07 Kia Rondo 5236 mi 7 months unknown oil

[Brons2]

I say unknown oil, because I took it to a local non-chain oil change place with an OEM filter because I just didn't have the time or the space with a remodeling going on at my house.

I watched them like a hawk and they were about to pour something that looked like 10w40 in and I stopped them and said "I asked for 5w20!". (The bulk tanks only looked like they had 10w30 and 10w40 on the pulldown spigots). So they went in the back room and emerged with something that looked like a 5 qt bottle of Motorcraft 5w20. I said, ok, sounds good.

So for the last 7 months I let this oil ride, the longest and I mean longest time wise that I have ever left an oil in my car. Finally changed it out with 5236 miles last week. To say I was a bit surprised when I got these results from Holt Caterpillar would be an understatement.

Cu 1
Fe 16
Cr 0
Al 3
Pb 0
Sn 0
Si 22
Na 157
K 0
B 25
Mo 50
Ca 3026
Mg 58
Zn 943
P 764

ST 0
OXI 20
NIT 12
SUL 27
W N
A N
F N
V100 9.9
TBN 4.0

What the heck is this oil? 9.9 cSt? Ca 3000+? ZN 943?? Motorcraft 10w30???

Oddly, I probably could have kept it in for the full 7500 with a 4.0 TBN still, but I'm still not happy about being deceived by this small neighborhood oil change facility. I don't know what was in the bottle of MC 5w20, but it wasn't all MC 5w20. They might have mixed a couple of quarts of 10w40 in, who knows.

Other thoughts: This is the highest Fe I have had in a 5000ish mile run but every other metal is among the lowest. And I need to replace my air filter it looks like, the last 3 UOA's on this filter had much lower Si.

 

[modularv8]

After several analysis with Holt-Cat, I don't trust their results. They primarily do batch testing for heavy equipment operators (diesel bull dozers) and I have been in their labs standing right next to their instruments and technicians. From my experience and observations, there appears to be cross contamination with the diesel samples. My results have always been skewed and not made any sense, even with voa samples. I believe I also read a bulletin they posted about recycling solvents used in UOAs. I think this may be partially the source of their problem.

 

[bourne]

It definitely looks like cross-contamination. The addpack makes no sense. Most of the companies use either MG or CA in their oil. And then boron, moly and zinc are all over the place. Not to mention haveing sodium as a detergent too.

it looks like someone saw all the "good" addpack metals and threw them together in a pot and made an oil out of that.

And yes that is definitely not a 20w oil, and given that this is a UOA, im sure the starting VISC was even higher at 100c.

 

[Brons2]

Who provides a UOA service at a similar price with better quality? I think Blackstone is too expensive, $35 with TBN.

 

[fdcg27]

Polaris.
Wix on Amazon for next to nothing.