General Engine flush before home service???

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General Engine flush before home service???

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Hi guys.
I am doing my oil service shortly and i was wondering is good practice to put STP engine flush in the oil and let it run for 15 mins as per instruction before draining.??
Any help would be helpful..Twinair engine on 33000 miles...
 
Not needed if oil change schedule adhered too and car not just used for very short journeys.
 
Pesonally I would not use this. Certainly not as a routine. Most of these are little more than paraffin / kerosene / white sprit. They may be of benefit for older car that have missed changes. If you just want cleaner oil post change, drain, refill with low cost oil of correct grade and drive for a few miles then drain again, change filter and fill with quality oil.
If you do use flush additive make sure the oil level is low before you add it. Modern engines do not like to be overfilled.

Robert G8RPI.
 
Hi guys.
I am doing my oil service shortly and i was wondering is good practice to put STP engine flush in the oil and let it run for 15 mins as per instruction before draining.??

No, the use of flushing oils in modern engines is deprecated. On a highly stressed turbocharged unit with hydraulic valve gear (like the TA), I most definitely wouldn't even consider it. Likely to do more harm than good.

Using a flushing oil will also invalidate any warranty you may have on the engine.

If you suspect the engine may have been abused in the past (as in not had its oil changed at an appropriate interval), just do a regular oil & filter change, then repeat after 500-1000 miles.
 
Totally agree with Robert & JRK. No need for any flushing on a modern engine that has had normal services done.
If the oil drain is particularly dirty then as above do a short term use of cheaper oil. I think this would be overkill though. I'm a short journey motorists in the main so I'll be doing an oil change and filter around every 9 months which equates to less than 3500 miles.
 
Totally agree with Robert & JRK. No need for any flushing on a modern engine that has had normal services done.
If the oil drain is particularly dirty then as above do a short term use of cheaper oil. I think this would be overkill though. I'm a short journey motorists in the main so I'll be doing an oil change and filter around every 9 months which equates to less than 3500 miles.

Personally I wouldn't use cheaper oil in a TA even for a short while; there's the turbo to consider, as well as the multiair unit. Several posters have reported that this engine is unusually sensitive to oil specs and it's perhaps more important than usual to use the correct oil.

I'd be more relaxed about a 1.2.
 
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In a word.....no. This comes from personal and professional experience, my job means I know to much about this subject as some on here can attest to [emoji6].

Engine flushes came into existence at the time of Mineral oils. Mineral oils are basic lubricants which are only mildly refined from crude oil base stock. Their molecular structure is unstable and un-uniform, they do not handle temperature well, there's always a percentage of contamination from other particles, they have poor oil film strength and overall were rather average. Mineral oil, when exposed to certain conditions are known to cause varnishing, coking, carbon deposits and high wear.

As such flushing came into play as a way of removing those deposits and engine contamination using very strong solvents and caustic chemicals as a stripping agent. Solvent agents such as these have three main issues.

1)Solvent bases ALWAYS cause oil film instability and increase shearing and they reduce the oils physical lubricity.

2) They often cause deposits to break off into chunks or flakes, they do not dissolve into the oil for the most part.

3) As a result of their effects on lubricant protection, they often have nasty additives such as high zinc and sometimes PTFE to counteract the wear that they can cause. These are very bad for modern emissions systems are are one of the reasons for the huge variance of ACEA grades and manufacturer certifications to prevent oils that are made for one engine being used in another that it can damage.

In the engines that these flushes were normally used in, they had some benefits (not many mind you) and as the manufacturing tolerances of these engines were quite slack simply because that was all that was possible at the time, loose contaminants and gunk that was removed by the use of a flush tended to not cause the degree of damage they do in a modern engine. They also didn't have the advanced emissions systems of today's engines.

In your case, the Twinair is a small displacement, hot running, forced variable vane induction engine. It had a cast iron block, aluminium cylinder head with short but narrow oilways which are designed to increase oil pressure and feed force and is manufactured to tolerances that even 10 year old engines can struggle to match. It also runs on group 3/4 synthetic oils which are broadly incompatible with most flushing solvents due to a risk of acidic attack and 'potting' where they can effectively jellify if mixed with incompatible products.

Say you bunged a bottle of flush into your engine, some carbon deposits flaked off and were circulating around your engine. Those deposits if they because caught in a bearing, oil ring or a oilway could cause localised scoring, severe wear or even oil starvation which is very bad news & would shorten your engines life by a huge degree. If they got into the turbo you could expect temperatures that would cause the deposits to react, they could get into the bearing assembly and cause failure. (consider that solidified carbon is as hard as diamonds in some cases)

Along with this, the particles if they flaked off to a large enough degree could block the filtration medium of the filter causing oil starvation of the whole system or opening the oil bypass valve in the filter causing unfiltered carbon filled oil to move around the engine unchecked.

The one thing that must always be kept on mind, is that of the dozens of OEM's, hundreds of Lubricant manufacturers and blenders and the many labs who test these products all have common......is not a single one recommends flushing. In fact most actively discourage it. Engine technology has moved on so much, tolerances are better, lubricants are a world apart from where they were a few years ago and the only thing these additive companies have in their favour is the hope they can convince the consumer that they know better than the people who make engines and oil. It's all marketing.

I agree with JRK and others, get a good quality engine oil and a quality filter. Make sure it fits the correct spec, drive it *ahem* briskly and then change again after 500 to 1000 miles allowing it to take as much crud out of the engine as it can, modern synthetics all contain cleaning agents but they work in vastly different ways to flushes and work gradually preventing the issues above. If you need any advice on the lubricants and filters, give me a shout. Ill do what I can to help [emoji106]
 
As a result of their effects on lubricant protection, they often have nasty additives such as high zinc and sometimes PTFE to counteract the wear that they can cause. These are very bad for modern emissions systems are are one of the reasons for the huge variance of ACEA grades and manufacturer certifications to prevent oils that are made for one engine being used in another that it can damage.

:yeahthat:

Which is why I'd be reluctant to use a cheaper oil that didn't meet the recommended specification, even if the viscosity were correct.

Cheaper oils are often blended by putting a lot of additives into a low quality base oil; these additives may protect the bearing surfaces well enough but can wreak havoc on modern cars with their many sensors and precious metal catalysts. Premium oils achieve similar performance with far fewer additives, largely because the quality of the base oil is so much better.
 
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:yeahthat:

Which is why I'd be reluctant to use a cheaper oil that didn't meet the recommended specification, even if the viscosity were correct.

Cheaper oils are often blended by putting a lot of additives into a low quality base oil; these additives may protect the bearing surfaces well enough but can wreak havoc on modern cars with their many sensors and precious metal catalysts. Premium oils achieve similar performance with far fewer additives, largely because the quality of the base oil is so much better.



Exactly. You have seen the type of discussions I've had on here when it comes to Oils and Lubricants, my little black book (well more like half my sodding work laptop's hard drive) is full of data logs, testing information, certifications and cross reference lists and the old adage stacks up. Buy cheap, buy twice. Spend 15k on a car but insist on only spending £5 instead of £6.50 on a top up bottle of oil because "I'm not paying that" as some people do is mad. Despite that being made for the car specification in mind, tested to work and literally millions of pounds into R&D poured into that bottle; money talks.

It always reminds me of those people you see in £60k X5's and Audi's who spent all that money for a powerful drivers tool and status symbol.........then stick 4 Wanli Me-love-u-long-time tyres on them as "I ain't paying that for tyres" comes out of their mouths. Never mind their abysmal performance, poor quality, short life, lack of formal testing, unknown manufacturing tolerances, the only thing keeping your car on the road and so on. "But they are really cheap!"

In most of our cases on here, we love our cars and maintain them well. We are not the norm I guess so the OP's wants what's best for his car. But I'd rather not go for a flush and a 'cheap' oil may not be the way to go either. Cheap and good value are very different as we have all learned.

If they want to chuck in some 'cheap oil' to flush, look at viscosity and ACEA grade. For the Twinair as a oil to run for a short period, consider Shell Helix Ultra (often available at a bargain price) or failing this go with Magnatec Stop Start / Professional (once again. very cheeky prices if you know where to look) Don't worry about the stop start reference.....clever marketing [emoji106]. Both are very good for cleaning for slightly different reasons. The Shell as it's a none crude basestock & the magnatec as it's a high detergent oil.
 
Well surely if an ACEA C3 oil is marketed by Joe Bloggs engine oil co would by law need to conform to that spec?
When I did the oil change on mine I used Technolube ACEA C3 as is laid down in the handbook. So are we saying that I should stick with Selina or Petronas?
 
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Well surely if an ACEA C3 oil is marketed by Joe Bloggs engine oil co would by law need to conform to that spec?
When I did the oil change on mine I used Technolube ACEA C3 as is laid down in the handbook. So are we saying that I should stick with Selina or Petronas?

We're getting deeper into the rabbit hole now, but not all C3 oils are created equal. Top quality C3's will be made using a Group 4 polyalphaolefin synthetic base oil; cheaper ones will more likely be based on a Group 3 hydrocracked mineral oil (which by some quirk of the advertising regulations can be marketed as fully synthetic in the UK). All should meet the minimum C3 spec; how much they exceed it by will vary between brands (and some of the data is likely commercially confidential).

As to whether the top price oils are worth the extra over the budget synthetics, or if it's smoke & mirrors on the part of the oil companies, I don't care to say. At the end of the day, it's your money and your choice. But I will say this; if you use any in-spec oil, change it at a sensible interval and never run below the bottom mark on the dipstick, your engine will almost certainly outlast the rest of the car.

Sensor failure is another matter; there have been a few reports of this here, and personally I'd want to use a low SAPS oil on any car with a computer controlled fuel management system.

Drifting a little, but it amuses me that some folks will spend ages researching oils in great detail and paying top £££ for a premium product, and then fuel their car with whatever no-name brand is cheapest down the local supermarket.
 
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Thanks JRK.
I only now use BP or Shell now, did use Tesco momentum in the Rover though.
I'll probably change to Petronas soon as the car went too long without an oil change before I did it a few months ago. Dealer stamp and evidence of any work, they cannot produce any copy of receipt etcetera.
 
All should meet the minimum C3 spec; how much they exceed it by will vary between brands (and some of the data is likely commercially confidential).

As to whether the top price oils are worth the extra over the budget synthetics, or if it's smoke & mirrors on the part of the oil companies, I don't care to say.

Drifting a little, but it amuses me that some folks will spend ages researching oils in great detail and paying top £££ for a premium product, and then fuel their car with whatever no-name brand is cheapest down the local supermarket.



Thanks JRK.
I only now use BP or Shell now, did use Tesco momentum in the Rover though.
I'll probably change to Petronas soon as the car went too long without an oil change before I did it a few months ago. Dealer stamp and evidence of any work, they cannot produce any copy of receipt etcetera.



This. A lot of that information is as you said, commercially sensitive. However that's why I do my best to impart what information I can without breaching those boundaries. A lot of industries are rather marketing based, which is one of the reasons I take anything I read on a bottle or advert as unreliable until I can see some form of imperial evidence or the guides of someone who are more knowledgable than me.

As for the cheap fuel. I did have to chuckle at the comment. It's very true! I personally run my cars on BP Ultimate or Tesco Momentum, mostly because at least by personal experience they seem to work well for my car and the cleaning additives do the job nicely too. Shell V Power makes my MG run....oddly and as it's been mapped for super this is irritating.

Murphyv, I run my Panda on Selenia KPE as I've found it to be good quality, bench results are good and it being factory fill and fitting the Fiat Technical Reference specification. Fiat have been known to take Oil samples from warranty repair engines (as do most OEM's, Vauxhall are the worst culprit!) to find anything that doesn't fit the specs, while I'm still in warranty I won't take the chance [emoji6]
 
This. A lot of that information is as you said, commercially sensitive. However that's why I do my best to impart what information I can without breaching those boundaries. A lot of industries are rather marketing based, which is one of the reasons I take anything I read on a bottle or advert as unreliable until I can see some form of imperial evidence or the guides of someone who are more knowledgable than me.

As for the cheap fuel. I did have to chuckle at the comment. It's very true! I personally run my cars on BP Ultimate or Tesco Momentum, mostly because at least by personal experience they seem to work well for my car and the cleaning additives do the job nicely too. Shell V Power makes my MG run....oddly and as it's been mapped for super this is irritating.

Murphyv, I run my Panda on Selenia KPE as I've found it to be good quality, bench results are good and it being factory fill and fitting the Fiat Technical Reference specification. Fiat have been known to take Oil samples from warranty repair engines (as do most OEM's, Vauxhall are the worst culprit!) to find anything that doesn't fit the specs, while I'm still in warranty I won't take the chance [emoji6]
Thanks for that.
My last message was garbled due to using a phone.
Fortunately mine is out of warranty but I don't want to use suspect oil. This one I'm using was recommended though.
Must admit it's as sweet as a nut but the MAP oil issue could be the oils viscosity I suppose.
 
Your welcome Murphy.

If it's any help to you, Techolube is a own brand manufactured under licence by Tetrosyl.....AKA Carlube oil. Not very well known and haven't come directly through our labs but previously Tetrosyl haven't been very poor or failed testing so hope this at all useful.
 
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