The “bad” car oil is a guaranteed source of the most serious problems for the car and therefore for its owner. The use of “rogue” oil can lead to a whole pleiad of extremely unpleasant consequences, and therefore every motorist should have at least a rough idea of how such a product can be identified. Unfortunately, to do this is not as easy as one would like.
What is the “bad” oil and what is the problem?
Among motorists, a “bad oil” means a lubricating product, to which the term surrogate could be applied. It is most often a counterfeit brand oil, which is actually produced by nobody knows where and by nobody knows who. The real problem is not even that such product will not possess even half of properties and qualities declared on a label. The worst thing is that counterfeit oil is absolutely unpredictable by its nature: it can burn out quickly, it can cause leaks, clogging, sludge, and finally it often becomes the cause of oil consumption.
Needless to say that “burned” lubricant doesn’t have necessary additives and additives? It leads to accelerated and amplified deterioration of automobile parts, breakage and as a result – to expensive repair. However, even before the breakage of a car, this substitute has time to spoil the driver’s blood: engine overheating and strange noises are only flowers, the most widespread problems the motorist will face.
How is it possible to recognize a substitute when buying without expert examination?
By and large – you can’t. Sorry for the bad news. Without expert appraisal it is impossible to say for sure that this oil is good and this one is not. Of course, there are some things you should pay attention to when choosing. The presence of grammatical errors on the label, unusually low price (especially for the oil of foreign brands), unusual container, not typical for the chosen brand. Also do not buy oil brands that have officially left the country under sanctions (Afton, Chevron Oronite, Infineum, Lubrizol), there is a serious risk of running into a fake. You should also not trust those oil brands that continue to be supplied to the country with the help of “parallel imports”.
So what to do?
You will hardly take your oil to the laboratory and pay for the expertise. Luckily for all of us, today the oil producers themselves are deeply interested in that every kind of “dealers” do not discredit the honest name of their brands with their fakes. Therefore, every brand provides motorists with help in checking their products. There are two ways. The minimum program is a similar instruction on how to compare a particular container.
The maximum program is an online service for free oil authenticity check using a special service on the manufacturer’s official website.