Castrol Nexcel...surely just snake oil...

[v8250]

So, this week Castrol have announced the launch of their Nexcel concept, whereby all future internal combustion engines will be sump-less/dry sump and the car/truck manufacturers will have to re-design their complete model offerings in order to package-in this new oil filled box as the engine oil reservoir; really? yes...

Now, I've known about this project for nearly two years even though I am not associated with Castrol or BP and being told that Castrol's new oil 'technology' will revolutionize engine oils; are they really that dumb? To think every global car manufacturer will change oil reservoir storage location for a simple oil supplier?

Castrol make many claims of this new 'superbox' [really, it's just an oil cartridge holding some Castrol oil that happens to plug into an engine...even though it's in completely the wrong location...but more on that later] makes oil changes quicker, will remove 200,000 oil tanker deliveries per annum and...not this old nutshell again...help save the planet by reducing C02 emissions. Even after studying this 'superbox' the only potential saving is in the time it takes to change an engine's oil.

Castrol appear to have been extensively driven by their marketing people on this one...in engineering terms one reads 'the blind leading the blind'...to reduce oil tanker deliveries one needs to reduce the oil capacity delivered and as car production volumes are not reducing, that is not going to happen :. false claim #1. CO2...unless within the 'superbox' there's some 'Unobtanium oil tech' the engine oils remain the same which still produce the same volumes of HC's through the breather system and the same waste oil volumes at point of engine oil changes :. false claim #2. Location...there's a reason why oils are kept in sumps 1. oil naturally flows downhill :. taking all/most carbon and metallic deposit with it the be held within the lower sump area/attached to the magnetic sump plug, 2. sumps happen to be very effective at providing primary cooling to the engine oil with secondary cooling from an oil cooler[if fitted]. So why locate an engines oil reservoir high up within an engine compartment which happens to have the highest under bonnet temperature with the least amount of air flow...?

Here's some of their publicity...would be interesting to hear others thoughts...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsL669wfh_M

http://worldindustrialreporter.com/castrols-nexcel...

and some other international views...

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.ph...

and I leave you with Castrol's CEO bullst PR Blurb...

Paul Waterman, Castrol CEO, said: "We believe this is the biggest leap forward in oil change technology in the history of the combustion engine. Castrol's engineers are leaders in their field and have come up with a really innovative piece of technology. It's the result of almost three years' work but as soon as people see the benefits in emissions and servicing as well as the substantial environmental benefits, they will ask why it hasn't been done before." ref' http://www.autoblog.com/2015/10/09/castrol-nexcel-...

[v8250]

ging84 said:

I don't see why you need to be so dismissive of something when you don't actually know how it works.

I don't know why you think it would be so unbelievable that manufacturers would redesign their cars to accommodate this, have you considered that maybe this is something the industry has actually been asking for.
A black box which you regularly need to buy replacements for, but can only get from a restricted source, that is every manufacturer's dream

It's not the case of being dismissive, it's the case of highlighting yet another poorly designed and unecessary device that would be forced upon the consumer in the name of new technology that's being promoted as the 'next big thing', when clearly it is not. As others have rightly said, and have quickly recognized, this oil box is answering a problem that doesn't exist. If the oil box was of genuinely good design and solved an existing technical issue/real world need then Castrol would have come up trumps, but they have not done this. Far greater an issue would be to resolve the inherent inefficiencies and the internal combustion engine without the smoke and mirrors of EV's which is simply shifting pollution emissions from point of consumption to point of production, but hey, from one engineer to another we both know the oil/petrochem Co's and Govts have far too many $1000Bn's in financial revenues at risk to ever go down this route.