Introduction to Engine Oil Mystery
You probably have seen one of the lights before. The "pain in the ass" sign that you never want it to pop on your display. You are already busy with other things and this is definitely not making your life easier. Gotta do it, anyways :(
But wait! Until very recently, I thought engine would heat up very quick without oil. Think about the friction caused because of no lubrication.
Not so fast.
It turns out to be otherwise. I was wrong again, like always.
The result was hard to believe when I found the actual test measuring engine's temperature for fully drained engine and oil filled engine. The test was conducted on the same brand new engine. Let's take a look.
Left is your engine with motor oil and your right is one without it. This is the 15 minute mark from engine's ignition.
As the blue arrow points out, if you look at the right side, the only compartment where the temperature is slightly above than the left is the exhaust. Other areas are actually lower for engine without oil. The best assumption for this unexpected phenomenon is that heat energy stored in the oil is greater than energy emitted in the air. So, for engine without oil, heat is dissipated more easily.
This leads to the ultimate question. Since it's actually cooler to run engine without oil, should we get rid of it and discard the whole pain-in-the-butt oil changing routine?
The answer is unfortunately NO.
Oil gives great protection to your engine parts and if you run without it, you'll end up in a situation something like this.
You don't believe me? (Well, I might have exaggerated a bit..)
The point is without proper lubrication and protection to the shafts and rods in the engine, they'll wear each parts down as it goes through active motion. I would say good two hours without oil will completely destroy your car.
Please don't try this to see if it can really withstand two hours. Gosh, some people, not all of you, come to your senses!
But for the real curious people, in odd way, as a matter of fact, some one has done the experiment for you. He has tested on his Mercedes Benz. And the result looked.....Obviously! Something like this.
Phase 1. When sh*t starts to go south.
Phase 2. When sh*t gets real serious. (See the flares!)
Phase 3. The End result.
You don't want that to happen, would you?
So, how long did it take this guy to destroy his Benz? Well, I kindly have prepared the clip that I was talking about for the oddly curious ones.
Anyways, change your oil on a regular basis. In the next post, I'll briefly touch on what type of oil you want to invest in for the sake of YOUR SAFETY.
One Take Away
Changing oil regular is a MUST for your engine protection. Follow your car manufacturer's guideline for engine oil drain interval.