Any actual problems with Amsoil

All,

Personal opinions aside, has anyone had a failure that was caused by the oil or a motor that wore out too quickly while using amsoil?

Why I ask is - for the most part I just read the post here, however, every time there is a question about 2 cycle oil everyone (on this forum) seems to be against Amsoil in their saws (other forums for various motor types mostly praise the stuff). I have been running amsoil 100-1 in my outboard (and yes I am using the outboard oil - not the air cooled type) at a mix of about 80 to 1 for about 4 years and I live on waterfront and use the boat weekly for cruising and skiing. Never had a problem and no smoke.

No wonder at 100 to 1 Im sure you dont have to worry about smoke. I used amsoil at 40 to 1 in all of my saws, blowers and trimmers till I ran across a case of mobil 1 that I got a deal on. The mobil one is good not as much smoke as amsoiil in my bike. I have never heard about anyone having a failure with amsoil I know they have a warentee you have to look hard to find out what exactly it cover though.

Yes their is a problem with Amsoil! Nobody carries it here! I like you have been using Amsoil at 80/1 in my 041, 028, and weed eater. I have had excellant success with it.No smoke, easier starting, and more power, especially on the 041.I will stick like epoxy to this brew. By the way, I think you may have opened up a large can of worms on this thread, Ken

Many years ago (like 20 or so) they had some quality control problems. Sometimes you'd get some bad stuff, so a reputation was born. Don't know how it's been since then, but I do know how those reputations sometimes live long past whatever bit of truth started them.

Yes I have seen problems with it first hand. I have torn down several saws that needed to have the rings pulled and the ring grooves cleaned. Nothing else was wrong other than the rings were stuck and the oily carbon build up on the top of the piston. In one case the saw only had 6 tanks of fuel through it. Now this was with the dominator made by amsoil. The one thing I will say about ams oil is that the low end seemed to be very well lubricated.

Probably was not clear enough about this - even I am not gutsy enough to go to a 100 to 1 ratio, I use 80 to 1 in the boat and would do 50 to 1 in my small two cycles - not the same oil as in the boat though - use the Amsoil for air-cooled.

As for what klickitatsacket said, I would be willing to bet the user was doing a ratio of 16 to 1 or something similar, more is not always better.

klickitatsacket, do you happen to know what ratio the end-user was mixing the gas/oil in the saws you are talking about?

It is interesting that this thread was started today. I did a job today that I had on the books for a while. Turns out that the home owner sells/distributes Amsoil. He asked if I had ever heard of it. He gave me some literature and a bottles of their 2 stroke oil. If and when I come across a running POS saw I may try it, but........NOT........in my good saws. A ratio of 100/1 is just too lean for me!!!

I have a couple of Amsoil dealers at work over the years. The only problem I had with the products was the price...too high to try.

I have been running the amsoil in my 029 and FS 80 for over 2 years @ 100:1 or as close as i can get it with out any problems. A while back i pulled the plug on the 029 and it was a nice light brown color. then for fun i pulled a compression test and it was really high ( 75 to 90 psi i can not remeber ). which tells me i am not hurting the rings or jug. As soon as i get my 361 broke in i will switch it to amsoil too. I also run amsoil in my truck at extended drain intervals. You do not need a dealer you can order it factory direct.

TreeCo said:

That is an interesting bet.

Have you heard of Amsoil doing that at heavy mixing rates?

For me the distrubution network will always keep me away from Amsoil.

Dan

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Actually I have, though I have not researched it much, other small engine forums have talked about this

treefrog359 said:

I have been running the amsoil in my 029 and FS 80 for over 2 years @ 100:1 or as close as i can get it with out any problems. A while back i pulled the plug on the 029 and it was a nice light brown color. then for fun i pulled a compression test and it was really high ( 75 to 90 psi i can not remember ). which tells me i am not hurting the rings or jug. As soon as i get my 361 broke in i will switch it to amsoil too. I also run amsoil in my truck at extended drain intervals. You do not need a dealer you can order it factory direct.

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You need to get a small engine compression guage with the valve right at the tip where screws into the plug hole... A saw like yours in decent shape should be at least 145, and usually about 160... at 90lb they won't even start, so I suspect your guage is the wrong one.

compression of 75-90 psi means you have a problem on your hands... i use a plain old automotive compression tester for YEARS and never have problems. there is no such diffrence between a car/truck compression tester and a small engine one other than sometimes the hose is shorter and smaller, sometimes easier to manage but thats it. i would never use 100:1 in any engine, no matter what oil it is.. just begging for trouble with that one. 50:1 is recommended by saw makers for good reason, make that saw last a bit is one of them. using 50:1 my stihl 036 pro has been going with some heavy logging use since 2001 and still has great compression. you may notice im leaving out oil brands here for good reason, its the mix ratio causing this one.

treefrog359 said:

I have been running the amsoil in my 029 and FS 80 for over 2 years @ 100:1 or as close as i can get it with out any problems. A while back i pulled the plug on the 029 and it was a nice light brown color. then for fun i pulled a compression test and it was really high ( 75 to 90 psi i can not remeber ). which tells me i am not hurting the rings or jug. As soon as i get my 361 broke in i will switch it to amsoil too. I also run amsoil in my truck at extended drain intervals. You do not need a dealer you can order it factory direct.

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Sorry, but there are differences with "car" verses small engine". If you do NOT have the valve right down at the plug, the hose length is a significant portion of the volume of the cylinder and you'll never get a true reading. I got fooled a few years ago and tore down a perfectly good motor due to a false reading. Some "car type" do have the "schrader valve" at the tip and are good for all types of engines.

I have two testers with about a 12 inch tubes; one has the valve at the tip and the other only up at the guage. On a 026, one reads 147 and the other 120. You can guess which one. On my Mazda truck they both read 98...

Without a tip valve, the longer the tube, the greater the volume in the tube, and the more error you get. If the tube is 25% of the volume of the cylinder (easy on a small saw), you'll get a reading of 75% of true.

Make that 80% of true. Darn math!

back to the topic, any problems with amsoil 2 cycle oil, never heard back from klickitatsacket on what mix ratio was being used in the saws that were gummed up.

My understanding of amsoil is that it is oil of average quality, sold through MLM pyramid, which leaves it selling at high end oil prices.
If you ever talk to one of these salesmen, they tell you the oil is the best and all you need to do is pass the bottle of oil over the engine and any and all problems will be repaired forever.
I have noticed now you can order the oil directly from the factory, but my guess is that most of their sales are from their goofy, high presure, non-professional sales force.

klickitatsacket said:

Yes I have seen problems with it first hand. I have torn down several saws that needed to have the rings pulled and the ring grooves cleaned. Nothing else was wrong other than the rings were stuck and the oily carbon build up on the top of the piston. In one case the saw only had 6 tanks of fuel through it. Now this was with the dominator made by amsoil. The one thing I will say about ams oil is that the low end seemed to be very well lubricated.

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I belive the Amsoils Dominator oil is a high performance oil designed to be run in high reving snowmobile/motorcross racing engines it is not recomended for small 2 stoke stuff it doesnt burn properly in them . The Saber 100:1 is for small stuff.

I use the Ams in anything I own I had a engine mechanic tear down a commercial lawnmower of ours with 1300hrs on it and he was surprised to see very little wear in the cylinder walls and rings.
However i did toast a Husky 345 with running amsoil 80:1 I was sawing lots of oak on a 70-75 deg day all of a sudden I lost power and no compression.
not sure if it was the oil or what perhaps dirt in the fuel, cooling fins ect maybe i just overworked it.
since then Amsoil has refined there aircooled 2 stoke oil and have 4 differnet types for different engines Saber is for the small aircooled engines.
I still run it at 80:1 in my new Husky saw, string trimmer and the injector oil in my ski-doo snowmobile.

hey bto, why do you run 80:1? and why did you continue after one saw self destructed because of it? i am truly curious of this, not poking at you. 80:1 is not enough no matter what brand name that oil bottle has on it. most modern outboards with oil injection run lean at idle, but at WOT they pump more oil to keep up with the load and RPM. saws dont have this so the 50:1 is an all around compensation for that.

My engineers have developed "Fishoil 2005", that should be mixed at 112 1/2 to 1.
It costs @ 19.95$ per ounce, but hey, it is a small price to pay for peace of mind,
better safe than sorry.

Fish, is there a discount if I order by the case? How about if I buy a case of your Fishgrease 2005 fully synthetic axle grease, based on Bovine Excrement, too? Maybe by the pallet load?