Shell to offer new service: free three-minute oil analysis

[mbt]

Shell to offer new service: free three-minute oil analysis

By Marvin Tan, 19 December 2005

For the great majority of Filipino motorists on the road today, the condition of the motor oil in their engines is ascertained by haphazard guesswork. Run-of-the-mill mechanics with dubious training in the art and science of vehicle maintenance will tell you that as long as your oil still feels “oily”, it's still good. Some may even tell you that if the oil dripping from the dipstick is black, it’s time to change it. Damn, it’s the automotive equivalent of the maxim that swallowing a seed will cause a tree to grow in your stomach.

Well, Shell may soon have a convenient way of telling you when exactly you need to give your engine fresh blood. The Shell Oil Vitality Tester is a portable device about the size of your forearm. It resembles a gigantic remote control of sorts, but it’s as simple to use as a thermometer and it displays test results just as clearly. What it does is that it automatically analyses a small sample of oil siphoned from your car’s engine (via the dipstick tube) and will give it a score in a matter of seconds. The score ranges from zero to 100, with zero indicating that your oil is flawlessly pristine and 100 saying that your oil has more flotsam than the Pasig River. There’s also a graphical representation by way of a bar that spans from green to red, with higher numerical scores pushing deeper into the red zone. The device works best with gasoline engines, although it will work fine with diesels as well.

We were eager to try out the contraption for ourselves, at the invitation of Shell’s Vehicle Servicing Manager for the Philippines, Mr. Robert Silvestre. To thoroughly test the accuracy of the machine, we brought four vehicles to test: a 2003 Toyota RAV4 that had fresh fully-synthetic oil from a recent oil change, a 2002 Honda CR-V with nine-month-old fully synthetic in its sump, a 2003 Honda CR-V with nine-week-old fully synthetic and a 1996 Mitsubishi Galant V6 that was due for a change of regular mineral oil.

First up was the Galant. With the tester flat on the ground, a spoonful of oil was sucked out of the engine using a long, thin capillary and deposited onto the tiny sample basin on the device. According to Mr. Silvestre, it was critical that the basin be filled to the rim so that the results will be accurate. The several-months-old regular oil registered a score of 37.14, which was well into the yellow “caution” zone. A fairly accurate result, although the owner was scared that extracting a spoonful of oil from his sump would trigger the low oil pressure light. Just kidding.

The RAV4 with the fresh oil was next for the blood test. Upon pressing the button marked “test”, the machine gave a perplexing result, indicating a score that was clearly much too high for the fresh oil sample. The Shell representatives agreed and recalibrated the meter by testing a fresh-from-the-bottle sample of oil and zeroing the device, hoping that the result was merely a fluke caused by a chance alignment of Jupiter and Pluto. Fortunately, a quick retest on the RAV4’s oil returned a score of below 10.0, which is appropriate and accurate.

Two tests were conducted on the 2002 CR-V. The first test returned a result of 67.0, a score which was approaching the red “replace oil immediately” zone. I thought that the result was plausible since my oil, even if fully synthetic, was overdue for a change. But with the tester recalibrated, it changed its mind and pronounced a score of 26.9 on a subsequent test, straddling the green “okay” zone and the yellow. Mr. Silvestre opined that the second diagnostic was accurate, since modern fully-synthetic lubricants typically have a much longer service life than the six-month/10,000-km interval stipulated by manufacturers. The implication, of course, being that dealerships and service centers specify such a maintenance schedule because that is where they rake in the profits, more so than in actually selling vehicles in the case of car makers and fuel for service stations. Whether or not you agree with that assertion, the tester nonetheless indicates that I can hold off on my oil change for a few more months.

The silver 2003 CR-V with relatively fresh two-month-old fully-synthetic coursing through its veins was the last test. Shell’s tester was again agreeably accurate even without being reset since the RAV4 test, posting a mark of 7.39 for the clean oil. As a final check, the vehicle’s oil was retested after resetting the tester, and it returned a reasonably precise score of 10.0.

So does Shell have something helpful for motorists, or is it just another gimmick? Fortunately, the tester seems usefully accurate, although the initial test with our RAV4 raised a few eyebrows. But nonetheless, the tester is not meant to be as accurate as a medical laser. Rather, it was designed to provide a quantified glimpse into the condition of your motor oil as a guide to maximize your oil’s service life, and therefore, to stretch your pesos a little more. So it’s best to see if the test result makes sense by comparing it against how long it was since your last oil change, and what kind of oil is in the engine.

For the many casual motorists who care about the condition of their oil as much as they care about Garci and his nefarious tapes (which, you know, means that they couldn’t care any less), the tester could be a godsend, especially since Shell plans to offer the oil test as a free value-added service to motorists while they gas up. Perhaps only to those who purchase at least P500 worth of gas though, so that there would be enough time to conduct the test until the pump clicks shut. You can’t argue with free, and Shell’s answer to a question that nobody really asked gives neglected cars with million-mile oil that’s blacker than a black hole a reason to heave a huge sigh of relief.


The Shell Oil Vitality Tester.

[mbt]

Extracting a sample of oil from the engine through the dipstick tube.


Depositing the oil sample onto the tester.

[Satio]

hmmmmm....

[chris_d]

When would this be available? how much is the tester? I'm very much interested in this. As for fully synthetic engine oils, they would last up to 20,000km or 1 year AFAIK.

[mazdamazda]

When would this be available? how much is the tester? I'm very much interested in this. As for fully synthetic engine oils, they would last up to 20,000km or 1 year AFAIK.

Actually, this is already available in selected Shell stations (like the one in The Fort).

The said service is free of charge (if you purchase a certain amount of fuel from them).

[Wouie]

that tester is inaccurate. di mo alam kung kailan tama at kailan mali. paano kung di alam kung kailan nagchange ng oil yong owner.

[RedHotBlood]

yah, i saw this one at shell alabang infront of ford, but i didn't bother to have my oil checked though it says there it's free, maybe next time. ok din pala.

[ghosthunter]

the service is also available at Shell Ortigas/Connecticut in San Juan.

[gearspeed]

ok yan ah kaso petron ako eh..Sumunod na sana yung ibang players para masubukan ko rin yan..

[the_wildthing]

Testing Algorithm:

If oil is bad then "replace oil immediately"
if oil is good then
if oil is from Shell then "oil is good"
else
"replace with Shell oil!"
end

:D

Seriously, it sounds good, but if it says the oil is still good after 5Tkm I'd still replace it.

[bardigones]

follow the maintenance schedule of your vehicle as recommended by the manufacturer. :D

[mazdamazda]

follow the maintenance schedule of your vehicle as recommended by the manufacturer. :D

not quite...

most (if not all) recommend that you still bring the vehicle for a PMS every 3 months (even if you did not cover 5K km).

which in my opinion is just plain B.S.

[buknoy2002]

ma detect ba nila kung shell oil gamit mo o hindi, bka pag hindi shell oil gamit mo, sabihin nila bad na ho oil nyo

[mbt]

nope, di nila masasabi yan. honda fully synthetic yung nasa cr-v ko.

pero syempre shell helix oil yung aalukin malamang kung in need of replacement na yung oil according to the tester hehe :D

[GlennSter]

they do this for free...only around 100 (or is it 150) stations lang ang meron pa nito around the country.

you have the option naman kung ayaw mo magpa change oil diba?kung alukin ka nila, nasa sayo naman if magpapachang oil ka sa kanila.they wont hold you from not having your oil changed in their station.

it is a simple vitality test.

it's not 100% accurate (imho) but it gives you a good idea...kid of a time frame when your next oil change is recommended.

[OTEP]

You can also use this to test the oil of the used car you just bought.

Though most of us immediately change the oil after purchase, it would still be nice to have an idea of how well the previous owner took care of the engine.

[city]

free?...i saw someone posted you have to buy fuel first?..how much fuel you need to pump in before you get a freebie oil test?...meron ba sa shell SLEX?

just curious

city

[mbt]

city,

it's all there in the article... it will be offered to those who purchase around P500 worth of gas, since anything less than that won't give enough time for the test to finish before the gas-pumping does.

i'm pretty sure that anyone can avail of the service on demand, as well.

[chris_d]

Meron rin sa shell magallanes, pero nung nandun ako ng 7am wala pa yung tao na gagawa nung procedure.

[Field Master]

Saw this last night at Shell Don Antonio (Commonwealth). I want to give it a try but was told that oil vitality check is available only from 8am-5pm. I got 2 vehicles, 1 with oil just been replaced and the other 1 with oil due for replacement. It might test accuracy of their tester.