2001 Pontiac Montana Esso XD3 0w30 20,000km

[olympic]

2001 Pontiac Montana
200,000km on van
20,000km on oil 12,400 miles and 3 months
99% hiway
Amsoil TS foam air filter
Napa Gold oil filter
Make up oil: none

Sample Date: Feb 09/06
Unit: 200000 Kms
Oil: 20000 Kms
Oil Type: XD3 0W30

code:

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sample VOA

Tin 0 0

Lead 2 0

Copper 9 0

Aluminum 3 1

Silicon 14 3

Iron 20 5

Chromium .7 .4

Silver 0 0

Zinc 1400 1350

Magnesium 6 10

Nickel 0 0

Barium 0 0

Sodium 15 1

Calcium 2000+ 3800

Vanadium 0 0

Phosphorus 1250 1300

Potassium 396 0

Molybdenum 3 0

Boron 1 3

Manganese 5 1



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES

Viscosity 12.93 12.07

Water 0 0

insoluables
Glycol No No

Fuel Dilution No

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Anyone want to guess how long it took me to phone my mechanic to book this van in for an intake gasket?

But atleast it looks like XD3 did a good job of protecting the engine against the coolant contamination.

 

[slider]

Insoluables only
Seems very unlikely. Very suspect. I've never seen such a thing. I'd ask them to rerun it.

 

[olympic]

I've got atleast a dozen UOA's from this lab and never had insoluables greater than 0.1. Not sure what's up with that. They use the D4007 standard for this test, whatever that means.

 

[slider]

olympic wrote:

"I've got atleast a dozen UOA's from this lab and never had insoluables greater than 0.1."

Really! That seems very unusual. I don't look at every analysis here, but most I've looked at are at .3 or .4 with less miles, even with an engine like yours. Got me stumped.

 

[Al]

Why is is that you always suspect an intake leak anytime you see a GM vehicle oil analysis?

Amazingly good analysis with this leak. Almost seems that it just started leaking. But it probably has been leaking for 100K miles.

 

[olympic]

I bought this van about a year and 100,000km ago and since that time I've had to top up the resevoir maybe 4 times with a few ounces of coolant each time. So the leak is extremely small. I was 99% sure it was the intake gasket and this UOA just confirms my suspicions with 400ppm potassium.

On another note, one of my 03 Montanas was just diagnosed with an intake gasket leak as well.

It's a fairly big external leak so no UOA was needed, just a pressure test. It only has 110,000km on it. My mecahnic uses the Fel-pro gasket kit so atleast I know I won't have to worry about this problem again.

 

[Tones]

XD3 did a heck of a job here, even during a Canadian winter. All highway miles helped. Beautiful report.