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Tony Powell

English 1301

Prof Matlock

April 25 2012

Change Your Oil

Car care maintenance is very important and requires an elevated degree of diligence in

order to retain a functioning vehicle for a substantial length of time. One regularly scheduled

maintenance procedure that almost everyone is aware of is changing the motor oil. Many of us

know we shouldchange our oil, but most of us do not know why we should change our oil- aside

from the fact that it gets dirty. Consequently, many people shirk off changing their oil for

thousands of miles as the internal damage that is done is sometimes permanent, or costly to

reverse: out of sight, out of mind. Failure to regularly change the oil in your car can result in

poor gas mileage, poor acceleration, pollution, failure to pass smog tests, excessive wear on

parts, overheating, and even a ceased engine block.

Inside of an engine block, there are perfectly cylindrical holes, which allow for metal,

coffee-can type pistons to slide up and down, thus compressing air in a confined space,

facilitating the explosion that pushes us forward. As pistons slide up and down the cylinders at

certain speeds (revolutions per minute) there are very hard, thin rubber and metal rings that wrap

evenly around the pistons that create a seal on the side of the cylinder bores. This allows the

walls of the cylinder to stay lubricated and keep the oil at the bottom of the engine in the oil pan,

and not sloshing up into the combustion chamber. Over time, as these rings on the pistons

scrub the side of the cylinder bores- where carbon soot remains from the explosions- the oil

begins to accumulate carbon deposits and becomes dirty.

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For arguments sake, let us say that an individual has gone three thousand miles over their

scheduled maintenance to change their oil. Depending on the quality filter that was installed on

the vehicle, there is a good chance that at this point of neglect the filter is no longer properly

functioning, due to the mesh screens and low micron filters now clogged up by the excess of

carbon deposits. Now, the motor will accumulate carbon deposits at an exponential rate as the

filter no longer filters, and the oil begins to break down due to excessive use and contamination.

This leads to the formulation of oil solids as oil molecules break down and are glued together

with carbon deposits. These deposits will create a sludge that collects on your piston rings and in

the valleys and oil passages in your motor that are designed to circulate oil- keeping the motor

and its moving parts cool. At this stage, an oil change along with the addition of an anti-sludging

chemical found at any auto store will break lose the oil deposits in the valleys and oil passages

and mightbreak lose sludge stuck to the bottom of the piston rings. Crisis can still be averted.

As time goes on, sludge on the piston rings, valleys, and oil passages will accumulate

more, causing poor oil circulation and thick, hardening sludge on the piston rings. Poor

circulation will cause higher oil temperatures and higher engine temperatures overall in the

engine block, leading to expedited oil breakdown and excessive wear on the car s radiator fan

motors. As sludge hardens and stacks up on the piston rings, the seal between the piston ring and

the block becomes eroded, allowing pressurized exhaust gasses from the above explosions to

blow-by the piston rings into the oil pan. This is problematic for many reasons. First, this

causes the explosions to be less powerful because the explosion is not completely confined

anymore; this results in poor acceleration. Second, this causes the oil in your car to become

contaminated at a faster rate as exhaust gasses enter the oil pan. Thirdly, oil will seep upwards

past the piston rings as the oil is not completely scrubbed from the walls as it used to, allowing

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