Oliver Enterprises

All good points. Your consideration of the filter would tend to give me pause as well. And I certainly agree with you about life getting in the way of an OCI. I've been 500 miles from an oil change, with a 1,200 mile road trip to happen in a day or 2, and just didn't have time to prep and do the work. So, I see where you're coming from...

Doublebase

Just based off oil analysis posted on bobs the oil guy. And then reading through the posts on the threads. I can't remember the exact moly count but it certainly was lower than before. Someone suggested that maybe they are now using a higher quality moly and thus the reason for the lower numbers, not sure about that one.

Doublebase

II wasn't all that recent, and it was on bobs the oil guy. Yeah I'd be curious to see what a virgin sample would look like right now.

danielTRLK

More limited than Blackstone.

88ppm for the Moly in regular mobil 1. I dislike Moly in oils, makes it tough to read piston rings and compression rings as they wear.

All of these samples come back limited. There is no indication for fuel, water, active additive, oxidation, nitration, viscosity at 40c, the index, and a few others. Seeing ppms of any additive has little meaning if you can't tell if it's active.

Whoever said that most oils are the same is truthfully right. Exxon and Shell both co-own Infinuem. Infinuem makes the additives and formulations for just about........everyone........Most off the shelf oils are almost identical in performance

Doublebase

I believe blackstone provides an indicator to let you know how much active additives you have remaining, is it TBN or TAN? I can't remember, but they give you oil change interval length advise based off that figure (and other things). Not that I use blackstone - I just change my oil between 5-7k regardless.

danielTRLK

It's optional to purchase TBN for $10, which measures the base stocks ability to fight acid, put simply. The problem with TBN is that it's neither reflective of the additive packs in the oil, nor do most base stocks break down before the additive does. The additives will almost always be depleted, before the base stock is no longer holding up.

Blackstone is a very bad guide for OCI length, they don't have much data nor do they know how to interpret it properly. On other posts here, I routinely have caught Blackstone making large mistakes. They're nice people though.

To measure additives, you need something called FTIR. FTIR shows you the oil at the molecular level vs. the atomic level. Allowing you to see, if that 2500ppm of zinc/phos is really active or if it's depleted. You can have 2500ppm of zinc and have sheared out additives that no longer function.

Doublebase

Interesting and I've read that these reports do little in helpi you understand if your engine is wearing normally, that true? Supposedly their tests can't pick up metals that are larger, therefore you wouldn't know if things like rings, etc where actually wearing. I don't know if that's true or not because if rings were wearing abnormally, wouldn't the smaller particles be in larger numbers? I would think that would indicate something.

But like I said I don't use any analysis on my oil, I just buy whatever brand name is on sale and change it between 5-7k miles (and I'm a lot closer to 5k than 7k). Truthfully in most cars the body and subframe will rust away before the engine will have internal problems. There are millions of cars in the junkyards with engines that are fine, it's everything else you need to worry about. Lol.

danielTRLK

No, it's just Blackstone really doesn't know what they're doing. the wear metals are done on an ICP machine so between 1-5 microns is what it will read. If you have wear bigger than 5 microns, ya got a big problem, literally LOL.

Blackstone doesn't have enough background to make sense of what's happening to give you good advice, ever notice all there reports say the same? 0% fuel, go longer, oil looks good. Never once have I seen them suggest a corrective action. What's the point of UOA then? Alas, they don't care, people keep coming to them. Maybe it's because they make people feel good about their cars and oil.

I beg to differ, lots of issues on cars today. Ecoboost, GDI's, TDI's to name a few. Popping engines at 100K like crazy.

Doublebase

I have noticed that, their reports all sort of sound the same.

And you're right, over the past five years or so there has been a lot of engine problems creeping up from various manufacturers. What we have witnessed is new technology that hasn't been refined yet...direct injection, light weight oils, cylinder shut off, turbos, higher compression, less ring tension...on and on for the never ending quest to improve fuel economy and get the most performance out of tiny engines as possible. And the owners are paying the price. But they will figure it out and we will look back at this time period and say...remember when direct injection first came out and manufactures were trying to meet CAFE regulations? Those were tough times.

danielTRLK

Not sure where that came out of, I've been trying to explain to many on this forum that is exactly what's happening. It's usually happening after 100,000 and lots of people on this forum don't keep cars that long. so the third and forth owners get the car dumped on them. This is why oil, fuel and filter selection are so critical.

satiger

iTrader: (1)

Well said. Few years of ownership doesn't require good quality oil/fuel/fluids. But if one is planning to keep past 100k especially past 200k, these play a big role. Combined 450k miles on my ES and GX, both absolutely don't have leak, burning oil, discoloration etc etc..

Absolute test to such condition is to take the car to dealership and have them do an inspection on what needs to be repaired/replaced. As one can expect, they would fill in paperwork with all possible things that can be done hoping owner would approve at least half of those if not all. If they report tire may need a replacement or brake components need a replacement, it speaks volumes . On ES they reported tires may need change in future during last oil changes, on GX nothing!.

I attribute that condition first to Toyota engineering then to maintaining them with good quality oil/fluids and OEM parts.

I got to disagree on one point mentioned in this thread, that all oils are same. They are NOT. Same goes with fuels, no two brand fuels are same ( I posted a long reply while back explaining how refining industry works) . I always like to try something new. Few times I use Castrol Edge in my GX. One of the best oil I have used. GX loves that oil. During cold start and in drive, it purrs like a kitten. I couldn't even hear that massive V8 inside the cabin. None of other oils exhibit the same behavior in GX. However ES didn't show that kind of different behavior with Castrol Edge.

GX was so much quite with Castrol Edge, my Uncle who rode in GX and LS said that GX seems much quitter than LS !!!!. I couldn't disagree with him because I felt the same.

danielTRLK

Acoustic theory is what you are experiencing and this is valid but it doesn't mean the engine is performing any better. It just means quieter, this doesn't translate into less wear.

Most off the shelf oils while chemically not 100% identical, typically perform the same. This is because the company that makes them is making cookie cutter formulas that work on a broad variety of vehicles, requirements, etc. Every vehicle responds differently to different oils, so UOA is the only true way to tell if there's been an increase in performance or decrease.

Anyways, looks like electric will seize a large portion of the market soon anyways.

Persocon

I used to believe different oil is just marketing but if all oils are the same, why does my engine (140k mi) completely stops consuming when I switched to TGMO 0w20, and I have experimented with mobil,royal purple, liquimoly, between those brands also switched between 0w20, 0w30 none of them stops oil consumption. Only case was slowing consumption, when I added 1.7 quarts of Rislone engine treatment, but it only slowed the consumption rate down to 1/3 quart every 1,000 mi

danielTRLK

well you'll never know if you don't have a UOA done by an analyst who knows what he's doing.

2. If that oil provides solid ring seal that others couldn't provide then that's why. RP, Mobil 1 and liquidmoly are nothing spectacular. They're like cheap android phones. It's why UOA is needed, so you can see what oil you need.

for the most part off the shelf oils are mostly the same. While there are some differences they mostly perform the same.

Persocon

I do have a UOA done on the mobil 0w20 but from what others have said about blackstone, I doubt it's useful.