People today are keeping their cars much longer than they used to. Over the past two decades, the average age of an automobile in the U.S. has gone from 8.5 years to 11.5 years – a 35% increase, and roughly double how long cars lasted 40 years ago.
Driving your car for more years and more miles can save you a lot of money in the long run. But to accomplish that, you have to keep your car running all that time. If your engine conks out, that’s pretty much game over: your car just becomes a very expensive piece of lawn furniture. You can either get a new engine – which, for some older cars, can cost almost as much as the whole car is worth – or bite the bullet and buy a new car. So how can you keep your car’s engine running longer and avoid costly repairs?
What Causes an Engine to Wear Out?
The two main problems are friction, from all those moving parts, and heat, from all that fuel burning. And the two are related somewhat.
If your car is cruising along at a moderate 2,000 RPM, that means your driveshaft is spinning, your valves are lifting, and your pistons are travelling up and down within the cylinders about 33 times per second. And it continues doing that every single second you’re driving, no matter what speed you’re going. We’re talking hundreds of thousands of revolutions in a typical mile. Multiply that out by the number of miles on the odometer, and you’ll start to see how even a tiny bit of friction adds up over time.
The other big destroyer is heat. Your engine’s mostly made of metal, which means it can withstand heat pretty well (as long as your coolant system is working, and you don’t let the car overheat). But the gaskets and seals that hold the metal together are often made of softer stuff, and can dry out or deteriorate if they get too hot for too long. And the engine oil, which is really the key thing keeping your engine from wearing itself out, breaks down and loses its lubrication qualities when it gets too hot. This is why you have to change the oil: after a few months or a few thousand miles, your motor oil has broken down and is no longer doing a good job of protecting your engine.
How to Make Your Engine Last Longer
There’s a good chance you already know the answer: you have keep up with the regular maintenance on your car. Change the oil. Check the fluid levels. Replace the air filter. Get new spark plugs at the recommended intervals.
But, you may be saying, I already do that. Everyone does that, if they care at all about their car. Isn’t there anything else you can do to make sure your engine is still going strong for many years to come?
Actually, there is one thing. Since friction and heat are the enemies, anything that reduces friction and/or heat will help your engine last longer. And the way to reduce friction and heat is to use some Motor Honey Oil Stabilizer with every oil change.
Motor Honey Oil Stabilizer is basically an additive designed to make your motor oil work better. It reduces friction, so those fast-moving engine parts don’t wear out. It keeps your engine oil from breaking down as quickly, so that it’s still protecting your engine just as well during those last few hundred miles before an oil change is due, as it did on day one. It also lowers the operating temperature of the engine, so it’s not stressed as much by high heat.
We’re not saying it’s magic, but it does help extend engine life. And it doesn’t cost much. Basically, you’re just replacing some (about a quart) of the regular motor oil you would have bought with Motor Honey Oil Stabilizer instead. The stabilizer costs a few dollars, but so would that extra quart of oil, so the difference in cost is negligible.
You can find Motor Honey Oil Stabilizer along with your regular motor oil at these stores.
