jezza

The only thing "special" about some manufacturers factory fill is the amount of moly content. As you can see from the results of the posted analysis, molybdenum in the factory fill is right on par with universal averages.

jezza

FWIW, I just got my analysis of the factory fill back. It's not worth posting, as it's virtually identical across the board (although I ran mine about 600 less miles... initial change at 4400 miles or so).

The Law

Gernby - Thanks for the info!

Gernby

iTrader: (1)

Did they think yours was 5W-20 too? When did you buy yours? I bought mine in March, but I haven't looked to see when it was assembled.

Tony1

If the regular oil held fine at 5,000 miles, why bother putting mobil 1 in? Isn't that overkill?

Gernby

iTrader: (1)

I don't think any oil is overkill if your OCI is properly adjusted for it. I'm hoping that Mobil 1 will allow me to lengthen my OCI to 7500 (assuming I don't track it). If I do track it, then I want Mobil 1 in there anyway. That said, I don't believe Mobil 1 to be a "top tier" oil anyway.

06LexIS

Gents, on my last car was a brand new 04 SI and I used Amsoil 0W-30 series 2000. I was able to extend my oil changes to 15K based on their lube oil reports. A year and a half later I sold the car to my cousin in New Orleans. I racked 63K on the odometer in less then two years due to my long commute and it was also my beater car, I used to put that little car thru it's paces and never had a failure. The only thing I did was I changed the oil filter @7K and top off the engine with new oil. Every result I sent in came back normal. I've never changed my oil @ 3K, it's a waste of natural resources.
my .02 cents

phatboyc

06LexIS, Don’t want to offend you but are you an Amsoil dealer? Seems like they always have personal stories like these to tell... Are you going to do this with your IS? If so, can you post your oil reports. I am very curious in purchasing some Amsoil for the engine and tranny but haven’t seen any Lexus owners use it.

06LexIS

I'm not taking offense at your response but lets get something straight here. I'm not an Amsoil dealer, nor I'm endorsing their product, in the past I've used Redline, Royal Purple and Mobil. I'm sharing my experiences with the forum that's all. As for my IS, yes I will start testing on my next oil change to see how far I could extend them.
I'm an Amsoil preffered customer, I pay $20 a year membership to be able to get discounted prices like a dealer would for all their synthetic products, that's as far as I will go, I have no interest or the time to be a dealer for any manufacturer.

I'm a plant engineer at a 600MW combined cycle gas turbine plant. Do you think we change our synthetic oil in our gas turbines/equipment every 3 months or 500 operating hours, no. For all onsite equipment we use our lube analysis program and this is why I do it on my cars, its totally worth it IMO.
The lab will alert you if the concentration of tri-metal babbit from your main or rod bearings are on the rise or ash/deposits are on the rise then at this time you can ignore their data or lower your oil changes based on facts not a myth of every 3K.
I've saved two motors that way, I had a main bearing wearing faster then the recommended wear per year, when I tore the motor apart the metal babbit was evident and it saved me lots of $$.
That's what I base my facts on.

jezza

I submitted mine as a 5w30, since that's what I had assumed it was, and they didn't mention anything about it appearing otherwise.

I bought my car in May, and it was assembled about as close to that date as it could be and still make the boat trip over... it was a special order.

jezza

I didn't bother getting a TBN with my analysis, because I tend to stick to 5000 mile change intervals regardless of what oil I use. TBN is really the only way to measure whether the oil "held fine" as you put it.

I don't think Mobil 1 is overkill. I tend to run my car quite hard, and the extra protection in terms of both higher flashpoint and lower pour temps are worth it to me.

For example, compare the specs of Mobil Clean 5000 5w30 to Mobil 1 5w30:

http://www.mobil.com/USA-English/Lub...Clean_5000.asp
http://www.mobiloil.com/USA-English/...bil1_5W-30.asp

The cliff notes version is:

Mobil1 has a higher flashpoint and a lower pour point temperature.

That being said, I don't ever expect the engine in ANY car I own to fail before I get rid of the car from anything other than a gross one-off engineering issue or negligence on someones part. I just expect that any modern engine is going to last well over 100k miles with nothing other than semi-regular oil changes, regardless of what type of oil is used.

But, I like taking extra good care of things... so I pay a little more while I own the car to maintain it as I see fit. Big deal, I enjoy doing all my own maintenance anyway, so the money I save not going to the dealer evens things out.

I also got curious and took a look at redline's product data sheet for their 5w30 to really see what the difference was between and OTS product like Mobil1. Basically, they're virtually indentical with the exception of flash point. The redline 5w30 has a flashpoint about DOUBLE that of Mobil1. That's pretty impressive, and it also tells you what redline designs their oils for: racecars and other engines that are constantly under high load, high heat situations. It's total overkill for a road car (unless you track it obviously).

lobuxracer

iTrader: (2)

I ran Red Line in my Supra for years. 10k changes. No issues. I ran Amsoil 0w-30 and instantly had exhaust valve stem seal issues. Lots of blue smoke on start up. Switched back to Red Line 10w-30, problems went away for awhile, then they were terminal and the seals had to be replaced. It was no fault of Amsoil, 2JZs are known for doing this with any oil. I suspect the 0w quality just made it more obvious.

I now run Mobil 1 in everything but the Supra. Why? Try to find Amsoil, Red Line, or any other "alternative" synthetic in some little town on a Sunday night. Not gonna happen. But guess what? Wal-Mart has Mobil 1, just about everywhere.

There is no significant performance difference between synthetics in a practical sense. They are ALL outstanding in their ability to protect, and few conventional oils can compete with synthetics for longevity of protection. Yes, there are some, but trying to find them on a Sunday night in a small town is, well, even more challenging. Mobil 1 has excellent performance and the best availability. That alone makes it my choice for my street vehicles.

jezza

Bingo. Same reason I run M1... you can get it pretty much anywhere, including the local Mobil station.

phatboyc

Thanks for your honest reply 06LexIS. Your decisions are also base on your unique work experience. Good info here, I like it.

lobuxracer, Why does it matter if you can’t find the “special” oil in a little town on Sunday night? Don’t you know ahead of time when you plan on changing it? Or do you mean if you need to top it off for some reason? If that’s the case then you can ad Mobile1 since there are all compatible.

4TehNguyen

iTrader: (1)

this can also be analogous to too frequent oil changes, I bet if you take that turbine offline to change the oil "every 3k" its going to cost a hell of a lot of money with little benefit since the oil was still good and nothing was operating abnormally. Same can be said for a car. That real time monitoring of the wear metals you have is really nice. That type of program can alarm you to bad conditions, trend it, and help you decide the optimum maintainence interval for that piece of equipment.

Wonder how much it would cost to install a wear metal transmitter in the IS engine oil pan with a PLC to monitor and trend it