Vladimir is the production manager and Ph.D. from Washington State University who comes to TriboTEX via funding from the American Society of Engineers. Vlad immigrated to the United States as a youngster before the end of the former USSR. Vlad’s mother is a nurse in the Seattle area and has a dreadful daily commute. It was time to get a new car. About that time, Vlad showed up with a $200 Nissan sedan that anyone would call an “old beater”. The time was at the beginning of TriboTEX formulation. Mom said that she would drive the old car to save some money for the new car.
Along comes TriboTEX and into the Nissan engine it went. The car ran and ran and ran. Time goes by and mom bought a new car and gave the car to Vlad’s wife that she drove and drove and drove. One day Vlad received that call, “There has been an accident, your wife and child are OK, but the car is totaled.”
Everyone was bummed with the news of the accident, but me, I was ecstatic and said, “Let’s go fetch that engine because it has been treated with TriboTEX for the last 50,000 miles.” The engine came back to Colfax WA in the back of my beloved Ralph (1994 Chevy Silverado PU). We took the engine apart, looked at the bearings, and examined the wear parts. The formation of TriboTEX was obvious on the journal bearings, as expected.
In early December 2017, Pasha Rudenko and I traveled to Salt Lake City for the Defense Maintenance Symposium. We carried a bag full of oily engine parts for show-and-tell. Actually, it was kind of embarrassing to give a paper towel to someone that wanted to examine the old parts. If you have ever seen a TriboTEX demonstration you would know that we have a small microscope attached to the laptop to show the formation of the TriboTEX coating on metal engine parts. During the show, I took out one of the Nissan’s pistons to examine the rings. What I saw and I’ll describe to you was nothing short of amazing.
There were beautifully formed white rings had formed on the piston rings. On closer inspection, you can observe wear marks and scratches in the piston rings that have the white material formed in them and over them. Eureka. An “Ah ha” moment. Having talked to early TriboTEX customers there was a recurring testimonial that oil consumption was dramatically reduced. My brother had told me about an old John Deere combine that used a gallon of oil a day, that virtually stopped using oil. Nothing more dramatic than that. Gas mileage, yes, engine noise, yes, peppier performance, yes, and oil consumption, yes. Reduced oil consumption is easy to notice and easy to measure, and consistently this is an observation and testimonial.
In the TriboTEX lubricants laboratory, the Falex test stand machine is routinely used for quality control and to prove the dramatic reduction-of-friction claim of TriboTEX. But I do not know of a test stand to simulate the formation of TriboTEX coating in the combustion chamber, on the cylinder walls and on the rings. Is this the major reason for performance improvement and emissions reductions? More than the reduction of friction alone? There is no other engine oil additive that makes this claim. Reverse wear on cylinders and rings? Only TriboTEX.
TriboTEX now has an engine test stand where the cylinders and pistons can be exchanged. Test data is now being assembled and a National Laboratory will examine the cylinder walls and piston rings. Inspection of one old Nissan engine is not enough data. Please have a look at the accompanying photo of the computer screen showing the piston rings and the coating formation. Imagine what this coating will do for your ageing, oil eating engine!