Slick 50 - good product or snake oil?

Slick 50 - good product or snake oil?

Author
Discussion

MartG

20,622 posts

203 months

Thursday 3rd August 2017
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I remember reading an article in Car & car Conversions ( yes, it was a looong time ago ) when Slick 50 first made it to the UK.

They tried it in a Ford XR3 which had been fitted with Weber aftermarket fuel injection ( this was before the XR3i appeared ). Being a fairly primitive injection system, idle speed was set manually - and after being treated with Slick 50 they noted that the idle speed had risen considerably, which they concluded was due to reduced internal friction in the engine

Chelski99

1 posts

71 months

Saturday 7th April 2018
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I use and have used slick 50 for over 2 decades , every other full service interval I flush the engine
And renew the slick 50 , most of my vehicles have been diesel vans but this stuff has kept my engines running smooth and rattle free for well over 100k each engine and my berlingo went to 225k until a snapped cambelt killed it , obviously like most things good oil and regular servicing is crucial but a little extra help never goes a miss

Slicker1

2 posts

62 months

Friday 4th January 2019
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Hi,

Do you realise that the Slick 50 name was sold in 1983... but not the original Slick50 formula?

Google "What happened to Slick 50?" for an answer.

:-)

Edited by Slicker1 on Friday 4th January 04:06


Edited by Slicker1 on Sunday 6th January 14:35


Edited by Slicker1 on Sunday 6th January 14:57

tight fart

2,868 posts

272 months

Friday 4th January 2019
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Chelski99 said:
I use and have used slick 50 for over 2 decades , every other full service interval I flush the engine
And renew the slick 50 , most of my vehicles have been diesel vans but this stuff has kept my engines running smooth and rattle free for well over 100k each engine and my berlingo went to 225k until a snapped cambelt killed it , obviously like most things good oil and regular servicing is crucial but a little extra help never goes a miss
Me thinks you would have been better off saving the money you spent on Slick 50 and spent it on a cambelt change in time.

Edited by tight fart on Friday 4th January 06:26

Grommit

857 posts

164 months

Wednesday 30th January 2019
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Whether it makes any difference to engine wear, I don't know, but it definitely reduces friction on start up.
I had a Lotus Elan +2 with a newly rebuilt engine, turned over as slow as hell on startup. After treating with Slick 50 it spun over like I'd connected an extra battery or something.
A lot of the criticism was based around the argument that if it worked, why don't the oil companies make something similar? Well they did!

"It’s Castrol MAGNATEC’s intelligent molecules that truly set it apart from other engine oils. These ultra-refined molecular components cling to your engine throughout all driving conditions, and even when the engine is off.
When the engine stops, oil drains back to the sump, but Castrol MAGNATEC’s intelligent molecules don’t. They cling to critical engine parts like a magnet, providing an extra layer of protection from the start, and throughout warm-up."

pacman03

1 posts

152 months

Friday 24th May 2019
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I put it in my wife metro and it works because she ran it weeks with almost no Oil in it. I never use her car and it was only when she was saying that a orange been on for weeks,

sh4rkbyt3

1 posts

39 months

Saturday 12th December 2020
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Quaker State makers of Slick 50 being talked about here, was sued by the FTC for false claims. That is why you no longer see the product or similar for sale anymore.

Several tests confirmed at best it clogged your filter and or created dams where the oil was supposed to pass through oil passages. Over time it also reduced oil pressure (likely from the clogging of the filter).

There are several articles to prove the testing was done. I worked for the company that makes Gore-Tex (teflon products) for 17 years and did actually tried Slick 50 out of curiosity. The truth is, with an oil base, the chances of the teflon being able to coat a metallic oily surface is virtually impossible. And the temperature required to make the teflon stick to metal (discounting the oil coating) will likely never be reached.

At best it's snake oil. The theory (which is all it was) by Quaker State should have been tested much more than beyond the flashy claims. In most cases your best bet is to use real synthetic oil which has been thoroughly tested and proven to live up to it's claims and sometimes beyond that.