The color of the lubricant reflect the health of your engine. Poor maintenance, using low quality lubricant, severe wearing of engine components or major maintenance of old engine can lead to creation of dark smooth caused by incompletely burnt fuel. These compounts mix with lubricant and darken the lubricant's color, or even block the lubricant filters, stems and results in low oil pressure. At this moment, the condition of the engine is severely bad.

This is the reason users must use Steel Shield. The ABF Technology uses ionic forces to repel and discharges metal containing debris (e.g. metal debris, carbon, sludge, etc.) from the engine surfaces (e.g. piston, crankshaft, bearings, etc.). The Ionic Discharge of ABF Technology is different from the detergents of traditional lubricants. Common detergents remove debris with corrosive compounds (or acids) which can corrode metals and cause permanent damage to the engine. However, Steel Shield Ionic Discharge utilize ionic forces that can protect the engine and not corrosive in nature.

Please do the followings if it is the first time to use Steel Shield lubricants:

Drain all the old lubricants out of engine, and then fill with Steel Shield lubricants. After running 2,500 to 4,000 km, re-fill Steel Shield again (must replace the filter), you will find that the oil is dark and dirty. That proves that Steel Shield Ionic Discharge is functioning, and it is removing all the debris out of the engine. Keep using Steel Shield, you will discover the lubricant becomes cleaner and cleaner. If you take the used oil to do analysis, you will be suprised that the debris inside the oil is so low. Only Steel Shield can keep your engine fresh and powerful.

It is because the internal frictions of the engine components (such as bearings, piston rings, shafts and any other movable parts) dramatically reduced by Steel Shield ABF Technology. The results are higher RPM and higher useful output power. However, the fuel consumption is the SAME because the energy loss due to frictions has been decreased. Different engine designs have different default RPM, generally, they are within 200 RPM. More advanced engine system uses computer to control and adjust the RPM. You may also drive your vehicle to the vehicle service centre and ask them to lower the RPM, therefore, the fuel consumption of your engine can be much lower.

In some situations, the increase in engine noise are temperory because the RPM of the engine increase after using Steel Shield. The ABF Technology dramatically reduces the frictions of the engine and boosts up the RPM which is the cause of extra noise. You can tune down the RPM of the engine and it will become more quiet than before. This noise reduction effect will become more significiant after a prolonged usage of Steel Shield.

However, if the noise keep louder and louder, there must be some mechanical problems inside the engine, and maintenance is required. This problem usually happens on old engines, or engines with severe wears. Users have to check the conditions of any engine components, such as piston rings, crankshaft, etc. Some service centre may recommend users to use higher viscosity lubricants (e.g. SAE #50) to ease the noise. But it will not solve the root causes of the problem. Further more, using lubricants with viscosity higher than normal can burden the engine with high loadings due to higher lubricant frictions. The result will be: more serious engine wears and permanent damages. Therefore, proper maintenance is necessary.

In some older engines which the maintenance were poor, or have been using poor quality lubricants for long times, there would be lots of debris and sludge accumulated inside the components. After using Steel Shield, the ABF Technology's Ionic Discharge repels and removes the metal containing debris out of the engine components, the engine is cleaned, and users can discover that some of the oil seals may have been degraded and damaged. Therefore, there will be oil leakage from the oil sump. This is the mechanical problem, not causes by the Steel Shield lubricant. On the contrary, Steel Shield helps users to uncover their engines' hidden problems, so they can fix them as early as possible.

During the first time of using Steel Shield, some users did not feel the engine power boost after drove 2,500 to 4,000 km. This was because the Ionic Discharge of ABF Technology was repelling and cleaning huge amount of debris and sludge inside the engine, and these impurities might blocked the oil filter and resulted in insufficient power output. Therefore, users should drain the old Steel Shield oil out of the vehicle and refill it with fresh oil. Then, the drivers should be able to feel the engine is becoming more and more powerful.

Certain users heard some noise from their engines after using Steel Shield. But it could be sure that this issue was not related to Steel Shield lubricants. That was because their engines were cleaner than before, and the normal sound emitted from the engine was reduced. Therefore, some abnormal noise became more visible. This uncovered some hidden issues which users did not notice before they used Steel Shield. Many of the abnormal noise come from the valves of the engine because many valves are designed to be operated by hydraulic mechanism and they are lubricated by splash method. Valves making abnormal noise is a kind of mechanical malfunction which can be caused by springs wearings, screws looses, valve stem wearings, or gaps exist between valve seats, etc. Those issues are definitly not related to Steel Shield lubricants. They are the results of poor maintenance, engine depreciations, mechanical problems and using low quality lubricants.

Our advice is: Go to the service center to fix your problem, and keep using Steel Shield lubricants to protect your engine.

Some car owners reported that their lubricant indicator lighted up after using Steel Shield, and they finally blamed our lubricants. However, it can be sured that only 1% of such kind of issue were caused by using poor quality oil. Most of the reasons were mechanical problems, or caused by simply mixing lubricants of different brands. Therefore, the solution is to make sure you drain all the old oil from your engine before switching to Steel Shield. Also, if the viscosity of the new lubricant was lower than the old oil, there might be insufficient oil pressure, and lighted up the lubricant indicator. This phenomenon will disappear after the engine adaptes to the new oil. Furthermore, users have to replace a new filter if necessary to make sure the lubricant always stay clean. Finally, please check the seals and oil pressure meter, and do proper maintenance for your car periodically.

Traditional base oils can be divided into: mineral oil, semi-synthetic, and full synthetic oils. The rate of degradation of synthetic oils are lower than mineral oils. But if the engine refills new lubricant within the OEM's suggested period (normally about 5,000 km), there should not be any adverse effects to the engine even mineral oils is used. Many lubricant manufacturers advertise that better base oil quality can lead to better lubricant quality. However, this is misleading. It is because only additives can do the function of lubrication, not the base oil. But adding too much additives into the lubriants results in horrible side effects which can damage the engines. The only solution is to switch to Steel Shield lubricants which utilizes a state-of-art ABF technology. Steel Shield treats the metal, not the oil, and it does not rely on any additive.