We've all been there: You're trying to wrestle a rusted bolt or nut off your car, but you just can't seem to break it loose. You buy a penetrating lubricant from your local parts store and spray it on in the hopes that it'll remove at least some of the rust and free the locked piece. Sometimes it works, other times, it doesn't.
There's no real way to see just how deeply that lubricant is penetrating, so the Project Farm YouTube channel put together a comprehensive video comparing a bunch of the most popular kinds of lubricants in the hopes it can show us which one works best.
Using a collection of nuts rusted onto fixed bolts, the host applies one type of product to four bolts each, then measures just how much force it takes to break the nuts lose from their respective bolts. Additionally, he uses rusted bolts inserted into plexi-glass to demonstrate the penetrating abilities of each oil.
The experiment, despite being pretty technical, is incredibly interesting to watch. And now you know which kinds of penetrating oils work the best. Check it out here.
Brian Silvestro is Hearst Autos' former lead deputy editor for rankings content. He spent over seven years as a staff writer for Road & Track Magazine where he contributed car reviews, industry interviews, and more. He has a taste for high-mileage, rusted-out projects and amateur endurance racing.
