A simple way to reduce your cars maintenance costs and other engines

By the moment you might be reading this we will most likely be breaking the barrier of 500 000 registered vehicles on the roads of Mauritius. There seems to be a steady growth of around 2% per year in Mauritius. With a population of around 1.3 Million, chances are that you are owner of a car/s or 2×4, 4×4, van, bus, truck, bike or other type of vehicles.

Privately driven cars will have less tear and wear compared to heavy duty usage of pickups, vans, trucks, buses and other machinery such as excavators, tractors etc, that run on diesel and are built to perform heavy workloads. If your engines run on heavy duty usage or if you drive a lot (including private car owners), your costs of maintenance & fuel consumption will increase with the usage. The bigger the vehicle, the more expensive their spare parts, likewise also the more luxurious the brands the more expensive it gets.

Apart from fuel, wear and tear and maintenance can be a surprisingly heavy cost factor and extending the life of your spare parts and making your engine & gearbox run more efficiently should be your primary concern if you want to have peace of mind and control on your costs. There are basic and efficient ways to reduce or avoid heavy maintenance costs. While the casual driver doing just up to 10 000 Km a year starting off with a brand new or second hand car on low mileage might not be much concerned about what goes on inside his engine, therein lies the most important aspect of cost control and what goes inside the engine is crucial. It is very much in your interest to know if your engine is operating in an optimal environment that is lubricated at its best to reduce the tear & wear and prolong its lifetime to the longest extent possible.

How do I reduce the maintenance costs of vehicles?
Indeed improving the lubrication within your engine and gearbox will increase its lifetime and also make it more efficient bringing into play various other cost savings and improved performance. While using the standard recommended engine oil and gearbox oil for your type of vehicle or equipment will definitely offer it lubrication but in order to reach the best lubrication of your engine and gearbox you need to go a step further. In order to increase the lifetime and efficiency of your engine, you should apply an engine treatment and gearbox treatment product to your oil.

What is an engine treatment and gearbox treatment?
It basically is a product that provides your engine and gearbox with a necessary protection that normal engine and gearbox oils cannot. Think of taking some vitamin c, which you do not find in your daily food, so as to boost your immune system to prevent getting flu; these engine treatments provides the engine and gearbox with a protection that oil cant.

Which engine treatment and gearbox treatment would you recommend?
I would recommend you to use an engine treatment that is composed of PTFE (Polytetrafluoroethylene) which has one of the lowest coefficients of friction against any solid. PTFE is also mentioned in the Guinness Book of World Records as the “slickest substance” man had ever known. It is also known to have the lowest dynamic and static friction coefficient equivalent to “wet ice on wet ice”. Attention, there are many brands that mention that their product contains PTFE but often it is less than 1%! For maximum results you should get an engine and gearbox treatment that contains around 10%-20% PTFE. (When using PTFE note carefully that gearbox treatments only apply for manual gearboxes and not automatic ones!)

Other references:
→ Road Transport Jan – Jun 2015