2010 FX4 | M1 0W-20 AFE SN | 5.4L | 15,372 miles

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Originally Posted By: dnewton3
After reviewing over 10,000 UOAs, and a lot of them being Blackstone,


Do you work at Blackstone? The overall tone of what your saying in this thread is I'm wasting my money to have my sample analyzed.
 
Originally Posted By: turtlevette
Originally Posted By: dnewton3
After reviewing over 10,000 UOAs, and a lot of them being Blackstone,
Do you work at Blackstone? The overall tone of what your saying in this thread is I'm wasting my money to have my sample analyzed.


He actually said this:
Originally Posted By: dnewton3
After reviewing over 10,000 UOAs, and a lot of them being Blackstone, I can tell you that there is no ability to show any correlation between wear and filter selection in the typical UOA.

I do not see how that translates into "wasting your money to have your sample analyzed". In addition, it also depends on what you are attempting to use a UOA for in the first place. To see if the oil is healthy or not in order to extend the run or something else?
 
No I do not work at Blackstone. I have collaborated with them multiple times and got a lot of data from them for writing my normalcy article. I visited them and wrote an article on how they process UOAs.

UOAs are tools. If you understand their benefits and limitations, and use them correctly, they can be very important in helping making good decisions in your maintenance program. UOAs are a direct view of lube health. They are an indirect view of equipment health. Nothing more; nothing less. They can be used to confirm/deny suspected issues such as leaking injectors, coolant intrusion, etc; if you have no reason to suspect these issues then UOAs are not a necessity.

There are a bazillion cars that can run for hundreds of thousands of miles and never get a UOA. No one "needs" a UOA to ensure the vehicles live a long healthy life; simply following the conservative OEM schedule will do that. If one is interested in managing the maintenance program to maximize the ROI, for any product chosen, then UOAs are the best tool to get you there.

However, when folks pay for UOAs, and ignore the data by not adjusting their maintenance plans accordingly, then yes, they are a waste. In this vain, they become a toy. That's not a popular thing to hear, especially at a website full of lube zealots, but it's the truth.
 
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Originally Posted By: turtlevette
Originally Posted By: dnewton3
After reviewing over 10,000 UOAs, and a lot of them being Blackstone,


Do you work at Blackstone? The overall tone of what your saying in this thread is I'm wasting my money to have my sample analyzed.



That's about right. Cheap UOAs aren't needed for 99% of engines.
 
Originally Posted By: tig1
Originally Posted By: turtlevette
Originally Posted By: dnewton3
After reviewing over 10,000 UOAs, and a lot of them being Blackstone,


Do you work at Blackstone? The overall tone of what your saying in this thread is I'm wasting my money to have my sample analyzed.



That's about right. Cheap UOAs aren't needed for 99% of engines.


Agree! I'll take engine tear down data over a UOA any day of the week/year.
 
Originally Posted By: DragRace
Originally Posted By: tig1
That's about right. Cheap UOAs aren't needed for 99% of engines.
Agree! I'll take engine tear down data over a UOA any day of the week/year.

As would I, but who is going to do that on a regular basis outside of the race crowd? Next to no one and so there must be an economical way to see the relative health of the oil and to a small degree the engine. Honestly, if regular maintenance is performed with an approved oil, the engine of most vehicles will far outlast the chassis or the owner's desire to keep it. It is only on sites like this that we dissect data to the nth degree. Joe Public would never dive into this level of detail...
 
^^^
exactly!

Yes - teardowns are the best means finding wear.

But that is overtly consuming in time and money. And, individual teardowns do NOT tell you how your wear compares or contrasts to others. Teardowns are singular only, and can only be seen against the engineering intent in clearance specs, etc. OTOH UOA macro data can tell you a lot about how your engine fares against others in that lineage.

UOAs can provide a direct view of the lube health, and infer a reasoanble view of the equipment status. They have a great ROI if you use them correctly in a reasoned overall maintenance plan. Teardowns do not.


Want some perspective? Ask yourself this ...
When was the last time an engine teardown cost only $10-$25 and took about 3 minutes?
 
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