Oh my! Little varnish = ok but looks bad. Lots of varnish = not ok and looks bad. Poor engine design = sludge (oil cannot return to sump quick enough). The End.
Conventional oils and varnish
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Originally Posted by Cujet
My concern with simple varnish remains piston ring sticking and piston oil ring drainage.
Many of today's engines have issues with this. It's preventable with the use of quality synthetics coupled with sufficiently frequent oil changes.
Exactly. But the clique's position is apparently that if Joe Blow Consumer isn't complaining about it, then this issue, is not an issue, and subsequently, the product causing the issue is harmless
My concern with simple varnish remains piston ring sticking and piston oil ring drainage.
Many of today's engines have issues with this. It's preventable with the use of quality synthetics coupled with sufficiently frequent oil changes.
Exactly. But the clique's position is apparently that if Joe Blow Consumer isn't complaining about it, then this issue, is not an issue, and subsequently, the product causing the issue is harmless
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Originally Posted by StevieC
Overkill,
If you look at the Mobil 1 video where they show the engine torn down after 20K miles there is quite the varnish there and M1 doesn't seem concerned with it, so much so that they are making the claim that it's fine for 20K miles. How many of these 20K runs with this amount of varnish after one run would there be. Surely a huge company like M1 that makes great products would be concerned but they don't seem to be.
Well, if they are advertising a 20K mile OCI, they aren't going to be claiming it's bad, now are they?
That doesn't change the fact that there are API and ACEA protocols, both of which Mobil follows, to test for varnish resistance and mitigation, because it's undesirable and can have a negative impact on equipment operation and efficiency.
Originally Posted by StevieC
As for the Schaeffers engine if you watch that video you will see him moving the rings back and forth in his hand on that piston I provided the picture of and it looks fine. There is heavy build-up on that piston as well as varnish at particular shots and they don't seem concerned with it either. I'm not saying I would accept this amount because you know I'm OCD when it comes to this sort of stuff in my own engine but my point is that they aren't concerned with it so clearly it supports my claim that varnish is harmless where the engine isn't overly sensitive to it.
The compression rings looked fine, it was the oil control rings in the picture you posted that looked like they were flush with the piston surface. You didn't provide the video, just the snapshot, so I have not watched it. Regardless, if this is a proof of performance for Shaeffers video, you aren't going to get negative comments about the varnish.
Originally Posted by StevieC
As for last night and some of what you were saying, let me be clear. The engines that had varnish where the engine didn't have issue with it because they weren't tolerant of it ran to the end of their service lives fine. That the ultimate goal. The engine lives to the life expectancy of the user. Who cares if it had a lot of varnish or little varnish. The engine made it and it did so without the performance being impacted to the point where a repair was required or setting a CEL or affecting the performance as measured by the driving that is encountered.
I'm sorry you are having such a hard time admitting that varnish isn't a problem but it isn't in the vast majority of engines that it occurs in. It just isn't.
So it isn't a problem until it's a problem and then it's a problem with the design of the engine, not the varnish, we are back to that circular logic are we?
If varnish was not a problem, there would not be dedicated test protocols designed for testing lubricants against the standards for varnish resistance and mitigation. Because there are, the fact is that varnish is not desirable, can, and does, cause problems, and thus, is not, contrary to the original blanket statement, harmless.
Originally Posted by StevieC
Other folks here confirm this so it's not be being biased to what I've seen.
Nobody except yourself, at this point, is defending that position in this thread.
Originally Posted by StevieC
And in the case of the Million Mile Chevy where it was torn down and you do see heavy varnish it didn't affect the wear on that engine as measured and also didn't affect it from running perfectly as stated in the article and it was torn apart by a 3rd party not even the company that makes the oil.
Why would it have wear? What part of varnish build-up would cause wear? It primarily causes performance loss and oil consumption, neither of which were mentioned in that advert, and there were zero pictures of the pistons, lifters...etc. That's like claiming rust is harmless because your tires didn't blow
Originally Posted by StevieC
So I say again in summary if varnish is such a problem why aren't Amsoil, M1 and Scaheffers concerned based on their own engine tear-downs where it exists?
Well, in both videos I posted, Mobil tested, and rated, for varnish build-up. So obviously they are concerned, when it's in-line with the advert.
But ultimately, the ACEA, API and manufacturers are all concerned, which I'm mentioning for the third time in this post now, which completely negates any fluff piece marketing mumbo-jumbo from a blender trying to sell their product.
Originally Posted by StevieC
it would have forced OE's and Oil manufacturers to scramble for a solution quickly like with LSPI.
See above. How long do you think the deposit control testing has been part of the standards?
Originally Posted by StevieC
I'm done now because we are going in circles and I can't state it any more than I have. I also have quite a few conference calls today and then late calls with Japan tonight so I wouldn't be able to get back to this until the weekend if I wanted to anyway.
Have a good day.
Have fun. I just got off a conference call myself and figured I had time to address this.
Overkill,
If you look at the Mobil 1 video where they show the engine torn down after 20K miles there is quite the varnish there and M1 doesn't seem concerned with it, so much so that they are making the claim that it's fine for 20K miles. How many of these 20K runs with this amount of varnish after one run would there be. Surely a huge company like M1 that makes great products would be concerned but they don't seem to be.
Well, if they are advertising a 20K mile OCI, they aren't going to be claiming it's bad, now are they?
That doesn't change the fact that there are API and ACEA protocols, both of which Mobil follows, to test for varnish resistance and mitigation, because it's undesirable and can have a negative impact on equipment operation and efficiency.
Originally Posted by StevieC
As for the Schaeffers engine if you watch that video you will see him moving the rings back and forth in his hand on that piston I provided the picture of and it looks fine. There is heavy build-up on that piston as well as varnish at particular shots and they don't seem concerned with it either. I'm not saying I would accept this amount because you know I'm OCD when it comes to this sort of stuff in my own engine but my point is that they aren't concerned with it so clearly it supports my claim that varnish is harmless where the engine isn't overly sensitive to it.
The compression rings looked fine, it was the oil control rings in the picture you posted that looked like they were flush with the piston surface. You didn't provide the video, just the snapshot, so I have not watched it. Regardless, if this is a proof of performance for Shaeffers video, you aren't going to get negative comments about the varnish.
Originally Posted by StevieC
As for last night and some of what you were saying, let me be clear. The engines that had varnish where the engine didn't have issue with it because they weren't tolerant of it ran to the end of their service lives fine. That the ultimate goal. The engine lives to the life expectancy of the user. Who cares if it had a lot of varnish or little varnish. The engine made it and it did so without the performance being impacted to the point where a repair was required or setting a CEL or affecting the performance as measured by the driving that is encountered.
I'm sorry you are having such a hard time admitting that varnish isn't a problem but it isn't in the vast majority of engines that it occurs in. It just isn't.
So it isn't a problem until it's a problem and then it's a problem with the design of the engine, not the varnish, we are back to that circular logic are we?
Originally Posted by StevieC
Other folks here confirm this so it's not be being biased to what I've seen.
Nobody except yourself, at this point, is defending that position in this thread.
Originally Posted by StevieC
And in the case of the Million Mile Chevy where it was torn down and you do see heavy varnish it didn't affect the wear on that engine as measured and also didn't affect it from running perfectly as stated in the article and it was torn apart by a 3rd party not even the company that makes the oil.
Why would it have wear? What part of varnish build-up would cause wear? It primarily causes performance loss and oil consumption, neither of which were mentioned in that advert, and there were zero pictures of the pistons, lifters...etc. That's like claiming rust is harmless because your tires didn't blow
Originally Posted by StevieC
So I say again in summary if varnish is such a problem why aren't Amsoil, M1 and Scaheffers concerned based on their own engine tear-downs where it exists?
Well, in both videos I posted, Mobil tested, and rated, for varnish build-up. So obviously they are concerned, when it's in-line with the advert.
But ultimately, the ACEA, API and manufacturers are all concerned, which I'm mentioning for the third time in this post now, which completely negates any fluff piece marketing mumbo-jumbo from a blender trying to sell their product.
Originally Posted by StevieC
it would have forced OE's and Oil manufacturers to scramble for a solution quickly like with LSPI.
See above. How long do you think the deposit control testing has been part of the standards?
Originally Posted by StevieC
I'm done now because we are going in circles and I can't state it any more than I have. I also have quite a few conference calls today and then late calls with Japan tonight so I wouldn't be able to get back to this until the weekend if I wanted to anyway.
Have a good day.
Have fun. I just got off a conference call myself and figured I had time to address this.
Back on subject. I run conventional oil with no oil failure for as long as I can remember with the exception of the Saturn which got synthetic. Why synthetic in Saturn well it was Dexos spec and I couldn't find conventional to meet the spec. I ran cheapest conventional name brand oil cause most of my vehicles were finished after 6 years and 30k not from varnish but carbon from daily use as only way to fix was a teardown. As most were bought with 80k or more not worth expense so either junk yard or trade in. As a mechanic I have seen varnish from many manufacturers with synthetic oil (not as common) and conventional oil with to long of an oil change as reason. Oils today are better than any oil of the past so varnish should not be an issue except for the ones who go to long between changes or don't repair engine when problem arises.
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