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LiquiMoly Pro Line Engine Flush - Results & Treatment with Ceratec
Hey guys,
This past Saturday, I completed an engine flush and refill. Thanks to the guys at 410 Garage in Los Angeles (Chinatown). They really took care of my baby and listened to everything I had to say. I used the items listed below and have to say so far so good. Engine feels more powerful, idles smoother, and exhaust note seems to have gotten a touch louder(could be a placebo effect) . I've only put on 140 miles since the service but it feels mighty fine. Will have to keep track to see if camshaft adjuster tapping noise is gone. Also received the best MPG in the past 3-4 years of ownership. Probably gained 1-2 MPG. One thing to note as well...I did drain oil from the oil pan well as the front oil cooler. Upon refill of 8.6 quarts the updated oil dip stick showed that I was way over the max. I said **** you and added 1 more quart. Last oil change I based the refill off the dipstick and my low oil light came on before the last gas station fill up. My engine doesn't burn oil but if I'm on it and snap the throttle closed at high RPM the PCV system will burn off a lot of oil. Oil still looked to be in amazing condition at drain. I believe I had something like 7-8k or more on this go around. I'll try to report back if I hear camshaft adjuster ticking. If no update that simply means the noise has yet to appear.
I first used 5w-40 because that was the only weight available through my mechanic. After posting about it here, a few members reported that Motul 8100 X-Cess 5w-40 is a better oil from Motul than their 0w-40. Maybe I'm losing 1 MPG in using the heavier weight who knows? Motul 8100 X-cess feels better to me than LiquiMoly but only slightly. My previous fill up was with LiquiMoly 5w-40 which is a great oil as well.
Just make sure you drive that car daily. I was told ceratec can gum up the cooler lines if you leave it sitting there as it tends to collect towards the bottom. I'm a proponent to these engine flushes from time to time, and definitely a big fan of ceratec and mos2, but almost all evidence you'll find will be anecdotal about the additives.
I love my liquid moly oil an wont use anything else.seems to perform the best an it burns so much less. I tried the motul 5w40 xcess an for some reason my e55 liked to burn that one i went through 1 qt every 800 miles versus 1 qt every 1500 miles with the liquid moly 5w40.
Throw some motor oil saver in there (also by LM) and see if it makes your results any better Mr. E55amg0220
ill see if my local guy has some of that i mean at 1500 1 qt is actually not bad an honestly its usually bout 3/4s qt so even better. I dont know what was up with the motul but man it burned in my engine. Can u post up a pick of this motor oil saver??
I love my liquid moly oil an wont use anything else.seems to perform the best an it burns so much less. I tried the motul 5w40 xcess an for some reason my e55 liked to burn that one i went through 1 qt every 800 miles versus 1 qt every 1500 miles with the liquid moly 5w40.
Every brand and type of oil will have a different thickness and moving viscosity regardless of labeling. For example Enos oil which is favored among the Mitsubishi Evo forums is very thin for its labeled weight which is why it probably makes more power on the dyno.
ill see if my local guy has some of that i mean at 1500 1 qt is actually not bad an honestly its usually bout 3/4s qt so even better. I dont know what was up with the motul but man it burned in my engine. Can u post up a pick of this motor oil saver??
It's this product. It works somewhat well to seal up any leaks around the rear main seal and other spots. It might mimic the same effects as mos2 almost.
If you're the kinda person that's iffy about throwing stuff down the oil cap it might not be for you. I have thrown all sorts of additives at this engine and it runs way better than when I got the car because of it all, but that's just me. Everyone's got their own preference with oil.
Good read...but again, take the information as a grain of salt. I did feel increased engine smoothness though afterwards. Not entirely sure if it was the flush or additive. http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/techni...oda-laura.html
Hello BHPians!
As promised, here is my review on the Liqui Moly CeraTec, which is an oil additive that claims to improve NV levels along with mileage & also claims to increase engine life. I switched from Shell Helix to Liqui Moly TopTec 4100 on my Skoda Laura a few months back (Done a review on it here (Review: Liqui Moly Oil in my Skoda Laura)) and it has since then improved/multiplied my trust on the Liqui Moly brand. I was planning on adding CeraTec & some of you guys suggested that I must use it. Now, oil additives are one of the highly debated topics among car guys. Many say that they don't really work, yet an equal (or more) number of guys claim that they do work. I have never used any oil additive on any of our cars before & honestly I was among the people who think that oil additives are total bullsh*t like blinker fluid because of 2 main reasons :
Every manufacturer wants their engine to be quiet & smooth - they’ll try their max to improve these through less expensive, more obvious things like better lubricants & bearings.
Adding something to the oil will modify its properties - may increase/decrease the viscosity - I always thought this is bad for the engine because it drifts away from the manufacturer specification
Liqui Moly CeraTec is one of the first names that come up if you do a search on Google for ‘engine oil additive’. It is quite famous among enthusiasts & is commonly added while changing the engine oil. It is available here in India at a cost upward from about Rs.2500/- depending on the source. I was planning on adding it along with the oil, but it wasn’t available in stock with Land Rover Labs(from where I bought Liqui Moly TopTec 4100 oil) when I bought the oil. Didn’t try other sources & was delayed because I wanted to see how the oil performed. Also, wanted to make sure that the smoothness & responsiveness I felt after the oil change wasn’t just placebo. The car has now clocked around 7100KMs after the oil change, you can find more on my thoughts here (Review: Liqui Moly Oil in my Skoda Laura). I’m particularly interested in knowing what CeraTec can do on top of the improved NV levels after switching over to TopTec 4100. I wasn’t expecting miracles, but after reading all the praises about the product on the interwebs, I was keen on trying this.
Bought CeraTec from Land Rover Labs, they’re one among the authorised Liqui Moly(and a host of other performance & detailing product brand) distributors in India. Like before, the package arrived at my home in a neatly packed box in just 2 days, all the praise to LRL Motors! CeraTec claims to be based on a micro ceramic compound that sticks to metal parts, creating a lasting lubricating effect. On their product specification document, they’ve mentioned that CeraTec is based on Hexagonal Boron Nitride(Read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boron_...e#Hexagonal_BN) which is used in lubricants & in cosmetics! The container looks & feels awesome(ah the Germans!) for an oil additive, it comes in an aluminium bottle of 300mL which is for use with 5L of oil. The package also comes with a sticker inside, which is used to note down the reading on the ODO when adding CeraTec, which is quite nice. I stuck it along side of a warning sticker on the car.
Adding it is straight forward, bring the engine up to temperature, turn the engine off, remove the oil cap and empty the bottle in. I was pretty much sure that I won’t be able to notice any difference at least for a few hundered(or thousand) kilometres. Hence, thought about measuring the before & after NV levels so that a scientific comparison can be carried out instead of just sticking to my senses!
Test Setup
Measurement was carried out using the Android app iNVH by Bosch running on my One Plus 2. It is a free app (For advanced features like FFT plot and all, you’ll have to spend Rs.650, which wasn’t necessary for my purpose). The app uses various sensors built into the phone to carryout the measurements. This is not a perfect setup to test out the NV levels, but it gets the job done & accurate enough for this.
Sensors, especially the high precision gyro & dual microphones on the phone makes the setup pretty accurate for the purpose of measuring engine noise and vibration. For measuring the NV levels, the phone was stuck to the steering wheel using this double sided tape which is not thick enough provide damping, which could mess up the readings. Measurements should be accurate with the setup. The iNVH app has a data logging(recording) feature builtin which makes it easy to plot the data later on a laptop. Generated data was plotted using DataGraph, a Mac App for charting & graphing.
Measurement
The measurements were carried out while:
The engine was at its operating temperature, 90 degrees.
The AC was kept completely off since it will affect NV levels when the load on compressor changes(Which is quite often since the car has a climatronic unit which keeps on running the compressor adjusting the load).
All windows/doors closed (It was an oven!!)
Head unit was off
Car was on a flat concrete floor with 34bar pressure on every tyre with hand brake.
Ambient noise outside the car was almost nil (Lazy Saturday morning to the rescue!)
Phone was stuck to the centre of the steering wheel running iNVH app
‘After’ readings were taken after adding CeraTec and idling the engine for about 5minutes.
Results
Noise & Vibration readings were taken before and after adding CeraTec. I didn’t feel any difference in noise at the time of measuring. But the findings are quite interesting:
Noise
Even though I couldn’t sense any difference in the noise level, iNVH was able to pick up a very slight change. Noise sample rate was 10.79 samples/second
Before CeraTec, the peak noise level recorded in a period of about 32 seconds was 46.66dB and the lowest recorded level was 42.62dB - the cabin is pretty quiet. While a bird call is around 44dB(Source), this cabin does a very good job at keeping the noise levels low. Checkout the plots below(Black line along the centre is a LOESS Curve):
After CeraTec, the peak noise level recorded in the same period of about 32 seconds was 46.5dB and the lowest recorded level was 42.45dB. CeraTec managed to lower the upper level by 0.16db & the lower level by 0.17dB - pretty much the same value.
This slight change is not at all audible/detectable to me. But CeraTec did arguably lowered it by 0.16dB!
Vibration
Now this was noticeable right after adding CeraTec, though the difference wasn’t that significant then, I could feel a slight change in the vibration that I’m used to while holding the steering wheel. Felt like the vibrations were a bit muffled, just like sensing the vibration of a phone that is in a thick flip case. Vibration sample rate was 202.47/second. Vibration along the coordinate axes are in m/s2, if anyone is interested unit conversions & the math behind vibration measurement, go through this: http://blog.prosig.com/2011/09/05/vi...-displacement/.
This image should make a bit of sense about the coordinate axes with respect to a phone. The phone is stuck to the steering wheel on top of the logo - Ideally(Steering kept steady without moving), moving the car forward or backward will result in large changes in the z-axis while humps would change the y-axis & sideways movement should reflect on the x-axis. There could be measurement errors since the steering axis is not exactly straight & the phone was mounted at a slight angle.
My car has a straight inline 4 engine with the flywheel mounted(and rotating) in parallel with the wheel. Hence, with our mounting setup, the flywheel’s axle is roughly in parallel with our phone’s x-axis. According to right hand rule for torque(http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/tord.html), our z-axis should record higher acceleration values since the force due to the flywheel is acting that way. It was evident when I plotted the values.
Before CeraTec, the peak x-axis acceleration recorded for a period of 1 second was 0.8057m/s2, y-axis acceleration recorded was 0.6681/s2 and z-axis acceleration recorded was 1.42m/s2. While the trough recordings for the axes were -0.6768m/s2, -0.4328m/s2 and -1.215m/s2 respectively.
After CeraTec, the peak x-axis acceleration recorded for a period of 1 second was 0.7096m/s2, y-axis acceleration recorded was 0.6242m/s2 and z-axis acceleration recorded was 1.392m/s2. While the trough recordings for the axes were -0.7287m/s2, -0.516m/s2 and -1.136m/s2 respectively.
Definitely lower values after adding CeraTec. Though by small numbers, this can be felt.
Engine vibrations were reduced noticeably & after a quick test drive, it was even more evident. I drove about 20 kilometres post adding CeraTec. I know it isn’t much, but the difference in vibration levels are noticeable. This has definitely given me confidence in CeraTec, I’m planning on ordering 3 more bottles for use in other cars at home. Would I recommend this? I am a converted believer of CeraTec & Land Rover Labs, of course I will!
I’ll be posting updates on this thread as I crunch more kilometres with it, I’m interested in long term effects of the product on fuel economy & the noise level.
For those who are interested in the raw data from iNVH in CSV format, you can find them in this ZIP file: CeraTec_NV_data_CSV.zip
Ok. Here is the full report. I would encourage you all to try a can of the Liqui Moly Ceratec -- it seems to make the engine sound more refined/quieter -- AND the wear numbers were below average.
Click on the blue link to download and open full size report.
Update:
last drove the car on 8/22/2018 and just took it around the neighborhood to get gas and freshen the battery from sitting last night 8/29/2018. Car had very very faint cam adjuster tick. It was so subtle I didn't notice until I realized the repetition versus my throttle inputs from a stop were exactly the same. I originally thought it was just LTH engine firing order noise that is how much it quieted it. Pulled onto the freeway and the noise quickly went away and power delivery and tip in was pretty spectacular at my next stop light. Engine felt great. During the faint camshaft adjuster tick power wasn't as zingy from a stop as after it quieted. Ceratec seems to be working hard to keep things moving.
Good info. I may have missed it but why not use Motul 8100 x-max rather? - according to my local Motul distributor, it’s a better oil than x-cess.
Your Motul distributor is seemingly just like every other reseller, not aware of actual data and just looking to push product. X-Max is hard to find out here and since its considered a more "premium" formulation, it probably costs more. Is it better? Don't know...but happy as I am with X-Cess I have no need to pay more for an oil from the same manufacture. X-Cess with LiquiMoly MoS2 in combination has been the best product I've ever used hands down. Currently cycling in Ceratec, but will switch to MoS2 upon next oil change interval.
Quote:Originally Posted by Faulal
What is the difference from Motul's x-cess and X-Max line of oils ?
I was thinking of trying Motul 8100 X-Max 0W-40 instead of Motul 8100 X-cess 5W-40.
x-cess is "better" with HTHS of 3.73 vs x-Max 3.58. X-Max is a slightly thinner oil. I'd speculate, X-max greater viscosity index means it's probably just x-cess with a little more VI modifiers added to it to achieve the greater viscosity spread. It's probably less durable and more volatile as well because of the added modifiers. It's also not LL-01 approved so it's obviously lacking in some way vs the X-Cess. The technical data sheets don't tell us much beyond that above speculation.
Your Motul distributor is seemingly just like every other reseller, not aware of actual data and just looking to push product. X-Max is hard to find out here and since its considered a more "premium" formulation, it probably costs more. Is it better? Don't know...but happy as I am with X-Cess I have no need to pay more for an oil from the same manufacture. X-Cess with LiquiMoly MoS2 in combination has been the best product I've ever used hands down. Currently cycling in Ceratec, but will switch to MoS2 upon next oil change interval.
I can’t imagine, however, that the technical expert that recommended x-max was motivated by whatever marginal added profit one of the Motul retailers might derive from a once-off purchase. He was clearly very knowledgeable about the 2 products and explained in detail at the time - a couple of years back - why x-max was better suited to my application.
I’ve since been using x-max in conjunction with MoS2 and have been happy with the combination. By the same token, x-cess has worked well for you and I wouldn’t recommend to you that you switch based on the reasoning provided to me years back - which was, in any event, too technical for me to meaningfully grasp. Both products will probably do the job just fine
Make sure you drive your car daily otherwise the ceratec can gum up in the cooler lines I've heard. For this reason I prefer MoS2
Spoke to a LiquiMoly representative this past Sunday @ Big Socal Euro 2018...asked about this...he said...nope, whoever told you that is talking crazy and doesn't know what they're talking about. He stated that Ceratec bonds with Aluminum and I should not worry. The only time I should worry is if I'm letting the car sit for a very long time, maybe a year before start up.
Just repeating what was stated...as far as validity I generally prefer emailing LiquiMoly Global as they generally have an engineer respond. For this question, I'm honestly not too worried with 1-2 week drive intervals.
Spoke to a LiquiMoly representative this past Sunday @ Big Socal Euro 2018...asked about this...he said...nope, whoever told you that is talking crazy and doesn't know what they're talking about. He stated that Ceratec bonds with Aluminum and I should not worry. The only time I should worry is if I'm letting the car sit for a very long time, maybe a year before start up.
Just repeating what was stated...as far as validity I generally prefer emailing LiquiMoly Global as they generally have an engineer respond. For this question, I'm honestly not too worried with 1-2 week drive intervals.
That's good to know. I've emailed them before about how often you can use the flush and their answer is "it's not recommended to, but you could technically use it with every oil change"
Great read. In the dozen or so cars I've owned (from BMW to Lincoln to Lexus to AMG to VW) I've actually never used any sort of additive, flush, etc. The 318is (hard working 4 cylinder that I ran HARD) was brand new, and had about 120k miles when it was totalled. But the engine was still running/performing fine. The Lincoln LS (V8) was also brand new, and had about 156k miles when I sold it. It too was perfectly fine, burned no oil, no blue smoke, etc. The other vehicles were purchased used, but same ending. Maybe Im lucky? But generally speaking, only thing I ever did, oil wise, was full synthetic (mostly Walmart SuperTech) in the recommended weight, and various oil filters (depending on which vehicle..motorcraft, fram, Mahle, Mann, etc). And I've been doing 10k intervals for many, many years now.
I'll continue the above process as it simply has worked..for me.
If your car is running fine don't mess with it. But after a flush and ceratec you might find that it could have been running a whole lot better. After using this stuff I'm a big believer because my car is a whole lot smoother now than it was when I got it, and back then I thought that was how they normally run. It is not.
08-20-2018, 01:49 PM
The container looks & feels awesome(ah the Germans!) for an oil additive, it comes in an aluminium bottle of 300mL which is for use with 5L of oil. The package also comes with a sticker inside, which is used to note down the reading on the ODO when adding CeraTec, which is quite nice. I stuck it along side of a warning sticker on the car.
