Article originally published on Noria.com.
The question of whether to add additives to finished oil products has been debated for decades. Comprehensive testing has been performed to support claims on both sides. One truth that has been proven is that if quality high-performance lubricants are selected in the beginning, further additization will provide very little, if any, benefit. Of course, identifying quality high-performance lubricants can be challenging at times.
Lubricants typically are formulated with a variety of additives and base oil properties that are carefully set in equilibrium. Any slight manipulation in this formulation has the potential to be harmful. Keep in mind that more additive is not always better. The old saying, “If a little bit of something is good, then more of the same is better,” is not necessarily true when using oil additives. As more additive is blended into the oil, sometimes no benefit is gained, and at times the performance actually deteriorates. In other cases, the performance of the additive doesn’t improve, but the duration of service improves.
(more pros and cons of adding additives to finished oil products...)
