Short summary: I reluctantly tried Lucas Upper Cylinder Lubricant fuel additive on my 100-series, expecting snake-oil results. Instead, I consistently found equal or better mileage with lower-grade fuel, and what appears to be less wear-and-tear on my engine oil. I am now a True Believer, and I'm interested if anyone else is willing to try or has had similar results with this product.
Long-winded post...
Disclaimer: I don't work for Lucas; this is just my personal experience - YMMV.
Background: 2001 LX470, just rolled over 340,000 kms on original engine. Mostly highway and around town driving. Love it to death, but that goes without saying...
With such high mileage, I've always been amazed at how little oil it consumes between 5-6000 km changes - 1/3 litre at most. But noticeable.
I'm always very skeptical about "miracle" engine additive/treatments that seem to promise the world, but a while ago I read a few good reviews about this stuff so I thought I'd try it:
Amazon.com: Lucas 10003 Upper Cylinder Lubrication & Injector Cleaner 32 oz.: Automotive
Where I live, it's around $35 at LordCo/PepBoys for a one-gallon jug of the stuff, so I keep a one-quart bottle refill in my truck, and only add 6oz. when I fill up, so around $1.75 extra per tank.
I didn't initially see anything particularly good or bad - fuel consumption was certainly no worse, if not a hair better, so I thought I'd stick with it for a few thousand kms and see what happened.
Lo and behold, my engine oil consumption went from Not-Very-Much down to Zero. Zilch. Nada. No change at all on the dipstick over 6000kms of driving.
Furthermore, when I did change the oil, the colour of the used oil seemed "better". Now I'm no chemical engineer, but we all know the progression that engine oil takes from clear-like-honey through brown, browner and finally black. After 6000kms the old oil was a lot "browner" and less "black". I even compared it to an old jug of used Non-Lucas-Treated oil I still had kicking around to make sure I wasn't imagining it.
So there you have it. I'm continuing to use this stuff after several more 5-7000 km changes and see consistent results.
I'd recommend anyone who is interested (or uses it already) to give it a try and post your impressions here.
Thanks for reading,
Tony.
Long-winded post...
Disclaimer: I don't work for Lucas; this is just my personal experience - YMMV.
Background: 2001 LX470, just rolled over 340,000 kms on original engine. Mostly highway and around town driving. Love it to death, but that goes without saying...
With such high mileage, I've always been amazed at how little oil it consumes between 5-6000 km changes - 1/3 litre at most. But noticeable.
I'm always very skeptical about "miracle" engine additive/treatments that seem to promise the world, but a while ago I read a few good reviews about this stuff so I thought I'd try it:
Amazon.com: Lucas 10003 Upper Cylinder Lubrication & Injector Cleaner 32 oz.: Automotive
Where I live, it's around $35 at LordCo/PepBoys for a one-gallon jug of the stuff, so I keep a one-quart bottle refill in my truck, and only add 6oz. when I fill up, so around $1.75 extra per tank.
I didn't initially see anything particularly good or bad - fuel consumption was certainly no worse, if not a hair better, so I thought I'd stick with it for a few thousand kms and see what happened.
Lo and behold, my engine oil consumption went from Not-Very-Much down to Zero. Zilch. Nada. No change at all on the dipstick over 6000kms of driving.
Furthermore, when I did change the oil, the colour of the used oil seemed "better". Now I'm no chemical engineer, but we all know the progression that engine oil takes from clear-like-honey through brown, browner and finally black. After 6000kms the old oil was a lot "browner" and less "black". I even compared it to an old jug of used Non-Lucas-Treated oil I still had kicking around to make sure I wasn't imagining it.
So there you have it. I'm continuing to use this stuff after several more 5-7000 km changes and see consistent results.
I'd recommend anyone who is interested (or uses it already) to give it a try and post your impressions here.
Thanks for reading,
Tony.
