2 Valvoline Restore & Protect tests

[SubieRubyRoo]

Interesting post. Thanks. For a low cost Group III Full Synthetic Dexos 1 Gen 3 rated oil like Walmart's Supertech Full Synthetic 5W-30, what would you view as a safe extended oil change interval?

Safe intervals are always dependent on two things: engine family and use scenario.

No two vehicles are exactly the same, so the only way to know for absolutely certain is to test your own vehicle if your intentions are to maximize the OCI. My truck easily went 16k miles on one oil. Your truck & habits may only go 12k before something goes out of grade.

 

[ThirdeYe]

Would be very interesting to see what happens with the K24. Mine also burns about a quart every 1k or so, and has like clockwork since I bought it in 2016. Granted, it has a lot more miles than the one you're testing, but it also hasn't gotten any worse. I've tried many different brands, and thicker grades to no avail.

 

[loneryder]

OP has been here long enough that I'm willing to bet he knows all about HPL.

OP is being good enough to take stuff apart and show pics. This is a good test.

Yes. Thank you Avery4!!

 

[FlyPenFly]

20 years since I registered on Bob.

20 years later, we're still talking about oil change intervals.

love it.

 

[porterdog]

20 years since I registered on Bob.

20 years later, we're still talking about oil change intervals.

love it.

+1

 

[Analog-1]

Lot of BS on these forums to not to mention way to many children.

 

[816guy]

Would be very interesting to see what happens with the K24. Mine also burns about a quart every 1k or so, and has like clockwork since I bought it in 2016. Granted, it has a lot more miles than the one you're testing, but it also hasn't gotten any worse. I've tried many different brands, and thicker grades to no avail.

Here's what kind of worked on our K24. Now this is the typical "throw crap at a wall and see what sticks." I am fully owning the fact this means nothing, and it could just be luck at play, or nothing, one thing, or the synergy of things.

Tried and not too helpful:
5W-30 oils
Any kind of high mileage oil

Tried and moderately helpful:
1. Ran a full bottle of Berryman B60 through it after a fresh oil change with Kirkland 0W-20. Ran it 3,000 miles. Changed oil and filter. Slight reduction in oil consumption.

2. Cleaned out PCV. It was working, but cleaned it with some gun carbon cleaner.

3. Did a change of Valvoline R&P with fresh filter after number 1. Used 5W-30 since it's hot, and we were doing a lot of family trips on the highway at high speeds with tons of crap in the car so this pathetic engine under high load. So far 2000 miles on that. The engine oil always smells of fuel, more so than my other Hondas, so I just don't have confidence it's not diluting the oil with unburned fuel hence the 5w-30.

Over 6 months, the combination of 1+3 did seem to help mitigate oil consumption from the 1 liter per 1k miles down to about 500ml in 1500 miles. I don't expect it will ever be "fixed." It's high mileage. The engine seems to be mostly content with the 30W oils.

Fuel economy over this period went from 19mpg (below EPA rating) to 22mpg (still slightly below) with identical driver and driving.

I don't really see the cost benefit to doing a lot of oil testing and diagnosis on this since I don't want to pour a bunch of money into an old car approaching 170,000 miles. I'll try the mechanic in a bottle if the price is right and the risk is low. But I'm at the point where I don't see much else to throw at this. Might as well be a sucker for marketing and do 20,000 on the R&P doing 5k changes to see what happens.

 

[Avery4]

Here's what kind of worked on our K24. Now this is the typical "throw crap at a wall and see what sticks." I am fully owning the fact this means nothing, and it could just be luck at play, or nothing, one thing, or the synergy of things.

Tried and not too helpful:
5W-30 oils
Any kind of high mileage oil

Tried and moderately helpful:
1. Ran a full bottle of Berryman B60 through it after a fresh oil change with Kirkland 0W-20. Ran it 3,000 miles. Changed oil and filter. Slight reduction in oil consumption.

2. Cleaned out PCV. It was working, but cleaned it with some gun carbon cleaner.

3. Did a change of Valvoline R&P with fresh filter after number 1. Used 5W-30 since it's hot, and we were doing a lot of family trips on the highway at high speeds with tons of crap in the car so this pathetic engine under high load. So far 2000 miles on that. The engine oil always smells of fuel, more so than my other Hondas, so I just don't have confidence it's not diluting the oil with unburned fuel hence the 5w-30.

Over 6 months, the combination of 1+3 did seem to help mitigate oil consumption from the 1 liter per 1k miles down to about 500ml in 1500 miles. I don't expect it will ever be "fixed." It's high mileage. The engine seems to be mostly content with the 30W oils.

Fuel economy over this period went from 19mpg (below EPA rating) to 22mpg (still slightly below) with identical driver and driving.

I don't really see the cost benefit to doing a lot of oil testing and diagnosis on this since I don't want to pour a bunch of money into an old car approaching 170,000 miles. I'll try the mechanic in a bottle if the price is right and the risk is low. But I'm at the point where I don't see much else to throw at this. Might as well be a sucker for marketing and do 20,000 on the R&P doing 5k changes to see what happens.

Very interesting, thanks for sharing! I cleaned the PCV valve on my friend's CRV when we changed the oil last time with the M1 EP 5W-30 and it didn't seem to help.

It's interesting you oil smells like fuel. My K24A2's oil doesn't really smell like fuel, it just has the typical used oil smell. It hardly ever sees short trips though, most of my trips are 10-25+ miles of mostly cruising. I wouldn't expect a healthy port injected K series to dilute the oil with the possible exception of repeated short trips. They are generally known for being easy on oil.

From everything I've seen, it doesn't look like the K series engines normally actually wear the rings out. It seems like the majority of the oil consumption problems are just caused by clogged/stuck rings.

Not sure of the mileage, but I tore down and refreshed my junkyard K24A2 several years ago before swapping it into my Civic and the rings, grooves, and oil drain back holes were quite clogged and nasty, but the pistons, rings, and cylinders were in great shape and it burns no noticeable oil, but judging by the heavy carbon on the rings and totally clogged oil drainback holes, I suspect it was an oil burner before I cleaned it up.

All the internals are original. I just cleaned everything up, changed all the seals and gaskets, installed an RSX oil pump to eliminate the balance shafts, and installed the OEM K20Z3 oil cooler setup for piece of mind. Zero signs of problems so far.

 

[BrendanC]

Would be very interesting to see what happens with the K24. Mine also burns about a quart every 1k or so, and has like clockwork since I bought it in 2016. Granted, it has a lot more miles than the one you're testing, but it also hasn't gotten any worse. I've tried many different brands, and thicker grades to no avail.

having reduced the oil consumption on one accord to near zero and in the process (with good progress) on another, here is what i reccomend.


drive the car around for a while until nice and hot. do a hot berrymans B-12 piston soak for as long as you can afford to have the car down. then dump BG 109 EPR into sump. let run at 2K RPM for 20-30 minutes. immediately shut down and drain oil/change filter. fill with 4 quarts Valvoline R&P + 1 quart HPL EC30. run for 6k miles changing the oil filter at 3k miles. make sure to run quite a bit of Techron or redline SI-1 as well.

this combo reduced the 2003 accord in my sig from 1 quart/500 miles to 0.5 quarts over 10K miles (running HPL PCEO 5w-40 now). the 05 was burning 1 quart almost every drive. it’s significantly reduced now, but i am still in the VRP+EC30 run on this one. oil filters that i have removed have had tons of gunk in them.

 

[Patrick0525]

having reduced the oil consumption on one accord to near zero and in the process (with good progress) on another, here is what i reccomend.


drive the car around for a while until nice and hot. do a hot berrymans B-12 piston soak for as long as you can afford to have the car down. then dump BG 109 EPR into sump. let run at 2K RPM for 20-30 minutes. immediately shut down and drain oil/change filter. fill with 4 quarts Valvoline R&P + 1 quart HPL EC30. run for 6k miles changing the oil filter at 3k miles. make sure to run quite a bit of Techron or redline SI-1 as well.

this combo reduced the 2003 accord in my sig from 1 quart/500 miles to 0.5 quarts over 10K miles (running HPL PCEO 5w-40 now). the 05 was burning 1 quart almost every drive. it’s significantly reduced now, but i am still in the VRP+EC30 run on this one. oil filters that i have removed have had tons of gunk in them.

Keep us updated. Nice work!

 

[jetman]

oil filters that i have removed have had tons of gunk in them.

did you post pics of the filters cut apart here @ BITOG?

 

[BrendanC]

did you post pics of the filters cut apart here @ BITOG?

the one following the EPR flush.

+11

OG Fram Titanium FS7317 C&P

• BrendanC
• Jun 24, 2024
• 20

filter used for 300 miles with PUP and HPL EC30 + a 30 minute at 2k rpm BG EPR flush.

the one after 1.5k miles on VRP and EC30 i butchered being in a hurry so i didn’t take photos, it had tons of large carbon chunks in the dome end.

 

[Triple_Se7en]

Thanks to everyone who've forwarded their comments, on their personal use of this new product.

 

[SubieRubyRoo]

There you go, see, not such a big deal but even a mod in here jumping on the "OMG SOMEONE QUESTIONED HPL AHHHHHHH" train.

Questioning is fine & valid. We’ve learned a lot not only about their products but also other blenders. We’ve even got professional confirmation that some competitors’ oils are really really good especially at the WM shelf price point.

We do know that ANs & specific esters do cleaning; that’s verified by third party white papers and other testing. The fact that we haven’t seen many significant cleaning pics is more on board members for not documenting… and I know that’s a hard pill to swallow for most, since engine bays these days are so cramped and cluttered that it may take several hours to get valve covers off and back on.

I am in the group that I’d like to see these pics to verify cleaning, and if I had an engine that had been run on other oils long enough and caused sludge/varnish and was easy to open, I would. But an EcoBoost and two Boxers that have been run on top tier oils their whole lives… doesn’t sound fun.

 

[Vorlauf]

Questioning is fine & valid. We’ve learned a lot not only about their products but also other blenders. We’ve even got professional confirmation that some competitors’ oils are really really good especially at the WM shelf price point.

We do know that ANs & specific esters do cleaning; that’s verified by third party white papers and other testing. The fact that we haven’t seen many significant cleaning pics is more on board members for not documenting… and I know that’s a hard pill to swallow for most, since engine bays these days are so cramped and cluttered that it may take several hours to get valve covers off and back on.

I am in the group that I’d like to see these pics to verify cleaning, and if I had an engine that had been run on other oils long enough and caused sludge/varnish and was easy to open, I would. But an EcoBoost and two Boxers that have been run on top tier oils their whole lives… doesn’t sound fun.

I'm with you, & made the decision to run an HPL experiment with my old 93 Rodeo. I initially had no interest in running boutique oil in such an old beater, but realized it was a prime candidate for the claims. This motor has a bunch of heavy varnish that I've posted pics of in the past, & made the decision to run HPL for the long run in attempt to clean it up. I recently posted a c&p of a Pentius UFXL filter from it @ about 3k miles into its 1st oci. The varnish still looks the same, so didn't post pics through the fill hole. However, I'm not expecting to see significant visible improvement for quite some time based on the conversations I had with Dave. Like 40k miles. Though I was surprised by how much carbon was collected in the filter media for 3k miles into its 1st run. I was more so curious as to how well the Pentius filter was holding up because I got the case for cheap & no previous experience with them. A little over $50 on Amazon, & they are basically a spitting image of MicroGard Select/ PremiumGuard Extended Life. Very happy with them. Would easily do 10k miles in ideal conditions, but was starting to load up pretty good with carbon & glad I pulled it. The oil still looked really clean, so I topped off & threw on a leftover Fram Endurance. I'm planning on 10k mile oci's, but will dump the sump for fresh if it starts to get cruddy on the stick. The plan is to post pictures of filters on its HPL journey, & through the fill hole if the varnish starts to noticeably clean up. Not planning on taking the valve covers off unless something needs repairing. The plenum that sits between them & everything connected makes that a project in itself on this vehicle, unlike my Civic. This vehicle isn't my daily driver, so it will take time as long as it's running, but will post pictures as things progress. Had the R&P come out before I switched over to HPL, I would have probably gone that route considering cost. That said, I'm happy I chose HPL as you can't beat their customer service, & for the length of the oci the cost is not bad at all for top tier. Especially if you buy when they have 25% off deals like I did.

 

[Avery4]

So far, no improvements on my friend's CRV. After about 1500 miles, it's down by about 1.5 quarts, so the rate of consumption hasn't changed yet. But it is being topped off with R&P and the plan is to stick with it for future oil changes, so time will tell if anything changes. The color of the oil is a little on the dark side for the mileage, so that might be a sign of cleaning.

As for the Legend, I put about 1K miles on it since the first picture and there have been no obvious changes in the way anything looks, but it seems like the carbon has maybe become a bit softer, so maybe there will be progress soon. The oil still looks very clean, so it doesn't appear that anything significant is being dissolved into the oil.

For better or for worse, at least from what I'm seeing so far, R&P doesn't seem to be a very aggressive cleaner. It's far too soon to say that I'm disappointed, but whether realistic or not, I would have expected at least a very slight lightening in the color of the varnish coating on at least one of the varying shades of varnish. Or darker than normal oil for the mileage. But who knows, maybe the deposits are being softened and it will just take more time to start removing them.

 

[Avery4]

My friend with the CRV just took a few longer trips, got to 3K miles, and decided to change the oil. R&P 5W-30 was used again. The total consumption over those 3K miles was around 2.5 quarts, so any improvements in oil consumption have been marginal if any. We think the higher percentage of highway miles compared to last oil change probably had more to do with the slightly decreased consumption than the oil itself, but time will tell.

The oil was maybe slightly on the dark side for the mileage, but it wasn't overly dirty and the filter looked very clean with only a few small specs of carbon that didn't show up well. But here are some pictures anyways. Looks very similar to the last oil change with M1 EP HM 5W-30.

 

[jetman]

@Avery4
For the most part it should "dissolve" the carbon and not loosen large pieces so as to plug up an oil passage of something.
I see some small bits of carbon in the bottom of the pleats.
Keep it up. Time will tell.

 

[Avery4]

@Avery4
For the most part it should "dissolve" the carbon and not loosen large pieces so as to plug up an oil passage of something.
I see some small bits of carbon in the bottom of the pleats.
Keep it up. Time will tell.

Dissolving carbon instead of breaking chunks off would for sure be ideal, but I have yet to see evidence that R&P is doing either. The Legend's oil still looks very clean and there's clearly plenty of carbon and varnish to be dissolved. I'll be very curious to see how this filter looks vs the previous test with Rotella T6 and MMO.

Yup, there are a few specs in the filter, but it's quite clean overall. Like I said, from what I'm seeing, R&P doesn't seem to be a very aggressive cleaner. Hopefully we'll eventually see some results. Maybe the deposits just have to soak for a while before they start getting removed.