Chris4x4 - What's this Intellistick all about?

[Janster]

I saw this in a Jeep magazine and immediately thought of you.... (no offense).

Wondered if you ever heard of it ?

Is it legit? or just another marketing gimmick?

I'm personally not interested in buying one myself - but wondered if its actually a decent idea (or not). I was also curious to see how much it cost. I didn't find any pricing....

http://www.intellistick.com/home.php

[xtreme450]

that looks kinda cool. i've always heard of oil analysis, looks like this is a little consumer unit. wonder what they cost... and if it really works.

[xtreme450]

WOW! a review of it in popular mechanics puts the price at $499! ouch, gonna take some time to be justified......

[chris4x4]

Originally Posted by Janster

I saw this in a Jeep magazine and immediately thought of you.... (no offense).

Wondered if you ever heard of it ?

Is it legit? or just another marketing gimmick?

I'm personally not interested in buying one myself - but wondered if its actually a decent idea (or not). I was also curious to see how much it cost. I didn't find any pricing....

http://www.intellistick.com/home.php

LMAO!!! No offence taken!

I havent heard of that yet. Seems like an interesting idea, but for $500.0???
Oil sample run from $2.50 to $10.00 per sample, and the independant testors test for much more. BUT, If the price comes down a bit, I may give one a test. Im gonna ask around a bit and see if anyone I know has any experiance with these.

[Janster]

It's a neat idea if it actually tests everything you should be testing for.

$500? Damn.... (Thanks for findind the price Xtreme450).

Chris - When do you get the oil tested? After you've done an oil change?

(laugh) I wonder if there's some kind of litmus paper test that you stick in the dipstick tube to get a sample before you actually change the oil? That'd be neat.... maybe.

[xtreme450]

actually you test constantly. the first few tests you do kinda give you a baseline. after that you can see what the tests should look like and use them to catch an engine problem before it causes an issue, know when to change the oil, etc. right now all you do is take a sample (like 1oz i think) and send it off to an analysis lab for the testing. if the test was $10 like chris said and you did it like every 1000 miles, then that intelistick system would pay for itself at 50K miles.

[taconinja]

We run oil analysis here at R&D for our heavy and mining equipment. It's amazing how the techs can pinpoint wear and damage and tell operations when they should shut down their equipment for maintenance. They schedule to optimize productivity and turnaround of course but we can tell the miners when, almost to the week, they will throw a transmission, bearing, et cetera.

[chris4x4]

Originally Posted by Janster

Chris - When do you get the oil tested? After you've done an oil change?

I was doing it every oil change, but I switched to every 3'rd, as all the sample are comming back very simillar. On my Dodge, as it has 175,000 miles on it, I have a sample done every change. On my 2000 Tacoma, I only sampled it every 25,000 miles. Its all personal preferance.

Originally Posted by Janster

(laugh) I wonder if there's some kind of litmus paper test that you stick in the dipstick tube to get a sample before you actually change the oil? That'd be neat.... maybe.

That WOULD be nice.

[chris4x4]

Originally Posted by taconinja

We run oil analysis here at R&D for our heavy and mining equipment. It's amazing how the techs can pinpoint wear and damage and tell operations when they should shut down their equipment for maintenance. They schedule to optimize productivity and turnaround of course but we can tell the miners when, almost to the week, they will throw a transmission, bearing, et cetera.

X2!
On all of our Heavy construction equipment, and farming equipment, Oil Samples are taken every 50 to 100 hours.