2006 Tacoma, Redline 5w-30, 7,350mi, Old UOA

[AzFireGuy79]

This is from 2007. Truck is a 2006 Toyota Tacoma 4.0 No makeup oil was added during the run. Mobil 1 oil filter and OEM air filter. Driving was mixed stop and go with some long freeway runs in between. 7,350 miles when sampled. Interested to take another sample now that I am at 67,000. Have performed several OCI's since but with no UOA's. Copper stands out. Unsure of the culprit beyond RL chemistry. 21,350 on truck 7,350 on oil Sampled: 1/31/07 HOT Blackstone Labs ALUMINUM 4 CHROMIUM 0 IRON 10 COPPER 31 LEAD 1 TIN 4 MOLYBDENUM 627 NICKEL 1 MANGANESE 0 SILVER 0 TITANIUM 0 POTASSIUM 2 BORON 17 SILICON 21 SODIUM 23 CALCIUM 2335 MAGNESIUM 8 PHOSPHORUS 927 ZINC 1049 BARIUM 0 sus visc @210f 62.9 Flash 395 Fuel 0.5 Antifreeze 0% Water 0% Insolubles 0.2 TBN 2.1

 

[LargeCarManX2]

8K changes and your good to go. I don't have my UOA book near me, but I don't think your copper is too far out of line. Do an oil change and sample at 8K and trend that copper. Silicon is a tad high too.

 

[FZ1]

Not bad. 7500 oci max. tbn.

 

[Jax_RX8]

High Copper reading is likely from High Moly Content. Moly is a great AW/EP, but is very hard and more corrosive to soft metals than other additives such as ZDDP, Antimony, Boron. While other additives are added to reduce the corrosive impacts to the soft metal, this is the nature of the beast with Moly and one of the reasons (along with cost) that it is normally used sparingly as part of the formula.

 

[Bror Jace]

"Silicon is a tad high too." Don't forget that Red Line uses 15-20ppm of silicon as an anti-foaming additive. Like Jax hinted at, I think the additive package in Red Line Oil is a bit too aggressive which offsets the protection the esters and all that moly might provide. I choose other brands for daily drivers.

 

[gonesurfing]

 Originally Posted By: Jax_RX8

High Copper reading is likely from High Moly Content. Moly is a great AW/EP, but is very hard and more corrosive to soft metals than other additives such as ZDDP, Antimony, Boron. While other additives are added to reduce the corrosive impacts to the soft metal, this is the nature of the beast with Moly and one of the reasons (along with cost) that it is normally used sparingly as part of the formula.

The old Havoline (pre-DS) formula had 400ppm or more of moly. I don't remember seeing high Cu on those UOA's.

 

[qship1996]

Copper is not a Redline issue- engine only has 21K miles on it, maybe a break in metal that will diminish with time. I have used redline exclusivly for the last 150,000 miles, and have never had elevated copper in any of my oil analysis.

 

[Bror Jace]

"The old Havoline (pre-DS) formula had 400ppm or more of moly. I don't remember seeing high Cu on those UOA's." Not sure of that 400+ppm in pre-DS Havoline, but even if true Red Line has nearly double the moly and the aggressive polyol ester chemistry as well. I was a Red Line fan for years until I started doing UOAs. None of mine were terrible ... but I got better results from Schaeffer 7000 and even Havoline conventional so I've given up on the pricey Red Line motor oils.

 

[AzFireGuy79]

Thanks for all of your opinions thus far. As far as UOA's are concerned, I'm not looking at it from a "how is my engine wearing aspect". I don't believe in using UOA's for that purpose. I would just like to establish a baseline OCI and know I'm getting the most out of the oil and still providing my engine with adequate protection. Money is not an issue in any of this. If it were, I would be running supertech!

 

[saaber1]

 Originally Posted By: Bror Jace

Like Jax hinted at, I think the additive package in Red Line Oil is a bit too aggressive which offsets the protection the esters and all that moly might provide. I choose other brands for daily drivers.

The "aggressiveness" you refer to of this oil has often been cited by the tribologists and other knowledgeable people such as Terry as redline's cleaning of oxidized metals. It is not necessarily an indicator of actual wear. This has also been cited as the reason why the 2nd or 3rd redline sample shows diminished wear of some of these metals. Also, it seems to me that if the benefits of moly (some sources such as this http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1505101#Post1505101 show 20-40% reduction in friction and wear) are to be realized, then the oxidized metals, etc. need to be cleaned off so that the moly particles can fill the asperities. So the "aggressive cleaning" seems to be part of the formula that redline is using to reduce wear. If anecdotal evidence is any indication, it does seem to work. F.e. a saab turbo that had redline it's whole life when I sold it to my friend at 318k he was going to rebuild it because he believed no engine could go that long and not need a rebuild. At 318k it looked new inside and everything was still within factory spec. Also here is an anectdote from BITOG member Barkerman: "Red Line is a good daily driver oil and it just might make your engine last longer. We have several 300k+ cars around here that use nothing but Red Line and it's not that they are over 300k but that they are over 300k with no internal mechanical work and to a boroscope look like new inside. I know a few examples don't prove a point but they are a good indicator. One fellow delivers some kind of radio-active isotopes with his 78 Toyota pickup and has 510k miles on Red Line with nothing more than regular maintenance and about 4 water pumps. He also uses Frantz oil and fuel filters and a spin-on coolant filter with an anode. He is on the original camshaft and valves. I've done a compression check and it's withing 5% of new specs and the spread from high to low is 8psi. You can still see the hone marks at the bottom of the cylinders and there is only a cosmetic ridge at the top of the cylinders. Granted this series of Toyota 4 bangers is considered to be a good engine I think that Red Line is performing well. He started with Castrol 10w-30 with the new truck and a few years later after hanging around our shop switched to Red Line 10-30 and has graduated up to 20w-50 a couple of years ago. His oil consumption is 1 quart in 5k miles. Granted he is a careful driver because of his cargo and LA has no weather but I think he is doing well. He recently dropped a bundle in rebuilding the suspension front and back, complete brake job and replaced all the flexible brake lines, master cylinder, rear wheel cylinders and new calipers, including his second tranny rebuild for bearings and seals, no other hard parts also using Red Line MTL. ...But to those that think Red Line is only good for racing we think it performs well for commuting but is an expensive choice. Sorry for running on I just though this is an unusual case and you might be interested." Also, redline (shown in red in the graph below) has shown low wear numbers for fe compared to other oils on the vw/audi 2.0 FSI. But this is really limited data as there is only one car running redline (mine) but it is driven hard and the first run was 90% 1-2 mile trips in the winter.

 

[saaber1]

 Originally Posted By: Jax_RX8

High Copper reading is likely from High Moly Content. Moly is a great AW/EP, but is very hard and more corrosive to soft metals than other additives such as ZDDP, Antimony, Boron. While other additives are added to reduce the corrosive impacts to the soft metal, this is the nature of the beast with Moly and one of the reasons (along with cost) that it is normally used sparingly as part of the formula.

Is the above correct? Or is it a relict of concerns (whether accurate or not) about insoluble moly? Reference this quote from Molakule:

 Originally Posted By: MolaKule

 Quote:

Bob Cousimano over at CMW Oil also is a firm believe that soluble moly products should not be used in automotive lubricants, just like PTFE (teflon) and many other oil additive products like Prolong, Slick 50, and countless others just plain don't work and should never be used in an engine.

Indeed, this is an old report, comes up occasionlly, and has been discussed at least three times before. To compare soluble moly to the snake oil additives is ludicrous. The fact is, a specific and early compound of moly, a class of molybdenum phosphordithioates, was "suspected" as being the cause of some corrosion. There was never a proven correlation. Interestingly, those same molybdenum phosphordithioates have been used successfully in hydraulic oils without any problems or suspected corrosion problems. Today's modern molybdenum dithiocarbamates, have never been the center of controversy or suspected corrosion. In addition, the comment about the copper deactivator is also out of date and no longer correct.