Originally Posted By: Virtus_Probi
Originally Posted By: syeo86
The sad part is I have nearly 2 cases of Mobil 1 ESP 5W30 sitting in my cabinet. That should last 1.5 years.
I'd love to switch to Mobil 0W40 Euro, because it makes life so much easier. My Porsche uses it, and its much cheaper too!
I was trying to avoid LSPI with the ESP... gotta choose my battles I suppose.
I also have a case of M1 5W30 ESP waiting in the garage for my FA20DIT (Forester)...did you buy yours on special sale from Amazon, like I did? I'm seriously wondering if there is any chance the oil was adulterated by the seller somehow...I just cannot get over the high viscosity measurement from your UOA, and a bunch of the additive levels seem a bit off.
I share your concern about LSPI...Rotella T6 5W40 is another oil on the thick end with low calcium, but you're probably getting almost double the NOACK % there, too (~12.5% compared to maybe 6.6% with the ESP).
I'm assuming your 2015 WRX would have been subject to the Subaru LSPI recall, did you do well on the leakdown tests? Mine looked good there (think all 4 were 3-4%) and the plugs were not damaged, but I paid for new plugs with no labor charge since they looked fairly dirty at ~40kmiles.
I think my most recent two cases were from Amazon. However, the previous oil was purchased from Ludeoil. I think I've bought 2 or 3 cases from them and was using them exclusively until Amazon started carrying the case at a relatively reasonable price. Come to think of it, I think Ludeoil might have been the seller for this oil on Amazon.
In any case, my UOAs are controlled in the strictest sense. This is the ONLY oil to have graced this engine since the factory fill. I also always use the OEM black filter. It is worth nothing that at one time I had some MMT fuel additives, and did recently use some upper cylinder lubricant.
Although the additive levels seem off, to me they just appear more depleted. Let's not forget, the car had nearly 3 hours of dyno tuning on this oil, a 800 mile road trip, and then my usual stop and go commute (75 miles round trip). I've stopped using the upper cylinder lubricant, at least for this oil interval. The goal is to see whether or not the difference in cst and Magnesium was a result of the upper cylinder lube. FYI, I think the manganese was from the MMT used previously. It took a few oil changes to completely wash out.
I can't jump to conclusions yet, I need to change one parameter then see what happens.
As for the recall, I had a Cobb tune on the engine at 800 miles. The result of the recall was a clean bill of health. Engine leakdown tested within 1% across all cylinders. I also took the opportunity to have the plugs swapped using the same OEM NGK plugs. The stock plugs looked just fine. The recall was done at around the mid 20K mark, and the car is just about to hit 40K.