Response

Wonder Oil 1

I have been reading your articles for some time now, and enjoy when they come through on the email. I particulary enjoy articles on "how to' or 'how it works'.

The reason for this letter is to make you aware of some great achievements made by an Australian company in the field of Automotive Lubrication. The founder of this company, and the products he developed, have been inducted into the Australian Technology Showcase for the results achieved in Agriculture and Transport. The very same results achieved in everyday motoring.

These products are similarly priced to other products available to Australian consumers. There is no modification to machinery or vehicle required to find claimed benefits, yet for no additional outlay, vehicle fuel consumption can, and is constantly reduced between 15% and 30%. And further environmental savings are made when these lubricants typically perform far longer than others- every day. These are real savings achievable now in all vehicles. Data is available to back all of their claims.

Why havent you or 98% of Australia heard of them? They dont advertise to motorists. If they advertise at all, they target Agriculture or Transport.

I do hope you find this information of enough interest to investigate the possiblities.

The company- PM Lubricants, Brisbane.

Founder- Keith Kelley

Director- Steven Kelley

Website- www.pmlubricants.com.au

Brad Priddle

Australia

We do not believe that any type of oil can reduce fuel consumption by 15-30 per cent, and point out that if this was the case, the company making the oil would be among the wealthiest in the world...

Wonder Oil 2

Thank you for your  reply.  I appreciate your honesty-  4 years ago I had exactly the same doubts.
 
In petrol or diesel, the crank oil alone will only reduce fuel consumption by around 5-10% (from what I have seen).   In gas, however, yes 20% is consistant (and consistant for 60,000k oil drains backed by oil analasys.  Keeping in mind typical analasys results are less than 1 ppm/1000k's for all wear material which is unheard of in any off the shelf oil).  15-30% fuel saving is not just from crank oil alone in petrol or diesel.
 
Their fuel additive- 10% is typically minimum, and yes up to 20% is not unusual. Personal fuel additive result-  I have noticed consistantly 16% better economy in my 2005 CBR600rr (after several tanks). Between 8-11% in my VT V6 commodore (depending on how I drive- and it was a while ago that I started using it).  My sister 10% (1988 corolla automatic).  I cannot wait- another 2,500k's before I run the CBR600 on their oil- I am expecting (based on my last bike) a very noticeable increase in torque, and far smoother and stronger through the rev range.  And somewhere around 20,000k-24,000k oil changes (it would be interesting to see how the testing goes there- I am running Motul synthetic over 6000k's for a back to back oil analasys)
 
Coupled with typically 20 degrees C drop in transaxle/ diff temps/ hydraulic pumps/hubs (I cannot speak from personal experience- except to say I couldnt hold my hand on the commodore diff before changing to PM- afterwards it was comfortably warm, after the same 110km/h run.)- they guarantee 15% saving in overall vehicle operating cost- ie include rego, fuel, maintenance, depreciation, tyres, etc etc etc.  This guarantee typically applies to commercial vehicles, since they have historical figures to compare to, and are aware of things like oil analasys and the fact that oil is still serviceable if tested ok.  I should know- I have put owner driver courier mates running diesel onto it who tell me they are looking at more than 20% (overall) saving this financial if things go as they are.
 
I myself simply cannot believe they are not known by everyone across Australia, hence the email.  3 things I have learned- firstly they dont advertise, and when they did it was targeting agriculture, transport or racing. Second- They have concentrated on the Agriculture sector, in which I believe they are well known and respected. The third is that unless people see it on TV, most people find it hard to accept. 
 
One point though- dont trust, that because a multinational company has wealth, that they are either ethical, or produce better products than anyone else.  Similarly there may well be reasons why a small family owned company such as this are not amongst the wealthiest in the world.
 
Believe the figures or not- they are real and from what I have seen very achieveable. I am used to people not believing it so it comes as no great surprise that you do not, however I do hope that this sparks some interest with yourself. 
 
Brad Priddle

Australia

You claim knowledge of a huge breakthrough, one that car companies would literally and immediately pay many millions of dollars for. Think about that for a moment – a breakthrough of a similar magnitude to ones being striven for all around the world, and one that companies like GM, Ford, Honda and Toyota would fall over themselves to access. After all, why develop technology like cylinder deactivation, auto stop/start systems, etc, when this oil will give similar (or even better!) gains in fuel economy? It would be an awful lot cheaper just to use a different oil – a product that could be added to existing engines with the greatest of ease...

1960s Mitsubishi Colt 1

Re article on the Mitsubishi Colt Fastback.  The article mentions that you are unaware of any other car using transverse front leaf spring. The B10 Datsun 1000/Sunny also used this arrangement.

G Petersen
Australia

Thanks - fixed

1960s Mitsubishi Colt 2

dude, thats is a great story on the colt 1100f fastback i think it has been over 39 years since they last had write up cheers for helping in spreading the old COLT love

Matt Pocknall

Australia

Injector Over-Run Cut

I don't know if you've done this already (I haven't found it)..... Make a gizmo to fake out the ECU so that it thnks that your foot is off the throttle (i.e. at idle) when you're going downhill, even if the throttle isn't at idle. Most fuel injection systems will cutoff the fuel when your foot is off the throttle and the rpm is above a certain point. So by varying the throttle position, you'll vary the amount engine braking and can control your downhill speed without the use of any fuel if the ECU thinks you're just coasting to a stop in gear.

Ed Svitil

United States

We expect to cover such a system later this year.

Earthing Cable Kit

I've read a couple of the electronic articles in the latest issues (and tried to understand them!), and was wondering if the earthing cable kit that I've been looking at for my wife's V6 Outlander would actually do anything or whether it was along the lines of the pc 'supercharging' induction fans from a while back.

Paul Anderson

Australia

We asked Mitsubishi Australia and a spokesperson said: “The info we have out of Japan supports the product but I don't have any personal experience one way or the other.“ We’d be surprised if it made any difference.

Wrong Number

I just read the article Power versus Torque - Part 1 and accidently clicked "2" on the "rate this article". I realized it too late. As I often need to speed search in the internet I often don't find the time to read everything and intuitivly thought that those were pages related to the article and not voting numbers. Just wanted to inform you that that might be the reason for a lot of low-rating articles.

Momchil
Bulgaria

LPG Diesels

have just read your article on lpg injection on diesel (see Diesel LPG - an Amazing Breakthrough) & find it interesting. I previously had Nissan (venturi before turbo) found this to improve power, fuel economy buy about 25% great. This engine was old mechanical distributor pump & precombustion chambers in head this engine burns approx. 80% of diesel injected the rest burns in exhaust & forms soot(pls correct if wrong) i can see why lpg would help burn some wasted fuel & turn it to power. I now have a toyota 4.5 lt D-4D common rail 70 series landcruiser I find it hard to beleive that lpg could give the same power gains as old diesel as these high tech engines burn between 95 to 98% of fuel injected (again pls correct if wrong) & would lpg in fact advance combustion time to early ie. pilot injection & interfere with the complex ecu fuel map. Looking forward to your early reply

Greg Crane

Australia

We can only report on what the company showed us of their independent testing, and what we found when we drove a sample vehicle fitted with the system.