What is in oil that make cars run?

Question

why cant it be any other liquid?

Answer 1

Oil, whether natural or synthetic, lubricate all moving parts in an intrnal combustion engine. Without it, your car's engine would most likely begin to knock, then completely seize up, requiring a completely new engine as the old one would only be good for use as a boat anchor. You Dig?

Answer 2

Lubricants are specific types of hydrocarbons, either naphthenes or isoparrafins.  They work because their molecular structure prevents the molecules from interlocking.  Thus, the molecules slide on each other providing the slickness necessary to reduce friction between moving surfaces.  Other compounds can be used.  For example, many polyesters also have these properties and are in fact used in synthetic lubricants.  Some vegetable oils also have good lubricating properties and were in fact used as lubricants before petroleum derived products were discovered.  Specific bio-micro waxes such as spermiciti and jojoba oil are still used as fine lubricants as there are no petroleum based equivalents. .

Answer 3

Oil doesn't make a car run......it's a lubricant and keeps your engine from wearing out quickly and seizing up as happened with one of my cars years ago...Gasoline and deisel fuel make cars run.....

Answer 4

Oil itself does not make the car run.  You cannot run a car without it because metal to metal causes friction.  Friction causes heat and wear.  The oil get in between moving parts and puts a film between them so that when they move they do not rub up against each other.  They are rubbing on a slick surface.  Oil comes in different weights depending on what they are used for.  Like gear oil is a lot heavier than engine oil.  Also you need different weights for different temperatures.  They have come up with different types of oils such as sythetic.  As far as other liquids oil is the best for protecting without corroding.  You also have to have a liquid that does not need to be cooled like water does.  You also need to use a liquid that does not break down after a few hundered miles, than can be altered to have the different required weights, that does not become too thick when the temperature drops, does not become too thin when the heat rises, flows easily,and keeps a smooth surface.

Answer 5

The oil is specifically designed to keep all the moving parts moving. If you didn't use oil, they wouldn't be lubricated enough to move nicely. Cars actually run on the fuel.

Answer 6

The ones that produce power has Corbin in it and that is where the power comes from. The CO2 is produced as that is just how it is. Mother nature has a recycle system so that the plants take in the CO2 and give us back the O2 and keeps the C to make the plants food. That is where all the present fossil fuel came from. Mother nature has done it for millions of years.

Answer 7

Oil is highly flamable. When you burn the fuel, its energy is released into the engine. It is then spurced through the car making it move by the touch of your foot on the pedal. Hope this expains your question.

Answer 8

Oil does make cars run.

Starting with heavy crude oil it is cracked, or refined, into more and more usable petroleum products. Passing through fuel oils and then lubricants to kerosene, diesel oil and gasoline. Eventually getting to plastics and drugs.

Backing up to getting gasoline diesel and kerosene (jet fuel) from oil, when crude oil is cracked by using steam to break apart the levels of oil into fuels we can power vehicle engines with oil.

Synthetic oils are available and they have benefits in resistance to heat and longevity. Synthetic oils are not perfect though. They do not have the film strength of mineral oils, and are so slick that engines have a hard time getting broken in and excessively use oil.

Just the other day I heard that someone had transferred the whole gene sequence from one microbe to another changing the second into the first. This is important because they say that make lubricants from microbes. Can they be far from making fuels from microbes then?

Answer 9

Lubricating oil works because it has very low cohesive and moderately low adhesive properties.  That means it sticks to other things better than it sticks to itself; i.e. it's "slippery".  As well it is able to withstand higher temperatures and pressures ... after all that is how it is formed.  Other liquids break down much faster.

It is used as a fuel source because hydrocarbons are a dense form of chemical energy.  Whether it is animal, vegetable, or petroleum oil, oil contains a lot of calories.

Answer 10

After what happened at VT why would you have that POS as your picture?

Answer 11

Oil has two uses in cars.  It is used to make "lubricating" oil that goes into the engine, and it is used to make gasoline.

The things that make it useful for lubricating oil is that it is slippery, sticks to metal, contains no water that could rust the engine, and stands up to very high temperatures in the engine.  Nothing else can do all that, except really expensive stuff.

The thing that makes it useful for gasoline is that it is packed with energy that originally came from the Sun.  Nothing as cheap has as much energy.

Answer 12

Oil contains hydrocarbons, that when processed make gasoline, a combustible fuel.  Other things are usable, but they are not necessarily economical in mass quantity.

Answer 13

Oil is a lubricant. It can put up with heat and friction. It does not make a car run, but without it, the friction would cause engines to fall apart quickly.

There are synthetic oils as well as natural patrolium based oils.

Answer 14

Petroleum is flammable.

You can make an engine to run on any flammable liquid.  

The power of the engine will be proportional to the BTU per ounce of fuel times the number of ounces burned.

Gasoline has appx 40% more BTU's per gallon than ethanol.

But an engine can burn more than double (almost triple) the amount of alcohol per combustion "stroke"...

So an alcohol fueled car can get almost double the horsepower... at the expense of getting 1/3 the range for the same size fuel tank.

Answer 15

Apparently you don't have the mechanical aptitude to understand that oil doesn't MAKE the car run. It KEEPS it running.

A "push" gets a ball rolling, inertia "keeps" it moving.

Anyways...oil is mostly hydrocarbons and is most resistant to boiling and breakdown.