Snake Oil Thread

[Junkman]

I'd buy one of those kits & revel in the fact that they'll have to make an owner's plaque up for the push-action rotary lawnmower I'd have my yardman use it on while I wait at the club until he is finished...

 

FTFY

[Junkman]

There is, however, snake oil that actually works.

I had good past experience with this stuff:

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SEA-FOAM-Trans-Tune-Transmission-TT16-/351447408616

[RayMK]

To keep overheads and development costs down and thus maximise profits, snake oil providers avoid putting their stuff through properly controlled tests in an official test house.  Test houses are of course notorious for using calibrated equipment and repeating tests in order to establish a database from which statistically significant data can be extracted. Chemistry and physics also get in the way of a good sales pitch. Anecdotal evidence of these potions and devices working is worthless, except to the sellers.

 

This is why I will always chuck Molyslip in a noisy axle or gearbox before actually trying to fix or replace it. Does it work?  Havn't a clue.  It feels smoother and quieter and enables me to ignore the problem until something breaks - which has never happened.  An oil change would probably have the same effect.

[pshome]

Just had a long chat with snake-wax. These chaps really know Tagora's inside out! They strongly suggest to use only their special cleaning rags, made out of arab virgin's pubic hair, to apply their products to a Tagora. Unfortunatley they are out of stock, supply of raw materials has recently become difficult.

However, i have been given assurances that the product can be safely applied using grade 00 steel wool on Vauxhall's and Opel's.

[LabRat]

Just had a long chat with snake-wax. These chapsreally know Tagora's inside out! They strongly suggest to use only their special cleaning rags, made out of arab virgin's pubic hair, to apply their products to a Tagora. Unfortunatley they are out of stock, supply of raw materials has recently become difficult.

However, i have been given assurances that the product can be safely applied using grade 00 steel wool on Vauxhall's and Opel's.

Does using this also guarantee you a place in heaven?

 

(Though owning a Tagora, some would say you're already there...)

 

 

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[beko1987]

Its reasons like this why I couldn't be trusted with money.

If I won the lottery, I'd make a post of detailing world explaining how I had bought some of this, and was going to stick up a post soon, where I detailed my car with it.

 

Then I'd have a photo of me chucking a bucket of water/washing up liquid over my micra, followed by one of me pouring this all over the car and rubbing it in with a washing up cloth, and "buffing" it off with a duster.

 

Then I'd revel in the outrage.

 

Youd have a hard job pouring it, its a hard wax.

 

Id buy it if i won the lottery, get the zx perfect bodywork wise and spend 2 weeks detailing it with all my tens of thousands of quid of new kitz then layer this bad boy up!

 

Then throw the car at someone and demand they stop it knocking over bumps, knocking over no bumps and just knocking at all...

[chaseracer]

"Yes, of course these things all work.  Buy NOW!"

 

 

says TV's Quentin Wilson...

[beko1987]

But then id be left with a big puddle of cheese to clean up...

[Parky]

Slick 50 - can you still get that? My old man used to use it but never noticed any difference in anything. Apparently it coated everything in PTFE? I recall an old boy who had a Golf and apparently drove it to his dealer with a broken oil pump because the PTFE protected the moving surfaces.

 

Never thought it would actually work - after all I am sure Tefal must do something more complex when making frying pans rather than dip them in a pan of 10/40 substitute.

[Guest Breadvan72]

Apologies if it's not your field but legally how can they get away with selling things like that? It must breach the Trade Descriptions Act

 

Because internet.  Because punters fail to realise they have been conned, or are too embarrassed to own up to their mates that the hotted up shitbox is still a shitbox.  Because trading standards offices under resourced.  Because possible small print (though that less likely, owing to strict consumer protection rules), Because sellers possibly located outside any sensible jurisdiction so unchaseable.  

 

NB: CBA to look up any specific legal blah, sozzer.  Am on Plan Beer.

[anonymous user]

That gloop that repairs worn piston rings.

That gloop that fixes HGF.

That gloop that repairs punctures.

 

I'm just very cynical where gloop is concerned.

Sadly my mother is no longer with us, otherwise I'd be getting her to market the gravy she used to make for Sunday lunch as a general purpose gloop

[fred]

Ready and willing market of Mongs will be buying ALL of that. 

 

How about we do an AS start up selling homeopathic petrol?   Soon we will all be rich enough to afford swamp-find Montegos whenever we want.

 

Advertise Fung shwei or what ever it is, place a vanilla joss stick in your lighter apeture and place your roll up tin central in the console and your fuel will be happier, and burn longer and leaner

[Junkman]

Sadly my mother is no longer with us, otherwise I'd be getting her to market the gravy she used to make for Sunday lunch as a general purpose gloop

 

What were the properties of said formulation?

[anonymous user]

It was a mystery to us, and we had to eat it. Her culinary skills were legendary, she was a fan of the microwave as you can ruin food in a fraction of the time it would normally take.

[Justin Case]

Also available in yellow:

 

http://www.guysmagnets.com/view-product/fuel-miser

 

Reassuring information

 

 

We have used Neodymium Iron Boron (NdFeB)........ because NdFeB magnets are permanent which means that the magnetism is never lost

[LabRat]

Also available in yellow:

 

http://www.guysmagnets.com/view-product/fuel-miser

 

Reassuring information

Indeed, because yellow ones go faster...

 

 

 

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[alf892]

"Yes, of course these things all work.  Buy NOW!"

 

 

says TV's Quentin Wilson...

This swarmy fuckpig........the very essence of a snake oil salesman with his made up long words!

 

Didn't we have a celebrity I would most like to waterboard (before being nasty) thread somewhere?

[Richard]

I once bought some stuff that was basically wob for worn cylinder bores. You poured it down the spark plug holes, ran the engine and it would do its stuff. It's stuff turned out to be buggering up the plugs, I had to take them out and clean them about ten times before it would run again.

[PiperCub]

When I got to Mini shows I'm still surprised to find this one bloke still selling little bags of lead to drop into the tanks of classic cars. I'm also surprised that trading standards haven't tapped him on the shoulder too. At school in the common room there was always a copy of Max porn...sorry max power and in the back would be an advert for this little gadget that you fit in line of your brake servo. All it was,was a T piece with a filter that drew in air and was supposed to give you more power and economy. In reality your engine ran lean and melted thus not working anymore.....so saving you money on fuel.......ahh now I get it,it really worked then.....silly me.

 

The next one is people buy these cone air filters that they shove on the end of their car intake that is supposed to constitute tuning. NO! All your doing is making your car draw in hot air thus losing power. I used to own a clio 172 years ago and went halfords to buy some bulbs,when I came out a chav was eying my car up. When I got talking to him he proudly told me how his 1.2 had the same performance as mine due to a straight trough exhaust and a K&N air filter. Oh how I laughted.

 

I was going to suggest the 'Bag of lead balls in the tank' merchants. As like you, I've seen this resurfacing recently too. I'm betting it's the same or similar shit as that product called 'Carbonflo'(?? - was that the name?) that was around in the late nineties when 4-star leaded gas was on it's way out. I remember Practical Classics magazine doing a test on it using an Landcrab 1800 (B-series motor) to check the claims - IIRC it wrecked the head in a few thousand miles - not a success then. Never met or heard of anyone using it for real - has anyone?

 

Had a wierdly similar chav-experience years ago with my Golf GTi - said chav claimed his 1.3 was as quick 'cos he had put a drainpipe (seriously - about 3" dia) exhaust on it & of course the Pipercross or whatever filter that sucks hot air from the engine bay which as we all know are real winners when it comes to making engine power.

It must work though, he read it in Max Perv/Revs/Redline or whatever those useless rags were called, after all, they wouldn't just hype it up to please their advertisers would they? You know, like the womens magazines don't when it comes to the latest miracle-cure cosmetics.......

[Richard]

The 505 taxis I used to drive were strictly leaded only but we ran them on unleaded anyway, for up to 300k. A couple of them had some kind of snake oil catalyst, then the owner decided to see what difference it would make if you didn't use anything. None whatsoever.

[LabRat]

Not entirely sure as to wether waterless coolants are a bit of a con.

 

Yes the car might ruin cooler and not overheat as there is no water to boil. But, if you do spring a leak and loose some coolant, you're stuck with having to get a tow because you can't mix it with water at more than 5%

 

Then theres the cost... My v6 mondeo needs 9.5 litres of coolant...

 

Normal ethylene glycol is about £15 for 5 litres (to give a 50:50 mix), water being free out of the hosepipe.

 

Evans waterless powercool 180 (from their website) is £64.95 for 5 litres

 

Plus i would also need prep fluid at £39 for 5 litres.

 

So, that would be a total cost of £207.90 for 10 litres of each of the above, plus another 2 litres as a carry around (£29)

 

I can see the benefit for high performance racing vehicles, just not sure about the benefits for us normal plebs.

 

What do you think fellow shiters? Answers on a postcard.

 

 

 

 

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[PiperCub]

I looked at W/L coolants a while ago and came to the same conclusion.

[barefoot]

Would it be rong of me to buy my analytical, science based brother a fuel shark as a gift?

[PiperCub]

No, it'd be funny and if he calls you an idiot, claim the gift was meant ironically.

[fordperv]

Anyone remember fuel cat, what a load of crap they waffle on about

 

Inline version

http://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/Caterham-Fuel-Cat-Unleaded-Conversion-no-more-additives-More-power-torque-/181210844178?nav=SEARCH

 

In tank version

 

http://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/Caterham-Fuel-Cat-Unleaded-Conversion-no-more-additives-More-power-torque-/181210844178?nav=SEARCH

 

I have no doubt that these are just lead

[LabRat]

Fuel ionisation....

 

http://engineionizer.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[Pillock]

 

This, my friends is £6.70 posted from China.

This claims to plug into your OBD-2 port which some cars (made after 1986, sorry Junkman) have and use the diagnostics port to give you 35% more power and 25% more torque. But that's not all! 

 

 

 

According to your driving habits,  NitroOBD2 makes new map in the car's computer ECU to increase the performance of your car. As you driving much more KM/Mile, it renews the map. Thus it keeps the vehicle's power and torque increasing.

 

It keeps the vehicle's power and torque increasing! It keeps doing it!

Buy now and by September you'll have 900bhp! If you're not careful, this time next year you will have so much torque you could reverse the earth's rotation by accelerating in the wrong direction.

[Richard]

I'm tempted to buy one just to see what's inside.

[LabRat]

I'm tempted to buy one just to see what's inside.

A bit like stripping out a 70's BL special, I'm guessing a few dog ends, a mouldy butty and an assortment of nuts and bolts.

 

 

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[Pillock]

Five quid says it's a standard 14-pin IC, that's had a dremel taken to the identification markings.