'01 Audi S4: Redline 5W-30 vs Mobil 1 0W-40 test results

funkadelic · Feb 23, 2004

Hi,

I recently received my oil analysis back from OAI for my Mobil 1 0W-40 and charted it up to compare against a previous Redline 5W-30 analysis.

Car: 2001 Audi S4 (Stage II+, ie. running aftermarket chip + downpipes, stock turbos)

Redline 5W-30:
Mileage: ~42,000 miles
Sample date: 11/19/2002
Oil: Redline 5W30
Time on oil: 10,000 miles

Mobil 1 0W-40
Mileage: 62,440 miles
Sample date: 1/24/2004
Oil: Mobil 1 0W40
Time on oil: 10,000 miles

redline 5W-30 is the 2nd column, mobil 1 0W-40 is the 3rd column. i've put it up in html here as well: http://funkadelic.org/oil_analysis/

Spectrochemical Analysis
Aluminum 5 3
Barium 0 0
Boron 7 80
Calcium 2788 2395
Chromium 2 1
Copper 11 10
Iron 6 12
Magnesium 89 23
Molybdenum 447 68
Silicon 4 9
Silver 0 0
Sodium 18 25
Nickel 0 0
Phosphorus 953 954
Potassium 0 0
Lead 5 3
Tin 0 0
Titanium 0 0
Vanadium 0 0
Zinc 1358 1086
Physical Properties
Glycol Neg Neg
Water % 0 0
Fuel % Vol VIS @ 40C cSt n/a n/a
VIS @ 100C cSt 12.25 11.82
Soot/Solids % Vol n/a n/a
Oil Degradation
Total base number TBN 4.92 4.57
Oxidation 21.0 20.0
Nitration 19.0 19.0

any thoughts? i'm new to the oil analysis game so I'm curious to know what you all think of these two oils based on the analysis results

thanks

TR3-2001SE · Feb 23, 2004

I think this conferms what we all seem to know. Mobil 1 is a great oil and the 0w-40 seems to shear rather easily to a 30w oil. Red line is also a great oil but in this case the two are close but mobil 1 showed less ware except for iron. We know mobil 1 doesn't handle iron so well.

TooSlick · Feb 23, 2004

Redline is showing much better valvetrain protection but significantly higher bearing wear. That's very typical of what I normally see for these two oils.

Both sets of results are fine, but I'd go with Redline in this case. The lead wear w/ RL may drop with continued use, but Mobil 1 will never match those iron levels with the chemistry they use in the 0w-40. The Mobil 1, 15w-50 probably could, but you'd give up some performance and fuel efficiency.

More than anything else, this really shows that the 2.7L, bi-turbo Audi V-6 is one great engine....

buster · Feb 23, 2004

I agree with TS on this one. RL is also more shear stable. I'd give Amsoil a shot too.

Mobil 1 0w-40 is just a bad idea to begin with trying to cover that.

Quattro Pete · Feb 23, 2004

to BITOG!

Heh, it only took you like a year to finally post here? Must be all that bling bling that's slowing you down.

As for the analysis, both reports look good, but the Redline looks better, IMO. Don't like that shearing down of M1 0w-40. God only knows what gets deposited inside the engine while this shearing occurs. Because of that, it is also my last interval on this oil. I'll be going with GC 0w-30 starting with next oil change.

Also, I noticed your silicon going up, although it's still low enough not to be worried. Did you replace your air filter recently or something?

And I also agree with TooSlick about how well-designed these engines are, despite the abuse they frequently see. It seems that no matter what oil you put in them, they just shine. Yours and PaJohn's results are a great proof of that.

Thanks for sharing these UOAs with us.

Jay · Feb 23, 2004

Both are great reports. Thanks for the comparison.

Last_Z · Feb 23, 2004

I think this proves that Mobil make good oils with good additive packages. It also shows the 0W-40 does shear in some engines and/or situations. The difference is so small, It's a statistical dead heat. Good reports!

sprintman · Feb 23, 2004

I'd really like this comparison to have been RL 5W40 compared to the M1 0W40. Maybe less bearing wear?

funkadelic · Feb 24, 2004

quote:

Originally posted by Quattro Pete:
Heh, it only took you like a year to finally post here? Must be all that bling bling that's slowing you down.

yeah i registered way back probably because i was going to post something but never got around to it

quote:

As for the analysis, both reports look good, but the Redline looks better, IMO. Don't like that shearing down of M1 0w-40. God only knows what gets deposited inside the engine while this shearing occurs. Because of that, it is also my last interval on this oil. I'll be going with GC 0w-30 starting with next oil change.

could you elaborate on shearing? what numbers are you looking @ to determine that? this oil n00b is still trying to make sense of all these numbers

quote:

Also, I noticed your silicon going up, although it's still low enough not to be worried. Did you replace your air filter recently or something?

i haven't touched the air filter at all (though I do plan on doing the stock airbox mod that others have had success with). I was Stage II on the Redline sample, and then went went to Stage II+ (stage II+ means chip + exhaust + downpipes for those that aren't familiar w/S4s...Stage II is just chip+exhaust) and added an APR bipipe since then but that's all i've changed since the original Redline analysis.

[ February 24, 2004, 06:49 PM: Message edited by: funkadelic ]

Alan · Feb 24, 2004

Somebody yanked the valve cover off an V6 Audi ran with 5W50 for 100K with no sludge.The M1 0W40 shows good UOA's and thins very little.

Pretty much all the Redline 5W30 UOA's show the 30W end being very high,borderline 40W like in this case.

Motorbike · Feb 24, 2004

It appears based on retail prices the Mobil does the same job in this engine at approximately 1/2 the cost when it's all said and done .

Thanks for sharing this with us .

Quattro Pete · Feb 24, 2004

To get an idea whether the oil sheared or not, you compare it's original viscosity at 100C to your used oil viscosity at 100C. M1 0w-40 starts out at around 14.3 cSt, and yours was at 11.82. This means the oil sheared, or thinned out from a mid 40-weight grade to a 30-weight. You might want to have a look at the Viscosity Chart at http://www.bobistheoilguy.com to get an idea of the relationship between oil grades and their respective viscosity ranges in different units of measure.

Generally, we'd expect a high quality synthetic oil (such as M1) that claims ACEA A3 (stable, stay-in-grade) certification to actually stay in grade.

However, if you look through the UOA reports of M1 0w-40 from turbocharged applications, you'll see that most of the time it tends to shear down somewhat. Not a terrible thing, but it could be better.

I'll leave the chemical/physical definition of shearing to our in-house chemists (or you can just search the archives), but while an oil shears, it may deposit crud/sludge inside the engine. However, in your case, soot/solids appear to be nil (or was it just not tested?), so it's most likely a non-issue.

Finally, I'd like to point out again that by any standard, both of your UOA reports look very good, and many of us can only wish that our engines were as clean as yours. We are oil geeks here and we're just nitpicking.

More importantly with UOA, it is the trend analysis over time that provides the most value. You have now established a reference point (a very impressive one at that

). By comparing your future UOAs to this reference point, you'll be able to quickly notice if there are any abnormalities (drastic changes in some figures) which will help you determine if maybe you're getting fuel contamination, coolant seep, or other, and fix it before it becomes a big problem and costs you lost of money.

Also, consider Blackstone Labs with Terry Dyson package in the future. You'll get Blackstone's results interpretation as well as Terry's professional interpretation. Terry posts here on BITOG as well and has a lot of experience in this field. I'm not bashing Oil Analyzers by any means, but if you'd like to know what your UOA means and how to make your engine healthier, Terry is your guy.

Sorry for this long post.

moribundman · Feb 24, 2004

quote:

Somebody yanked the valve cover off an V6 Audi ran with 5W50 for 100K with no sludge.The M1 0W40 shows good UOA's and thins very little.

I did that. And the oil I had been using all that time was the "beloved" Castrol Syntec 5W-50.

Schmoe · Feb 24, 2004

quote:

Originally posted by TooSlick:
Redline is showing much better valvetrain protection but significantly higher bearing wear.

What? valvetrain protection? I'm lost.
Interesting. Lead is lower with M1 but yet RL uses the be-jesus out of moly. Somethings making the lead wear, and it's not the silicon. Plus, RL is using lots more zinc, still higher silicon. M1 has the common tell-tale iron problem, but lower lead also. I'd stick with the M1, also a lot easier to get.

zoomzoom · Feb 25, 2004

Quattro Pete did you have any oil consumption with M1 0W-40?

Quattro Pete · Feb 25, 2004

None that I've noticed.

zoomzoom · Feb 25, 2004

So M1 0W-40 has a tendency to shear down but it does not evaporates?

Quattro Pete · Feb 25, 2004

I'd associate thickening up more with evaporation rather than thinning, but that's just my gut feeling. I really have no idea why one would be associated with the other. Some people did report oil loss with M1 0w-40 though, but I'm not sure whether this was because their engines generally consumed oil or not.

Also, my M1 0w-40 was never analyzed, so I can't claim or deny that it sheared in my engine. I'm just referring to other UOAs of this oil in turbo cars posted on BITOG.

'01 Audi S4: Redline 5W-30 vs Mobil 1 0W-40 test results

Similar threads