by Tammy Williams
VehicleMD Staff Writer
Originally published in Summer 2010 Issue

Do you often check your oil and find it a little low? Well, you’re not alone — especially if your vehicle has traveled more than 75,000 miles in its life. Nearly two-thirds of vehicles on the road today are considered high mileage, and it isn’t uncommon for these vehicles to be a quart low on motor oil.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a minor problem, like one might think.

“We find a lot of people with older engines are running a quart low,” said Thom Smith, technical director of branded lubricants at Valvoline. “There’s only about four quarts of oil in an engine, so if you’re running a quart low you only have 75 percent of the oil you should have.”

Have you ever tried running your dishwasher with only 75 percent of the water that it should have? If so, you probably found little bits of food and soap residue on what should have been sparkling dishes.

If you want to make sure something like this doesn’t happen to your engine, high-mileage motor oil is a solution. This oil is specially formulated to give high-mileage engines the protection they need.

One area of protection unique to high-mileage motor oil is volatility. Volatility is sometimes called burn-off, but it actually is the evaporation of oil.

Burn-off can be a problem because when you run without an adequate level of oil in the engine, it is much harder on your engine and also causes the oil to break down more readily. When the oil breaks down, it can form deposits in the engine, basically making your engine dirtier. As your engine gets dirtier, it becomes less efficient and is more prone to failure. Your engine parts also become hotter than they should be because the engine can’t cool itself properly. It is a chain reaction that speeds up the deterioration of your engine.

But don’t worry. High-mileage motor oil is designed to combat exactly that. High-mileage motor oil is formulated to have a lower volatility (less evaporation) than conventional oils, meaning it doesn’t burn off as easily as conventional oil. Because it doesn’t burn off, it keeps your oil level higher.

One way to help your engine last longer is to make sure it has the proper amount of oil it was designed for, and high-mileage motor oil can help you do just that. After all, you don’t want find your engine a quart low on oil because you just might have a stuck-on-food-on-my-beautiful-dishes mess right there in your engine.