ACEA rating

[mechanicx]

Here's probably a dumb question. If an oil has an ACEA approval rating on its PDS, eg. a dual rated SN oil with A1 or A5, but doesn't have the sequences year listed, eg. A1-2, A1-4 or A-8, are you to assume it is the lastest A1-8 or an early A1-2. There is a significant difference in performance rating between the earlier and later ratings.

Here is an example PDS http://www.castrol.com/liveassets/bp_int...S_april2011.pdf. The 5W30 lists just A1 and A5 approval.

 

[JOD]

No, I don't think so. I'm going off of memory, but I'm almost certain there's a grandfathered time period during which they can claim the spec if it meets the prior one (and I believe it's pretty long, as in measured in years, not months). So, if it doesn't specify that it meets the most recent one, I wouldn't assume that it does.

 

[buster]

You want to look for the latest, which is ACEA-08 and ACEA-10.

 

[mechanicx]

Yeah I couldn't find anything that said they were required to show the year. So I guess if you see "A1" or "A5" you just assume its A1-01. That's weird and almost like saying an oil is API Service rated and let you guess whether it's SN, SM, SL or SJ. There's a big difference between A1-02 and A1-08, and you'd want -08 or -10.

 

[Rollins]

The table and the explanations on p.2 may answer your question

http://www.acea.be/images/uploads/files/2010_ACEA_Oil_Sequences.pdf

...the way I see it, all ACEA oils as of today must be either 2008 or 2010 approved..and denoting the year of the sequence may not be compulsory.

 

[mechanicx]

OK I did see that earlier but I guess it didn't register. It seems to suggest that if an oil is listed as being approved A1,A3 or A5 without the year that it is required to be at least -08.

You do see some oils here that are lsited as meeting the performance requirement of A1-02 though. There appears to be about a year allowed of overlap between specifications though. A1 can mean -08 till the end of the year. I think it would less confusing to just require year date since it is important to performance level.

 

[zoli]

Try this: http://sas-origin.onstreammedia.com/origin/lubrizol/EOACEA2009/RPTOOL2010Dep/rp/pc/index.html
You will be surprised.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: mechanicx
You do see some oils here that are lsited as meeting the performance requirement of A1-02 though. There appears to be about a year allowed of overlap between specifications though. A1 can mean -08 till the end of the year. I think it would less confusing to just require year date since it is important to performance level.


Yep, seen that, too. I would imagine the ACEA doesn't do much enforcement of the issue in North America, at least for shelf stock. One would assume that the big players who have ACEA specifications are producing according to the current licenses. Of course, there can always be plenty of old stock. Even the SN Mobil 1 has only been widely available on the shelf here for a little over a year.

They could get rid of the confusion by requiring them to list a date on the bottle, of course. Think how messed up we would be if we had to check manufacture dates to see if an API oil were SM, SN, or much older.