles. It is due to the wide range that many see special opportunity - perhaps you see it as well. The specific life of a particular engine is largely influenced by its wear rate, that is, the amount of metal that is worn away from frictional surfaces per highway mile, per year, per gallon of fuel, etc. This wear rate in turn is influenced by such things as driving patterns, climate, engine design, environmental contamination and lubrication. A few of these things are in the realm of car-owner control, but many are not.
Let’s take as an example the car owner who buys a new vehicle for getting around town - someone who plans to sell it before it reaches 100,000 miles. He or she will generally have few issues or concerns with respect to motor oils and filters. Nearly all motor oils that bear the American Petroleum Institute (API) marks and have a viscosity recommended by the owner’s manual will achieve such a modest goal. So too, there is little need to spend extra money for filters, engine treatments or more-accelerated oil change frequency.
However, if the above description doesn’t fit you because of where you drive and how you drive or because you plan to own your car long after it becomes a classic, then read on. As stated, an engine wears at a certain rate - sometimes slow, sometimes fast. The rate at which this wear occurs can indeed be influenced by lubrication in many ways. In certain exceptional cases, wear can be nearly held in check. Nurture your oil and you nurture your engine. After all, what comes in more regular contact with the engine’s critical frictional surfaces than the lubricant that bathes them?