04_Sport_LS
Dedicated LVC Member
For your amusement...
but true.
From: Lubegard Technology - Lubegard
Sperm whale oil and its derivatives were used as additives in virtually all automotive lubricants. The products were so effective that vehicles’ fluids were generally never changed, and systems like the transmission lasted the life of the car. Some 30 million pounds of sperm whale oil were used every year in lubricants alone. To supply the demand, hundreds of thousands of whales were harvested bringing that species to the brink of extinction.
In 1972, the Endangered Species Act outlawed the killing of whales and the use of materials derived from those animals. For years, in engine oils, the automotive industry relied on other animal based products such as tallow or lard. For complex systems such as transmissions, these substitutes proved to be inadequate, leading to poor overall drive train performance, premature drive train failure and failure due to heat. For instance, automatic transmission failures went from less than a million units in 1972 to over eight million units a year by 1975, due to the loss of sperm whale oil additives. According to the Automatic Transmission Rebuilder’s Association of Ventura, Calif., today, there are over 11 million automatic transmission failures per year (and nearly nine out of ten) are caused by the degradation of automatic transmission fluid due to heat. Heat promotes the oxidation of transmission fluid, and that compromises its performance and accelerates wear on the internal components of automatic transmissions.
but true.
From: Lubegard Technology - Lubegard
Sperm whale oil and its derivatives were used as additives in virtually all automotive lubricants. The products were so effective that vehicles’ fluids were generally never changed, and systems like the transmission lasted the life of the car. Some 30 million pounds of sperm whale oil were used every year in lubricants alone. To supply the demand, hundreds of thousands of whales were harvested bringing that species to the brink of extinction.
In 1972, the Endangered Species Act outlawed the killing of whales and the use of materials derived from those animals. For years, in engine oils, the automotive industry relied on other animal based products such as tallow or lard. For complex systems such as transmissions, these substitutes proved to be inadequate, leading to poor overall drive train performance, premature drive train failure and failure due to heat. For instance, automatic transmission failures went from less than a million units in 1972 to over eight million units a year by 1975, due to the loss of sperm whale oil additives. According to the Automatic Transmission Rebuilder’s Association of Ventura, Calif., today, there are over 11 million automatic transmission failures per year (and nearly nine out of ten) are caused by the degradation of automatic transmission fluid due to heat. Heat promotes the oxidation of transmission fluid, and that compromises its performance and accelerates wear on the internal components of automatic transmissions.