Urban challenges for motor oils

05 marca 2024

Can driving in the city be a special challenge for an internal combustion engine? Definitely yes. Traffic jams, relatively short routes, start/stop system operation - TotalEnergies reminds us that modern drive units endure such operating conditions very hard and therefore require the highest quality oils that meet the respective requirements of engine designers.

On the one hand - ever-increasing traffic jams. On the other - ever-smaller engine capacities and ever-increasing horsepower per liter achieved with gasoline direct injection and supercharging. Such a juxtaposition is basically an exemplary recipe for mechanical disaster, which can be guarded against in two ways. First - to think behind the wheel, and second - to take care of good quality oil and shorten oil change intervals when the car is operated in urban traffic. TotalEnergies explains why the seemingly ordinary operation of a car in city traffic is so detrimental to modern engines, and points to specific oil characteristics that protect the engine from accelerated wear.

The peculiarities of city traffic

City traffic is dominated by short driving distances, during which the engine does not reach operating temperature and thus wears out faster than on gently traveled, longer routes. What's more - fuel can get into the oil under such conditions, since the starting doses and those given during engine warm-up are higher than those after warm-up. Moisture builds up in engines operated exclusively on short trips. This problem especially affects underheated engines like hybrids. Condensation, dissolved in oil, circulates somewhere in the engine initiating or intensifying corrosion processes.

Driving in the city - involves constant acceleration and starting. So what if the maximum speed is usually limited to 50 km/h, if you constantly have to dynamically join traffic, start at traffic lights or pedestrian crossings. During such operation, the engine consumes more fuel, which in turn means more combustion products in the oil, i.e. more pollutants. For this reason, the oil should be changed more often than when driving mainly on longer distances. An additional burden on an engine operated in the city are start/stop systems, which obviously harm the engine by disrupting the lubrication process

All hope in oil

An increasing number of automakers openly admit that they no longer produce engines that can go a million kilometers. Official service life declarations are increasingly... 300,000 kilometers. Since the user can count on no endurance margin, he must follow the engine manufacturer's recommendations on oil parameters. It is best and safest to choose those oils that have the appropriate engine manufacturer's approvals on the packaging. Here are the most important features of today's oils, which are crucial for modern engines operated in the city.

Soot dispersion

Downsizing gasoline engines - and such engines dominate the city and compact car segments - produce soot, sometimes even in sizable quantities. This is due to the fact that under the enormous load of a small direct-injection engine, the fuel and air are not perfectly mixed, and zones of excess fuel are formed in the cylinders. And it is from these that soot is formed in the combustion process. What does oil have to do with soot? It turns out that a great deal. On the one hand, its composition can reduce the formation of soot particles somewhat. On the other hand, it must have dispersion properties. The point is that soot from the combustion chamber also gets into the oil and contaminates it to some extent. Good oils have the right dispersant properties, which allow quite a lot of soot to stay in suspension in a large dispersion. In this way, the contaminated oil is able to circulate and not clog the channels or oil filter, which could have bad consequences for the entire unit.

The dispersion of soot through the oil also protects the timing chain. The soot in question tends to settle in various areas of the engine, including the timing chain. This is particularly harmful in the area of the pins connecting the chain links, as it causes them to wear out. Minimum clearances on individual pins, when multiplied by the number of pins, can "stretch" the chain to an extent that cannot be compensated for by a tensioner. This causes disturbances in the timing phases, and risks jumping the chain. In the worst case, the lack of synchronization of the camshafts and crankshaft can lead to the piston hitting the valves, and the cost of repairing this event will be significant. Oil with strong dispersant properties as well as a properly selected package of antiwear additives prevents soot accumulation in sensitive areas and further protects the chain from elongation.

Oil, and premature ignition

Another serious problem that internal combustion engine designers continue to face is the phenomenon of premature ignition of LSPI. It can be observed most often in the low-speed range (1500-2000 rpm), when the engine is heavily loaded and heavily supercharged with air. Such conditions arise when, driving at low speed, the accelerator pedal is pressed sharply. As the share of automatic transmissions grows year by year, the driver is no longer influenced by engine speed. Transmissions always strive to lower them to the extreme, and then after adding the gas for a while the unit works in precisely such unfavorable conditions.

Premature ignition, which can then occur, is caused, among other things, by underfired fuel and glowing oil particles present in the combustion chamber. LSPI results in piston shell impacts against the cylinder liner, and this leads to serious engine damage. LSPI-reducing oils are formulated to reduce the formation of the aforementioned particles, which can glow within the cylinder and additionally have an extinguishing effect on fuel diluted in the oil film on the bore or rings. These oil properties significantly reduce the incidence of LSPI. Instant lubrication

Instant lubrication

The above sounds like an advertising slogan, but this is exactly how modern oils are supposed to work. It's not just a matter of lubricating as quickly as possible during startup. It's also an important issue for hybrid drives, where the internal combustion engine is started and cranked up to a higher rpm during higher power demands. In such cases, we need oils that will lubricate our entire engine as quickly as possible. And that's one of the reasons that viscosity grades such as 0W-20 or lower are appearing on the market. TotalEnergies has 9 oils of this viscosity class in its range. There are already engines on the market for which the manufacturer recommends oils with a viscosity class of 0W-8. And under no circumstances should products such as 5W-50 or 10W-40 be poured into such units, as this will simply destroy them very quickly.

As you can see, all the key oil requirements, have their rational basis, and ignoring them can have a direct, negative impact on engine performance or visibly (sometimes surprisingly fast) accelerate its wear. TotalEnergies oils are developed together with engine manufacturers, and have the appropriate approvals of the leading brands on the Polish market. Today's engines are very complex and require very modern oils selected according to the manufacturer's requirements. It is therefore important to strictly adhere to the instruction manual. Experimentation of the type "I have always poured and will always pour 5W-50 oil" without looking at the manufacturer's requirements can end up destroying the engine."

Andrzej Husiatyński, head of the Technical Department of TotalEnergies Marketing Polska

About TotalEnergies Marketing Polska:
TotalEnergies Marketing Polska has been operating in Poland since 1992 and has an established position on the engine oil market. It offers products of two well-known brands TotalEnergies and Elf. Since 2008, TotalEnergies also offers bitumen products and is present in the market of industrial special fluids. The company has also been operating on the fuel sales market since 2009. In 2021, TotalEnergies opened the first car washes and launched a project to create a charging network for electric vehicles.

About the TotalEnergies Marketing Services:
TotalEnergies Marketing Services offers its professional and private customers a wide range of energy products and services - petroleum products, biofuels, charging and related services for electric vehicles, road and marine gas - to support their mobility and help them reduce their carbon footprint. Every day, over 8 million customers visit our 16,000 service stations around the world. Number four in the world in lubricants, we design and market high-performance products for the automotive, industrial and marine sectors. In order to best respond to the needs of our B2B customers, we deploy our sales force, our international logistics network and our diverse offer. We operate in 107 countries, where our 31,000 employees are close to all our customers.

About TotalEnergies:
TotalEnergies is a multi-energy concern that produces and sells energy on a global scale: oil and biofuels, natural gas and green gas, renewable energy sources and electricity. Our 105,000 employees are committed to creating ever cheaper, clean, reliable and accessible energy to as many people as possible. Active in over 130 countries, TotalEnergies focuses on sustainable development in all its dimensions, in particular in the area of its projects and business operations, which are to contribute to increasing the quality of life of people around the world.

Contact TotalEnergies:
Bartosz Cyran | bartosz.cyran@proautomotive.pl | +48 662 454 679.

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