One noticeable difference between Canadian and European automotive vehicle maintenance regimes is our widespread disregard for the importance of cleaning inside our car engines. Canadians don’t appreciate what happens in there, and how dirty our car engines can get moving us around, and how easy it is to clean these working parts by adding specialized cleaning products before changing the oil. Bluechem Canada brings a message from Europe: ‘Clean the inside your car’s engine to improve its performance and prolong its lifespan’.
Ryan Wilford is a Technical Sales Associate at Bluechem; trained in chemistry and automotive engineering, he’s become skilled in performing product demonstrations. ‘Cleaning inside your car’s engine is an important part of vehicle maintenance’, Ryan begins, ‘and it’s easy to do with Bluechem products.’
Bluechem Group is a trusted brand in Europe where they’re well known purveyors of advanced chemical cleaning products. The corporation sells over 5,000 mixtures in ninety different countries around the world. The two founders Werner Urban and his wife, Dr. Gaby Urban have remained faithful to their goal of making high quality products to benefit consumers across the globe.
The Bluechem Oil System Cleaner product is particularly famous, in part because it works so well, and also because it got a lot of attention when it was used in connection with Formula One Racing. This engine oil additive is very efficient in how it removes operationally caused contamination and resin deposits in engine lubrication systems. It removes residues and carbon from piston rings and upper cylinder area. It neutralizes harmful engine acids, and so it will improve the performance or your engine.
Fundamentally, Ryan Wilford is a salesman, and so he looks to build awareness for Bluechem products in Canada, one product-demonstration at a time. He performs his show for retailers and mechanics with large service businesses who are innovators, and influencers not tied to existing product lines. He seeks out dealerships and purchasing managers and everyday auto enthusiasts and consumers willing to open their eyes to comprehend the possibilities of using and representing this breakthrough product.
Saturday Feb 7th was a cold, snowy winter day in Toronto and on that day it was my turn to listen. At a private automotive testing facility in North York Ontario I met Chris Ko, a young mechanic who volunteered his 2010 Honda Civic Si with a four cylinder engine – 2.0L i-VTEC DOHC (dual over-head cams). He dutifully dissembled the automobile engine, removing engine cowlings and spark plugs so we could get right down inside the cylinders in order to perform compression tests on all four cylinders.
Ryan set up to perform two different tests of Bluechem Oil System Cleaner, and thereby offer undeniable proof of its efficiencies. He proposed to test all four of Chris Ko’s 2010 Honda engine cylinder’s compression levels before and after a Bluechem ‘engine oil flush’, as well as show us the chemistry in action in glass test tubes on a nearby workbench. The lighter colour is the oil in the system after using Bluechem’s cleaner.
Why test cylinder compression before engine oil flush?
If your vehicle has been running rough or losing power, there may be a lack of pressure in one or more cylinders. To determine whether pressure is escaping from the engine, you need to check the compression in the cylinders with a compression gauge, which measures the amount of pressure that the piston exerts on the fuel/air mixture before the spark plug fires the mixture. If there isn’t enough pressure, it’s because escaping through one of the valve openings (because the valve is improperly adjusted or worn), down past the rings on the piston or through a blown head gasket. This damage is a symptom of a dirty engine oil system.
While I watched, Ryan Wilford did compression test on all four cylinders using a crude but effective Moto-meter Kompression bar test device which issued paper chits showing the bar levels. Ryan explained to me that the scale, measured in bars shows the highest and lowest readings, and they shouldn’t vary by more than fifteen percent or else drivers can feel engine wobble when the car is idling. In Chris Ko’s four year old automobile the cylinders had about a 12% discrepancy.
Cylinder number one and number three reach 12.5 bars, while cylinders two and four peaked at 13.5 bars.
Ryan Wilford explains, “This is a four cylinder car engine that has never been serviced. In this particular engine design, with the way it turns the drive shaft, two of the four cylinders do the work, while the other two are operating less hard. It will always be this way. Chris cannot repair or alter the design of the engine, but he can clean and improve the performance of the underutilized cylinders’
After carefully replacing each spark plug in its original cylinder by hand, and reconnecting the engine electrical system. Chris Ko added 300ml of Bluechem Oil System Cleaner to his car’s engine before starting his car and running it for fifteen minutes.
Then Chris turned the car off, and Ryan did the compression tests all over again. They dissembled the Honda auto engine and removed the spark plugs and tested the compression in the cylinders after the Oil System Cleaner had a chance to clean the conduits and lubricant pathways inside the motor. To be clear – they have NOT changed the oil yet.
The retest results show the cleaner engine now has an additional full bar of compression strength across the scale, and the add mixture has brought up the health of the weaker cylinders most dramatically, so its easy to see how the treatment can reduce engine vibrations.
Finally, Chris and Ryan changed the oil in the car, and the used Oil System Cleaner was disposed of along with the used motor oil, and in the same manner. Ryan made us all feel the consistency of the used oil spouting out into the pan. He said it was possible to feel between your fingers how this liquid was now extra slippery and quite free of any particles that auto mechanics can sometimes see and feel in other oil changes.
Cleaning the oil system is a common automotive service in Europe, and vehicle owners do this when they feel a wobble or knock as their cars idle. One of Ryan’s objectives is to educate consumers and service professionals on the safety of these fluids. North American retailers can rest assured these European imports are tested for TUV SUD Product certification which as a standards organization that does world class functional safety testing for manufacturers of many things, including automotive products.
Blue-chem products are available in Canada in 300 ml tins, 5 litre cans, 25 litre cans, and 200 litre barrels. Ryan wants to remind mechanics at dealerships and independent service professionals that they can add new revenue to their Parts and Labour sales by adding engine cleaning services to regular maintenance menus. Bluechem Fuel System Cleaner and Oil System Cleaner can significantly improve the drivability of all vehicles using direct injection that suffer from excessive carbon accumulation. These services also compliment Provincial Emission Testing centres by dramatically improving testing results for tail pipe emissions. So do this to your car before you take it to the test facility.
