Oil additives are not needed. No matter what cocktail an additive company comes up with, the question no additive salesman will ever be able to answer for you is this:
Since you don't know which oil I'm using now, you don't know what additive package is in my crankcase now. Therefore, how in the world can you recommend an additive package for me?
Most aftermarket sales pitches can be debunked in a similar fashion. A couple of weekends ago, I helped my nephew out by installing his new "tuned" exhaust system on his F-150. We dropped out his OEM stuff, and as I was wirefeeding all of the bits together we were talking. I was his age once too, so I never approached the situation from a know-it-all perspective or anything....I just asked a few questions in the hopes that future purchases would be given more consideration. (i.e. this stuff wasn't cheap, he doesn't have a money tree in the backyard, and he was counting on some big improvements.) He had *sort of* fallen victim to the marketing tactics used by sellers of the aftermarket bits.
Long story short, how "tuned" can an exhaust system be when it's simply installed on a vehicle it happens to fit? The manufacturer has no idea what other things may or may not have been done to the truck. They have no idea whether it's bone-stock, they don't know how it's driven, what gearing it has, what type of fuel is used....nothing. So their exhaust is "tuned" to what?
Same thing applies to oil additives. There is no way they can know what's appropriate without knowing what's in the oil you're using now.
And even then, you'd have to assume they have a better idea of what's appropriate than the engine manufacturer that recommends an oil classification, and the company that makes an oil to that specification.
Since you don't know which oil I'm using now, you don't know what additive package is in my crankcase now. Therefore, how in the world can you recommend an additive package for me?
Most aftermarket sales pitches can be debunked in a similar fashion. A couple of weekends ago, I helped my nephew out by installing his new "tuned" exhaust system on his F-150. We dropped out his OEM stuff, and as I was wirefeeding all of the bits together we were talking. I was his age once too, so I never approached the situation from a know-it-all perspective or anything....I just asked a few questions in the hopes that future purchases would be given more consideration. (i.e. this stuff wasn't cheap, he doesn't have a money tree in the backyard, and he was counting on some big improvements.) He had *sort of* fallen victim to the marketing tactics used by sellers of the aftermarket bits.
Long story short, how "tuned" can an exhaust system be when it's simply installed on a vehicle it happens to fit? The manufacturer has no idea what other things may or may not have been done to the truck. They have no idea whether it's bone-stock, they don't know how it's driven, what gearing it has, what type of fuel is used....nothing. So their exhaust is "tuned" to what?
Same thing applies to oil additives. There is no way they can know what's appropriate without knowing what's in the oil you're using now.
And even then, you'd have to assume they have a better idea of what's appropriate than the engine manufacturer that recommends an oil classification, and the company that makes an oil to that specification.
