Posted: Nov 17 2007 at 4:20pm | IP Logged

Boomer is exactly right about driving habits play a large role in fuel economy, if you have a lead foot, you will eat more gas, i drive pretty darn conservatively, and manage to get around 17 mpg in mostly city driving, sometimes more, sometimes a little less...but always hovering around the 17 mpg mark for my daily driving. If you compare that to the EPA estimates, it's better. last long trip i went on i got almost 21 mpg, that was some time ago.

Please explain to me where I directly implied that dirt breaks down oil? That was not the point at all. If you inferred that from my statements, guess I should have been more clear. The point being, if you suck in a lot of dirt into the engine, there will come a time when the oil's detergents/dispersants will not be able to effectively deal with the amount of dirt/contaminants, whatever it may be, your oil is not doing it's job, especially if the wear metals increase because of this issue. This could be an even larger issue if you are trying to maximize your OCI, such as 10k/15k which is touted for some of the higher end oils, sometimes further. If my wear metals are increasing because the oil isn't able to handle it, then number one....i'd be looking for a fix to the cause of the contamination, and also watching the wear metals for the time when they tend to take a jump, if you are trending the data, so you know when it is time to dump it. just my .02.

sodium levels? didn't your previous post indicate 0 for both samples? what is with the (62, 20) Did I miss something?

Posted: Nov 24 2007 at 3:03pm | IP Logged

SAR Tech, I did not think anyone was questioning my intelligence or logic, I was simply trying to gather all the information to gain an understanding of what was going on in your oil sample, so we can all have the bigger picture illustrated. Just as I would welcome questions about my sampling and driving conditions if they were not completely clear or if you could help add to the bigger picture via Socratic method, perhaps you might help me see something I am missing with my data.

I inquired about the sodium, because, the first post indicated it was a "non-factor" being 0 in both samples, then you indicated it was out of the safe-range IIRC. If it had gone from 0 to X number, and your coolant level was normal, and not dropping, then I wouldn't suspect a coolant leak to be an issue, same with the potassium. as the lab indicated Na is used as an additive in some oils, i have some Na is virgin samples of the M1 EP mixes (approx 15ppm, some would argue noise) and then also in the regular M1 5W-30 (7ppm, IIRC). Are you noticing a coolant level issue? Also did the lab do a glycol test on the used sample you submitted?

I understand the point of your experiment being to drag the oil to it's limit and test it's longevity. That makes sense, and trending data with the UOA's is going to be the determining factor w/o a doubt in this endeavor.  It would be important to remember what the purposes of the oils are however, and that is as a lubricant, heat dissipator, and to lesser a lesser extent to act as a detergent to deal with the nasty by-products of internal combustion engines. If it fails in any one of these areas, does it make sense to factor that into the "longevity" of the oil. I would imagine that the health of your engine is highly important, knowing if the oil isn't doing it's duty and leading to higher wear metals, would play a part deciding when to dump it.

I would have to admit, that my reasoning is end results orientated, if i were to find some odd concoction of blended oils and the chemistry and physical properties were great for my truck, i'd stick with it. As I have said before I have no problem walking away from M1 if it isn't the best oil for my truck or if i find that for my conditions it doesn't get the job done. I will determine that as it goes.

A few further notes, and perhaps boomer as an organic chemist by training can jump in here, i have some chemistry training, but not nearly as much as him, i'm a biologist by training.  As I was reading through the thread again, I noticed mention of Castrol syntec being hydrotreated, and other hydrotreated base stocks, there was some fall out from some of the castrol customers I guess when it was learned that the US versions had switched from group IV basetocks (i.e. PAO's) or mostly group IV to group III basestocks, which are the hydrocracked (hydrotreated) basestocks which essentially are super refined basestocks, which allows them to call them "full synthetic" as Synthetic Oil has illustrated earlier. I would imagine people felt like they were getting a lesser oil. Whether or not that was the case is not easily determined from the basestock alone as the total chemistry of the add pack has to be factored in, which is always being played with and also having to be w/in govt regulations (whatever your govt regulations might be), again, as boomer indicated before that M1 is a combination of basestocks, Groupl IV (PAO, or 100% synthetic) and Group III apparently, why is this, could be cost, but from my understanding you have to also get the right basestocks combined to be able to "carry" the additives as well, perhaps they found with their additives packages, the combination worked better. However, people rave about the German Castrol, also given the GC monicker, as it is the Castrol Syntec 0W-30. It has been shown to show an apparently superior basestock chemistry. If you turn the bottles of say Castrol Syntec 0W-30 and any of their other weights, try a 5W-30 or 10W-30, the 0W-30 will say Made in Germany or Imported from Germany, and the 5W- and 10W-30's will say made in USA from imported and domestic. Are they different, don't know, some people still say they are, and think the 0W-30 is better than the other ones.

Posted: Nov 27 2007 at 3:43pm | IP Logged

Frontyfan has adequately described the issue of Type III oils.  Hydrotreating takes natural petroluem and subjects it to high heat/pressure with hydrogen gas and this results in smaller, more uniform molecules that don't contain significant quantities of double bonds which can cause gum formation and acid development over time.  The treatment can also produce branching on the molecules which is desoirable for lubricity.  However, a pure PAO synthetic can really control this and give a more uniform oil structure and molecular weight.  Whether all of this makes the oli better or worse ius open to question but the additive package is a big part.  The proof of the whole thing is in how the oil performs over time and how the engine wears.  This can be determined with simple observation of engine wear and longevity or looked at on a regular basis through oil analysis.  I personally think that Joe Public was served up a bit of a lie when oil companies were allowed to call Type III oils "synthetic".   I believe that this sense of consumer "betrayal" is really at the heart of why some of these oils get a bad rep. Actually, they should perform quite well if given proper additive packages.

I personally prefer Type IV oils and use Mobil 1.  It is easy to purchase and I can get it in 5 qt containers at Walmart.  AT 110,000 miles on a 10 year old Chevy V-8, the rocker arm area was IMMACULATE.  The engine really used no oil between changes at 4-5000 miles.  Iwas very pleased. I use Mobil 1 5W-30 in my new 2007 Frontier engine and Mobil 1 gear oil in the rear diff.

Posted: Mar 07 2008 at 4:14am | IP Logged

schaeffer's oil i believe is another "boutique" oil kinda like amsoil, RP, Redline. They have a website that you can look at if you google it.

SAR..are we about to see another UOA here soon? Mine is coming up in a few hundred miles proabably, I am only just under 4000 m on this OCI, not sure how far I am going to extend it...I still think I might have a coolant issue, but I have not been losing any lately (knock on wood). Have you had any more issue with your coolant? I am also going to be switching from regular M1 to M1 HM (high mileage) and going up slightly in viscosity, to a 10W-30. I just want to use a slightly more viscous oil. I'm almost tempted to use some M1 0W-40 since the manual says a 10W-40 is a go as well. We shall see.  I feel like I'm wasting money since I am not pushing beyond 5000 miles yet, but with teh possible coolant issue, I want to get another UOA and then have it address very soon. Then I will be pushing the OCI's further I hope. I'd like to extend out beyond 5000 miles easily.

Posted: Mar 16 2008 at 10:08am | IP Logged

Eagerly awaiting your results, and I hope that I can add a little bit of help to what the numbers mean. If you wanted a more in depth response, posting at BITOG would get you some responses from some tribologists and chemists/engineers.

It will be a little bit for mine still, I'm just over 4k on this one, since the last change, it takes quite a bit for me to rack up miles. Since I have bought my truck it only has had just over 10k miles/year put on it. I think that's about the average for the life of the truck so far. As it has around 70.5k on it and it's an 01. I think I'm gonna push it out to the similar mark as the last one. I have to add, that I did add a tiny bit of (1/4 qt approx) of Castrol GTX HM for make up, as it was hard to tell on the sh*tty dipstick if it had burned a little bit. Only reason I grabbed for that was it was readily available in the garage and sllightly higher viscosity at 10W-30.

As far as the zeroing out of numbers? Are you indicating that on your VOA they zeroed numbers such as Na and K and what have you w/o telling you what they were? That seems kind of odd in my opinion, albeit if they were really low it could just be noise, however some oils use Na as an additive, I've heard reports of Mobil Drive Clean 5000 using higher levels of sodium. My VOA's of diff M1 oils have had b/w 7-15 ppm Na to start off with on multiple runs on each. That's important to me as if they were to flag the numbers on Na as being possible coolant leak and they were around the same levels..then w/o seeing any coolant loss, or spikes in K levels, it wouldnt' concern me too much. However, as I indicated before I have had a slight coolant issue in the past, which I haven't had recently, though I still need to get checked out before it totally destroys the bearings.