14 FXT, Castrol 5W-30 D1G2, 5440M on oil

[gathermewool]

82, 255 miles on vehicle
Replaced with the same oil
2nd OFI (OIL FILTER CUT-AND-POST COMING SOON)

Pretty boring. I'll stick with OEM-recommended 7,500 miles from now on.

 

[The Critic]

Looks good. Magnatec supposedly has a higher SA content than the other Castrol synthetic products. Not sure if this is a good or a bad thing, but I guess it depends on your engine design.

 

[tyman]

There we go.

 

[gathermewool]

Not seeing the UOA?

Sorry about that. Accidentally put up the .pdf with all of my personal info.

 

[tyman]

Looks pretty good...viscosity is showing extremely low-end of the ranges though.

 

[gathermewool]

Looks pretty good...viscosity is showing extremely low-end of the ranges though.

You should see Subaru 5W-30 and 1st UOA. All 20's in short order.

This interval is a mix of extremely short and very few longer drives due to COVID.

The last oil change was 7MAR2020

 

[tyman]

You should see Subaru 5W-30 and 1st UOA. All 20's in short order.

This interval is a mix of extremely short and very few longer drives due to COVID.

The last oil change was 7MAR2020

Eek

 

[gathermewool]

Eek

I'm also surprised that there's no fuel - the dipstick always smells like it when the level is checked.

I know BS is inferred, not actual fuel, but still.

 

[JohnnyJohnson]

Looking at the remaining viscosity I'd say with a turbo it was about done. Fuel dilution and flash point look pretty good.

 

[wemay]

Excellent wear numbers! Thanks for posting

 

[gathermewool]

I think I'll stick with 7,500 miles, which is what the owner's manual calls for. I've actually been doing just about that for the life of the vehicle. This OCI is the exception. IF there were issues going longer with simlar oil, I'd expect some residual wear products to possibly show in this report.

 

[bluesubie]

Cobb AP (OTS tune?) and a FA20DIT? Oh yeah, there's some fuel dilution in there. Good uoa though. I wouldn't push the OCI much farther than that, regardless of what anyone says. Been there, done that and waiting for contributions to my failed turbo fund. Yes, a 2004 FXT is a different animal though in that regard.

I didn't trust you on the 7,500 mile interval so I looked it up. Remind me, what changed from 2014 (7,500 mile max interval) to 2015 (6,000 mile max interval)? Wasn't that when the oil burning on the n/a engines got really bad? Otherwise, not really any changes that I recall.

 

[gathermewool]

Cobb AP (OTS tune?) and a FA20DIT? Oh yeah, there's some fuel dilution in there. Good uoa though. I wouldn't push the OCI much farther than that, regardless of what anyone says. Been there, done that and waiting for contributions to my failed turbo fund. Yes, a 2004 FXT is a different animal though in that regard.

I didn't trust you on the 7,500 mile interval so I looked it up. Remind me, what changed from 2014 (7,500 mile max interval) to 2015 (6,000 mile max interval)? Wasn't that when the oil burning on the n/a engines got really bad? Otherwise, not really any changes that I recall.

As far as I know, the only difference between '14 and '15 was a TOO-late response to oil burning by Subaru. It was a blanket change, AFAIK.

You're still hung up on that turbo huh? When WILL you get over that?

Maybe you're right. Since when is 2.5 a good TBN, right?

Compromise: 6k OCI's and no more UOA.

Now I'm debating whether to change the oil in my FB25-powered Legacy at 6k miles or 10k miles. when I do drive it, it's usually 11 miles one-way to work. mostly highway.

 

[bluesubie]

I agree that 6k is probably reasonable. I’ve stuck with 5k intervals on the FXT since the turbo failure running mainly xW-40 and have put another 128k on the car and stopped doing uoa’s.

I’m also sticking with 5k intervals in the Outback and some turbo owners are changing every 3k miles. There are only a few uoa’s out there and some RC 5W-30’s have shown the same used viscosity as 0W-20’s. Even a hair lower in once case and some 0W-20’s are coming back as a 16 grade.

I’m surprised that you don’t want to try an oil with a higher HTHS since you have the AP. Although there are a lot of good uoa’s on this engine running RC oils posted at NASIOC and the FA20DIT does seem to do better on RC oil than the EJ does.

A lot of us FA24DIT owners feel like guinea pigs running 0W-20. My dealer said they haven’t seen any issues in the Ascent running 0W-20 when I asked a year ago. I need to follow up on that question.

 

[gathermewool]

@bluesubie

Are you planning on getting the AP and going Stage 1 or more? I see they offer it for you, but not the Legacy XT - weird...

Can you recommend a lower-SAPS oil with higher HTHS?

/

RE: HTHS: I'm more concerned with LSPI, since I personally experienced knocking in this engine a few years ago when they were handing out ECM updates like candy to fix everything from long/hard-starts to CVT issues to LSPI. I honestly should have done a UOA back then instead of now, but it never happened again and the engine has been purring along nicely ever since. I do see some excessive fuel trims, but no one was willing to help when I posted logs here and on NASIOC.

This is my second run of a D1G2 oil, so I was curious to see how it was handling the loads. It looks good, so I think it's fair to say that at least this standard HTHS oil is working well under these conditions.

Luckily, this is my wife's car. I'm not sure if the 2.4 is, but the FA20DIT is a boost-happy engine. My wife is almost always in boost, but low boost (i.e., less around 4-9#). When I drive 9 is usually the min boost while accelerating. That's partly because I love to hear the turbo and partly to give it an italian tuneup every time I drive it, since she does a lot of short trips (I drive on longer trips).

 

[bluesubie]

@bluesubie

Are you planning on getting the AP and going Stage 1 or more? I see they offer it for you, but not the Legacy XT - weird...

Can you recommend a lower-SAPS oil with higher HTHS?

/

RE: HTHS: I'm more concerned with LSPI, since I personally experienced knocking in this engine a few years ago when they were handing out ECM updates like candy to fix everything from long/hard-starts to CVT issues to LSPI. I honestly should have done a UOA back then instead of now, but it never happened again and the engine has been purring along nicely ever since. I do see some excessive fuel trims, but no one was willing to help when I posted logs here and on NASIOC.

This is my second run of a D1G2 oil, so I was curious to see how it was handling the loads. It looks good, so I think it's fair to say that at least this standard HTHS oil is working well under these conditions.

Luckily, this is my wife's car. I'm not sure if the 2.4 is, but the FA20DIT is a boost-happy engine. My wife is almost always in boost, but low boost (i.e., less around 4-9#). When I drive 9 is usually the min boost while accelerating. That's partly because I love to hear the turbo and partly to give it an italian tuneup every time I drive it, since she does a lot of short trips (I drive on longer trips).

Actually the AP isn’t ready for the Outback or Legacy XT yet. IIRC, Cobb was having difficulty cracking the ECM because it’s different than the Ascent.

Actually just checked Facebook and they’re having transmission issues.
“...We're trying to sort through some transmission behavior issues with Outback XT tuning at the moment”.

I’m on the fence about, but will probably be more encouraged when people start talking about the improvements, especially CVT improvements!

Not sure if you’ve seen the 2015+ WRX UOA thread on nasioc, but there are quite a few good UOA’s on M1 ESP and Motul X-clean. IAG Performance recommends X-clean EFE on built WRX’s.

https://www.iagperformance.com/content/documents/Engine-After-Sale-Shipping-Doc.pdf

Then there’s RT6 MV and there’s at least one FXT UOA on it here.