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As I have mentioned many times on this board, I have bought or leased 14 (I think) Saabs since 1999 for members of my family. Every member of my family drives one, but because of the economy, I no longer am able to lease them new and now buy used.
Recently, one of them, a 1999 9-5, 4 cylinder (LPT -- low pressure turbo), with a 148,000 miles, but well maintained overall, just had the engine give up. My dealer gave me the bad news: the compression in the number 2 cylinder was down to 65 pounds dry and 80 pounds wet.
The dealer checked all the cylinders and the recommendation was to salvage the car or get another engine.
I decided to get a second opinion from my independent mechanic, who happens to have an engineering degree, and has been the one mainly responsible for maintaining the car. He confirmed the same thing. He found the number 2 cylinder to have 65 pounds both wet and dry.
The other three cylinders were fairly normal although there was some difference in compression between what the dealer found and my independent mechanic found:
No.1 cylinder -- Dealer, 135; Independent 140
No.3 cylinder-- Dealer, 150; Independent 130
No.4 cylinder -- Dealer, 150; Independent 120, dry and 150 wet
My independent thought he might be able to swap me out a salvaged engine for about $3,000 but the car was simply not worth it.
Because I have kept the car in good shape mechanically and because it still looks good, I decided to see if there were any alternatives, so I began searching on the internet.
What I found seemed to good to be true, but miracle of miracles, it turns out to work.
And the story behind the product is quite fantastic as well. Sometime between the 1950's and 1970's, the Russians, who were drilling for oil in Siberia, ran into a geological strata that quite unexpectedly hardened their drill bits, made them considerably smoother, sharpened them, and doubled or tripled the life of the drill bit.
After doing some research, the Russians figured out that the friction from the drilling along with the clays and other minerals in the strata had coated the metal with a metal/ceramic coating. The process made the new metal/ceramic coating about four times as hard as the original metal and about four times as slick as Teflon. The process is now known as Cer-met because it makes a ceramic and metal surface. The Russians began reproducing this process for their military engines and this process was kept secret from the west until the break up of the Soviet Union.
In 1991, a Ukrainian company, Xado, began making the product and selling it in Europe and began selling it in the US in 2003. It is now sold under the name of FriktionTek by Xado, for about $75 per engine treatment. What interested me about the product was the claim that the ceramic/metal coating restored compression as it built up on the metal. FriktionTek comes in a syringe that holds 18 ml (about 3 and ½ teaspoons) that you inject right into the crankcase where you add engine oil.
Well, I was very skeptical, but it seemed like it was nothing like anything I had ever heard of, and besides I had nothing to loose except $75 and everything to gain if it worked.
I have had this car for 45,000 miles and the engine has never idled smoothly and the check engine light has been on most of the time I have owned it. When I drove my car back home from the mechanic's before I treated the car with FriktionTek, I could barely keep the car running. I had to break left footed and keep my right foot on the accelerator just to keep the car running.
But within fifteen minutes of injecting this into the crankcase, I was truly amazed. The engine began to have a constant steady idle at 950 rpms, which it has never done since I have owned it. The more I let it run, the smoother the idle got. I drove it around the subdivision for 15 minutes or so, still breaking left footed and accelerating with the right. But after 45 minutes of constant running. I could drive normally.
After a couple of hours of letting the engine run, I took it out on the highway, and it was doing 75 to 90 mph with no problem so I took three runs and hit a 100. Sunday, two days ago, I took it out on the highway and hit 100 three more times.
To get full effect of the process, you must put about 1250 miles on the car and the process needs to be repeated only every 65,000 miles.
I wanted some proof that the treatment was working so at about 300 miles after treatment, I took it to my mechanic to see what he thought and get an interim compression check.
Here's what he got with a dry compression check:
Number 1 Cylinder had increased from 140 to 145
Number 2 Cylinder (the really bad one) had increased from 65 (wet or dry) to 85
Number 3 Cylinder had increased from 130 to 135
Number four Cylinder (the other bad one) had increased from 120 to 150.
My mechanic (a degreed engineer no less who has worked on cars for 30 years) could not believe it. His son commented that from the way the car drove, he thought I had easily increased the horsepower by 20 or thirty horses.
I still have a ways to go with the number two cylinder. But so far it seems to be working.
Not only is the idle stable, the compression up, but all oil blow by is gone. This car was a real smoker before I treated it. Now there is no smoke at all. And there is no oil on the ground where before it was leaving oil puddles. And the check engine light seems to be staying off.
I will re-post after the 1250 mile compression test I intend to do. That will of course be the real proof.
Right now my plans are to put it in all of my cars. If this works as advertised, not only will this improve engine life by two or three times, it will extend the turbo life as well. And FriktionTek also has treatment for transmissions and steering as well.
Disclaimer: I do not own the company or sell any of its products. There are also other cer-met distributors and manufactuers. I chose FriktionTek because it is produced by Xado, which is the original manufacturer of the cer-met process and holds the original patents.
posted by 75.65.91...
, Wed, 21 Apr 2010 08:30:32
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