socalJD

Well, I own stock in the #1 Car Co in the world, and they recommend OCIs of 5k/6mos - does this make it universally true ? Oil type, viscosity, brand, change intervals, etc, etc, have been beaten to death in several threads over the years. Bottom line it boils down to personal preference. I may not agree with Technique's OCI, but at least he posts his findings from a 3rd party source, so its just another data point for those who are **** about maintenance . . .

llamaboiz

err... i really dont know how to feel about this thread... You say you take care of your car, keeping it clean ext/int but not the drivetrain... too each his own... heres a story for you.

I bout a 82 corolla SR-5 from alison onizua (the astronaut) brother, the hood and roof was oxidized to the point of cracking, big rust stain rivers going down the C-pillers on both sides. int., dash had huge cracks, seats were totally (not torn) un threaded... ext/int really really bad shape. BUT i dropped in a fully built *by me in the garage* 18G-R motor (dual mikunis, 13:1 pistons the works), built the trans with all TRD parts, ford shortend 8" rear. This car ran 13.1sec 1/4 times in hawaii with the heat n humidity. I left the outside like crap but really cared for the drivetrain. I am the opposite of you so does this mean i dont take care of my cars?

MY POINT?

You can wear the nicest designer clothes and look great on the outside but be a total **** to others. Its whats inside that impress me cuz the rest is all window dressing after all.

While i doubt you'll do serious harm to you car and it will run fine, i will never buy a car from you.

i3urton

u should use Mobil one advance performace if you don't want to do oil changes so much.... ur right about the dealers messing up ur car. i sent my car in for touch up because it had scratches on the front and those Asses put 50k miles on my car and dirty up my interior with grease and oil on my seat and floor mats.
i have is350 with Hks exhaust.

NGG

Engine oil serves too main purposes: reduces friction and disperses heat. This post addresses the first. Most modern engine oils are designed to withstand enormous friction loads and this is accomplished by various additives. Recent tech has lengthened the life of these properties thus making longer oil change intervals possible. However these additives also keep ingested impurities, carbon etc in suspension so they may drain out and not cause biuld up. As the oil gets overloaded with these abrasive particles its ability to inhibit wear is reduced and tends to plug up the oil filter element redering it useless. Also extended drain periods allows minute metal particles...especially from a new engine to cause unwanted and detrimental wear on surfaces that need minute clearances to operate as designed.

The only way to remove these detrimental particulates is to drain the oil and change the filter at regular intervals. These intervals should be somewhere between what the car manufacturer recommends and what the oil marketers push. Car companies want longer so they can demonstrate lower maintenance costs and oil companies want shorter to sell more product.

Whether you decide on extended intervals or not, it is unwise not to check oil levels periodically, as all motors consume some oil. Low oil levels are detrimental to a motor as there may be insufficient oil to reduce friction and disperse heat.

kingofire

Well, a little of all with Blackstone. First, I saw a lot of virgin oil analysis that blackstone had done that the numbers were way off, as in if that oil got onto the market with those additive levels the wear would be off the roof. You'd think it would trigger the QA dept at blackstone to wonder if the spectro machine was off, but nooooo they just blindly send the reports out without looking at the final result to see if it made sense.(read, they need to hire more employees)

Do me a favor, look at the blackstone thread that was started here with the UOA's posted of 2 users of the same oil. Now look at their universal averages, how come they are so off??? SAME oil, SAME mileage for Universal averages but the numbers are WAY off.

I have read so many UOA's from blackstone that when I analyse their little speal on the top about your engine, it seriously is cookie cutter material. If you have a toyota engine and the wear is low, its always "toyota show the least wear numbers and your toyota is no exception" The one UOA I read in the blackstone thread here had HIGH iron wear, I think it was in the 20's, and Blackstone is recommending to continue with the oil because the tbn wasnt depleted! Other UOA's I read where the oil has thickened or sheared badly but they say to keep on using it. Its a joke and a few very hard core "bobistheoilguy" gurus have voiced this concern too. Lastly, if you look at their viscosity index, its listed as SUS measurement! Who uses SUS nowadays. Please give me the Viscosity in Cst. I dont feel like converting the numbers. If oil companies only use Cst values, shouldnt the oil analysing companies use Cst too. Only blackstone uses SUS values!

The only reason why I like OAI better is because their results tend to be consistent, no fluctuations or variations like blackstone. Is it better than Dyson? Heck NO! Terry Dyson is the best there is when it comes to oil. One thing about his analysis is that you dont have to get the "Dyson Analysis" per se but in my case I use OAI and if my UOA comes in and it looks bad or I cant interpret some of the wear numbers, I can pay him, I think its $20 for him to read the OAI analysis. The best thing about OAI is that for $19, I get the analysis with TBN. With blackstone its $23 for an analysis and I think its an extra $10 to have them perform TBN. I'll stick with OAI and they dont give me a cookie cutter rendition of the oil star spangled banner.

lobuxracer

iTrader: (2)

I can think of quite a few differences between the way I use my oil and the way others do. My last analysis was on a load of oil that saw over 97% highway use for trips not shorter than 100 miles. One very large part was driving from California to Atlanta with only one stop longer than 15 minutes when I overnighted in Dallas, and no intermediate rest stops. The only stops I made were to refuel, purge myself, and get back on the road. 2500 miles in 400 mile continuous chunks at part throttle cruise is just about ideal for extended drain intervals.

That kind of use is FAR easier on the oil than anyone commuting in bumper to bumper traffic, and I would expect I could go much farther with those operating parameters than I could with what I am doing now: a 20 mile commute twice a day, five days a week with occasional bouts of bumper to bumper and lots of traffic lights. So I wasn't particularly surprised by the results I saw.

At the same time, the comments were questionable. I've received completely conflicting comments about the iron level from Blackstone. I have enough knowledge of mass-spectrometry to understand their machine could have some issues, but they should be smart enough to realise they need to perform some maintenance. If they're not, then you are right, I definitely need to find a better UOA company. Truthfully, I'd prefer to use the same company Caterpillar uses, since CAT has a vested interest in keeping their customers running and accurately advising them on when to change oil to avoid failures and downtime. There is nothing worse for business than having an oil related failure on a hospital backup generator.

Anyway, thanks for the input. I'll probably switch to Dyson for my next UOA.

kingofire

lobuxracer, the iron levels on your uoa's are pretty high especially if those miles were all highway and especially if most of those miles came on one long trip. On bobistheoilguy, every uoa of Mobil 1 has high iron wear numbers. My uoa on Mobil 1 EP 5w30 with about 5000 miles had an iron reading of 10. I then switched to Pennzoil 5w30 and sampled it at 4000 miles and my iron reading was 2. Plus my car was smoother and quieter on Pennzoil. If you cant tell I am just not a fan of Mobil 1. FYI, I went to Wallyworld today and the Mobil 1 5qt jugs were priced at $19.94 and Pennzoil Platinum was at $19.97. I couldnt believe my eyes!

lobuxracer

iTrader: (2)

Gory details of the Sacramento - Atlanta roadtrip. I overstated my rest stops. A couple were nearly a half hour. It's not exactly fun doing this alone, but it's not all bad either.

I may need to reconsider my oil selection as well. I've used Red Line in my Supra for more than 10 years (with one exception when I got screwed by a dealership oil change - something I don't normally do) and it still pulls every bit as hard as it did when I got it (and still makes 19 psi of boost on the stock twins). I've built a lot of race bike engines and run them on Red Line with great success, that's why it's in the Supra. I didn't feel like spending $8 a quart for the IS though.

Anyway - this discussion would be great to include in the Blackstone thread.

javyLSU

iTrader: (21)

Another reason lobuxracer's UOA numbers are so different that mine is that we use our cars in very different manners. Lance has a commute, and I don't - my daily commute is 1 mile, so the wear from daily use on my engine oil is quite different than driving cross-country on all freeways.

Javier

kingofire

lobuxracer-wow, those are gory details! $310 in fuel is just amazing and its great that all the numbers are on paper, it puts a lot of things in perspective. You seem like a organized person, I'd have no patience in doing that.
Redline is a great great oil just too expensive and overkill in my opinion but if cost wasnt an issue with me, I'd be using it toooo.

JavyLSU, I agree with you that your commute lies in the extreme direction but I have had that type of a commute too and my iron wear numbers were never even close to 50ppm after 10K miles on oil. I would like both you and lobux to put those UOA's on BITOG and get some feedback from people. I am willing to bet that if you were to change to say PP, Amsoil, GC or Valvoline Maxlife, your iron numbers would probably be less than 10ppm per 5k miles, even if you drive hard and redline it.

Technique

So should I use a different company than blackstone for this thread? I just got back from the beach, my car has about 10,100 miles on it, and I'm going to change the oil this week... I have a blackstone "kit" here that I can use, or I can request a kit from a different company and change the oil when the new kit comes in...

Thoughts?

Technique

OK, no responses... I'm just going to use my blackstone kit then... My next oil change after this one (provided everything looks ok when the results come back) will be in 15k additional miles, so if there is a consensus on a new company, I'll do it then...

lobuxracer

iTrader: (2)

I'm planning to use Dyson for my next sample in about 2000 miles.

It does seem odd though that Dyson has links to BITOG and Blackstone on his website. If Blackstone were so fundamentally poor, you would think Dyson would distance themselves from them.

lobuxracer

iTrader: (2)

One other interesting note...is your sample from a 2GR or some other engine? I would expect iron to be higher in a 2GR compared to an engine with a composite timing belt because there are four cam chains whizzing around and 24 rocker arms driven by a sliding surface in the 2GR. My 2JZ has no cam chain, and uses buckets and shims for valve actuation. 01 tool steel isn't known for giving up its molecules without a fight and there is clearance between the cam and shim when the valve isn't open. This is not true with the 2GR - it has constant contact with the cam and zero lash through oil pressure operated lash eliminators. I can see where the absolute numbers for iron would be significantly higher than other Toyota engines. In fact, I'd expect it to look more like a domestic V-8 than the typical toothed belt cam drive with bucket and shim import engine.

Technique

I think they are partners... Seeing as how Blackstone has the $60 "Dyson" option and a picture of Terry's smiling face on their website...

http://www.blackstone-labs.com/dyson_analysis.html