I should state, publicly, that I owe you an apology. I don't mean to pick on you here. Your UOA streams are far more interesting and informational that most. And you've spent a lot of your hard earned money on a lot of info. Our site is the better for it.
I am taking a lot of my info from these UOAs of yours:
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/3479257/1
The reason I say "self-imposed" is because you never used the data for it's true purpose. Your imposed limits, or those handed to you by Blackstone (or anyone else) are NOT the same as letting the engine wear data speak. You never used any one product long enough to develop a true sense of statistical normalcy; hence you do not have reputable micro data. Therefore any conclusion of what lube did "better" in terms of wear control, cost ratio, etc is totally false.
What we can do is look at those UOAs and compare/contrast them to macro data. In that regard, your engine was very healthy with all the lubes you used. You were able to confirm that thin lubes have no detrimental effect even with longer OCIs.
The mod motors (even 3v ones) all wear very well. All my data, and that of the Ford/Conoco SAE study, shows that even out to 15k miles, wear rates continue to drop. You never ran a dino to 10k miles and that was only once; you only ran syns out to 15k miles. And only a few times. You never found a point where wear actually was on the rise. Therefore, you never found a "real" limit in terms of performance degradation for the lubes you tried. All my data, and Ford's data, shows that wear will continue to lessen out to 15k miles. You never got close with a dino and only tipped it with the syn. You never ran a lube to a point where the wear started to escalate.
And before you say "
Well Dave, why should I risk my engine with higher wear?" ... I'll state this:
The escalation of a wear trend is measured in tenth's of PPM outside "normal" ranges. There is ZERO (none, zip, nada) proof that an uptick in wear is going to send the engine to the junkyard in immediate demise. Do not for one second believe that because wear sees an uptick that your engine is being harmed. Fe wear rates for the Mod motors are around 3"ish" ppm / 1k miles right after an OCI. As the OCI matures, you'd see the wear rate drop into the high 2 range, then mid-2 range, then low-2 range. Only when you see the rate tick back up to the 3-range would I call that a reasonable shift. And it's no worse at that point than when you changed oil at mile zero!!!!!!!!!!! Get it???????? I am NOT advocating running a lube until you hear a piston seize! I am stating that the PROPER way to use a UOA is to track your data and compare/contrast it's unique engine data to either solid micro data, or public macro data. And the ONLY way to know is to get statistical info; and I have already provided that in terms of my normalcy article. So you can compare/contrast your UOAs to macro mod motor info. But because you have no idea what your typical variance was (too few samples for any given product) and because you never ran a lube out to a point of wear escalation, you have absolutely no idea of the ability of either lube in terms of performance limits.
Look at your very own Fe wear when using the dino oil ...
Your 5 samples ran about 30k miles, in varying OCI durations. And yet your Fe average wear rate went from a high of 1.9 at 5k miles to a low of 1.3 of 8k miles, per 1k miles traveled. Given that the std dev of mod-motor Fe wear is around 1ppm-"ish", ALL your data was completely normal and never showed any sign of any trend shift whatsoever. Your variation was in TENTHS of ppm, and the standard deviation is around 1ppm for macro data. And therefore "normal" levels of Fe wear would be about 3ppm. You were NOWHERE near any kind of wear shift, even when you hit 16ppm at 10k miles. I must stress that your data has no micro value, but when looking at your data compared to macro data, you engine was wearing VERY well, even at 10k miles with dino oil. And you wear was on a general downward trend! The five successive UOAs showed Fe wear as thus:
1.9, 1.5, 1.4, 1.6, 1.3 in ppm/1k miles. That tiny uptick at 10k miles OCI was a few tenths, but the "normal" variation for mod motors is about 3ppm! Your wear rates were a pittance of "normal", sir! Your dino oil was so well in control that you had ZERO reason to change oil. Well, excluding your completely arbitrary mode of panic induced by Blackstone! I like Blackstone and I like Ryan very much, but they don't do anything with their data except report it to you and make suggestions. They don't have anyone that studies the data with a statistical mindset, and therefore the recommendations they make are as arbitrary as anyone else here. I am not disparaging them; they provide good service. But the suggestions (recommendations) they make really have no basis other than educated guesses. They don't do anything in terms of real data analysis. Your engine was completely normal, and your Fe wear was really low and in excellent control, even when you ran dino out to 10k miles. And that is completely to be expected, because all of my 10,000 UOAs, and the Ford SAE study, show that wear continues to drop to 15k miles (and possibly beyond, but the data stops at that point). So why did you change oil? Why did you stop using dino at 10k miles? Preconceived notions. It certainly wasn't the engine wear data telling you to stop. It was human misinterpretation of info that caused you to change your plan. Either you felt uncomfortable, or Blackstone induced panic. But it wasn't your engine telling you to stop; that thing was totally happy with dino oil and your wear was very low and continuing on a downward trend.
So why change your plan? The simple answer is this:
There are only two ways to condemn a fluid ...
1) arbitrary limits chosen by a human
2) actual performance limits as demonstrated by results
You, via Blackstone, chose to limit lubes on preconceived notions of wear magnitude, rather than letting the actual data naturally develop. You're not alone; just about everyone here does this, because they don't understand HOW and WHY to use a UOA. And that was what my article was supposed to teach folks.
Therefore, both your wear data, and your cost data, are not indicative of the full potential of capability of any of the products you tested. They data you have is only useful to show that, at the self-imposed OCIs, everything was still "normal". And nothing more.
There is no ability to state that one lube was better or worse than another. There is no ability to state that one lube was more or less expensive than another. You data only shows that self-imposed limits stop data from fully exhibiting actual performance capability and limits.
Why am I harping on this so repeatedly? Because you are one of the few that at least TRY to make good decisions. But you got cut short based upon (what I perceive to be) fear of hurting your engine. And now, with a new, more expensive truck, you're at it again. And that's fine. And you have warranty considerations to take in mind. So be it; nothing wrong with that. But if you're trying to use this thread to decide what filter to use, I want to caution you that UOA variations and trends need to be
understood BEFORE a decision is made about lubes and filters. Don't run a few UOAs with MC filters, then try Wix, then Baldwin, and think you have enough data make a mirco-data decision. Because you won't.
But again, I'm not picking on you, and if it comes off that way, then I owe you a large, heartfelt apology stated in front of everyone.
I am sorry for being offensive in my tone; it's not my intent.
