D.I., oci more important than oil type?

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Originally Posted By: MCompact
The DI motor in my Mazdaspeed 3 gets a 7,500 mile OCI using M1 5W-30. UOAs indicate no issues with wear or fuel dilution; Blackstone even suggested trying a 10,000 mile run, but I'm sticking with the OEM interval.

Interesting. Perhaps how the vehicle is used contributes to fuel dilution. My 2008.5 Speed3 is very hard on oil with a four mile commute. The oil is dark black and reeks of gasoline after a couple thousand miles. UOAs show 2-2.5% fuel and low viscosity. I am especially concerned about the latter after Mazda's service advisory against anything less than 5W-30. I like to run an HTO-06 rated oil like M1 or PP. This last time I mixed in one quart of 0W-40 to try to beef it up a little. I really am not comfortable going much beyond 4,000 OCI with the way this engine is used.
 
I guess I am confused on the D.I. issue regarding fuel dilution. Especially since I really have no direct experience with D.I. as it pertains to gas engines. But diesels, they have been on direct injection for a long time. Detroit now has an OEM recommended OCI of 50,000 miles. Sure, the sump and amount of oil in there is much larger, but when UOA's are run, there is barely, if any at all, fuel dilution. Same for all the other heavy diesel brands.

Why would gas engines with D.I. be any different than the diesels? Are the compression rings that much inferior? After several decades of experience and computer controlled engines, do these folks still not know how to implement direct injection? After all, it can hardly be called new technology.

Not saying it is not an issue, just trying to figure out why it would be.
 
Diesels are higher compression. Maybe the piston/cylinder is "tighter" and doesn't allow the fuel to get into the oil.

Or maybe it's because gasoline is thin, so it more easily gets past the piston/cylinder interface into the oil (where diesel fuel would be blocked).
 
Originally Posted By: Indydriver

Interesting. Perhaps how the vehicle is used contributes to fuel dilution. My 2008.5 Speed3 is very hard on oil with a four mile commute. The oil is dark black and reeks of gasoline after a couple thousand miles. UOAs show 2-2.5% fuel and low viscosity. I am especially concerned about the latter after Mazda's service advisory against anything less than 5W-30. I like to run an HTO-06 rated oil like M1 or PP. This last time I mixed in one quart of 0W-40 to try to beef it up a little. I really am not comfortable going much beyond 4,000 OCI with the way this engine is used.


I think you are right with respect to use, My MS3 doesn't see many short trips. Fuel dilution is at most a trace and usually <0.5%. SUS viscosity may drop to 54(it should be 56)- but I haven't found any correlation between OCI and viscosity either. Go figure...
 
...and to confuse things further, my oil cap says 5w20. Of which i also have and will use, 5w20 EDGE w/ti.
 
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Wife has a 2012 Chevy Equinox 2.4 D.I. engine and it gets 3K OCI on Shell 10W-30. I run this in everything I own, since the Challenger calls for 10W and I don't feel like stocking different oil, and I live in a fairly warm climate. Oil is cheap and not worth taking the chance with the engine. FWIW GM redid the OLM on this car to conform to the new service intervals.
 
Synthetic = 5k mile max (even when out of warranty)
Conventional = 3k mile max

On 5w20
 
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I'd read a little about this before, and now, having just purchased a CPO 2011 Buick Regal with the NA 2.4 engine, I'm concerned. The manual -- I believe; I haven't read it all yet -- says to follow the OLM for oil changes (or, probably, to change at one year at the outside). The dealership changed the oil at ~40K miles; now, at ~41K, the OLM is reporting 93% oil life left. So, 7% used in 1000 miles. This suggests a 13K to 14K OCI! And the impression I get from reading this thread is that people with this engine have found the OLM to be overly optimistic.

Now the Regal has the "4 free oil changes in 24K miles" package, and I intend to use it. But if I go to the dealer at, say, 5K on the oil (for me, about 6 months of driving), and they say to keep going on the current fill, should I:

1) insist on my free change, or

2) quietly change the oil with the proper Dexos-approved grade, not reset the OLM, and go on to 10K/1 year, as some people were doing on their Mercedes when MB first installed the Flexible Service System and instituted 10K OCIs?
 
Originally Posted By: TiredTrucker
I guess I am confused on the D.I. issue regarding fuel dilution. Especially since I really have no direct experience with D.I. as it pertains to gas engines. But diesels, they have been on direct injection for a long time. Detroit now has an OEM recommended OCI of 50,000 miles. Sure, the sump and amount of oil in there is much larger, but when UOA's are run, there is barely, if any at all, fuel dilution. Same for all the other heavy diesel brands.

Why would gas engines with D.I. be any different than the diesels? Are the compression rings that much inferior? After several decades of experience and computer controlled engines, do these folks still not know how to implement direct injection? After all, it can hardly be called new technology.

Not saying it is not an issue, just trying to figure out why it would be.


The diesel/DI/fuel/dilution question is a good one. I suppose it could matter more in a gas engine because: 1) diesels in commercial use tend to be at operating temperature more thus burning off contaminants and 2) diesel fuel is a lubricant while gasoline is a solvent, making diesel fuel in the crankcase less harmful.
 
My recent experience with my '11 Ecoboost F150 was fuel dilution city! The weather here in Houston has been the coolest its been in some time. Doing a routine oil check at 4k miles all I could smell was gas on the dipstick!
I changed the oil the next weekend and it reeked of gas so badly I actually thought about running it in the weedwacker. Strange thing was that my gas mileage had been normal for this truck; 17 - 19 mpg depending on what I am doing with it at the time.

Never does this in the summer because here it gets crematory hot and I believe that the gas gets burned off - usually do 5k OCIs then. My theory is that my DI engine has a really aggressive cold start enrichment. That coupled with a radiator that is large enough to keep this engine cool while towing in summer heat has resulted in an unusually long cold start enrichment cycle that the engine never gets hot enough to get rid of. I can imagine that up North it get absolutely ridiculous!

So now I will be doing 4k OCIs in the cold months and 5k in the hot months. I just bought (and used ) some Castrol Syntec EP for $27 and with MC filters going for $6 the total cost was under $40. Thats peanuts to me because I love the torque this engine puts out. It appears I have an addiction. All addictions have costs you know.......
 
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The manual -- I believe; I haven't read it all yet -- says to follow the OLM for oil changes (or, probably, to change at one year at the outside). The dealership changed the oil at ~40K miles; now, at ~41K, the OLM is reporting 93% oil life left. So, 7% used in 1000 miles. This suggests a 13K to 14K OCI! And the impression I get from reading this thread is that people with this engine have found the OLM to be overly optimistic.


We have a 2011 Regal Turbo, and the OLM behaves the same way. I've run OCIs out past 6k miles and the OLM still said >50%. I just can't get comfortable with following it, so I've been doing 5-6k mile changes with QSUD or M1. Last OCI it got 5W-30 PU.

What is everyone's thoughts on running M1 Ow-40 in a DI engine like this? The thought being that the viscosity will start out higher and might be able to handle a bit more fuel dilution before it drops below a 5W-30 viscosity range?
 
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Originally Posted By: novadude
Quote:
The manual -- I believe; I haven't read it all yet -- says to follow the OLM for oil changes (or, probably, to change at one year at the outside). The dealership changed the oil at ~40K miles; now, at ~41K, the OLM is reporting 93% oil life left. So, 7% used in 1000 miles. This suggests a 13K to 14K OCI! And the impression I get from reading this thread is that people with this engine have found the OLM to be overly optimistic.


We have a 2011 Regal Turbo, and the OLM behaves the same way. I've run OCIs out past 6k miles and the OLM still said >50%. I just can't get comfortable with following it, so I've been doing 5-6k mile changes with QSUD or M1. Last OCI it got 5W-30 PU.

What is everyone's thoughts on running M1 Ow-40 in a DI engine like this? The thought being that the viscosity will start out higher and might be able to handle a bit more fuel dilution before it drops below a 5W-30 viscosity range?


Use UOAs to establish a baseline for vehicle with or without a oil life monitor. At least 3 consecutive UOAs under similar conditions required.

OCI more important than quality of oil if dilution is a problem.

Semi-synthetic with OEM recommended grade would be first choice.

Then keep using same grade, brand and OCI. More important things in LIFE than pharting around with this.
 
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New vehicle (Demo with 7k mi) same make model and yr (crashed previous one):
Just drained factory fill and put in Havoline conventional SN/5w30/GF-5 using a 3000 mile oci (severe). Any certified API SN should last this long in a vehicle where the recommendation is SM/5w30/GF-4 and synthetic nor blend is mentioned in the Owners Manual.
 
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Originally Posted By: wemay
Any certified API SN should last this long in a vehicle where the recommendation is SM/5w30/GF-4 and synthetic nor blend is mentioned in the Owners Manual.

I'd agree, but the mention of the ACEA specification in your manual does give me pause.
wink.gif
 
Originally Posted By: novadude
Quote:
The manual -- I believe; I haven't read it all yet -- says to follow the OLM for oil changes (or, probably, to change at one year at the outside). The dealership changed the oil at ~40K miles; now, at ~41K, the OLM is reporting 93% oil life left. So, 7% used in 1000 miles. This suggests a 13K to 14K OCI! And the impression I get from reading this thread is that people with this engine have found the OLM to be overly optimistic.


We have a 2011 Regal Turbo, and the OLM behaves the same way. I've run OCIs out past 6k miles and the OLM still said >50%. I just can't get comfortable with following it, so I've been doing 5-6k mile changes with QSUD or M1. Last OCI it got 5W-30 PU.

What is everyone's thoughts on running M1 Ow-40 in a DI engine like this? The thought being that the viscosity will start out higher and might be able to handle a bit more fuel dilution before it drops below a 5W-30 viscosity range?



That's a total waste of money and resources. Even if the olm is a bit off its not 50% off. And gm oil life monitors tend to be dead accurate. Sure they had some issues before dexos but since then they've got it figured out.
I suggest reading dnewtons articles on the front page of bitog. You'll learn that wear rates are reduced as the miles rack up and you actually increase wear with too frequent oil changes.
Read the articles. Your comfort level means nothing to a machine.
 
Originally Posted By: Garak
Originally Posted By: wemay
Any certified API SN should last this long in a vehicle where the recommendation is SM/5w30/GF-4 and synthetic nor blend is mentioned in the Owners Manual.

I'd agree, but the mention of the ACEA specification in your manual does give me pause.
wink.gif



I can understand that. But it is the only spec not in line with the rest of the recommendations. I could speculate that the ACEA spec is a leftover from the Euro Hyundai's manual so that less material is printed but that would be an assumption with no merit. What we do know, at least for now is, the more frequent the oci (syn or dino), the better to combat dilution. As has been the case, so many questions still abound with direct injection.
 
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I don't doubt it's a leftover line in the least. But, as we went over before, that's the kind of thing that drives me crazy in manuals. There's certainly nothing wrong with specifying an ACEA A5/B5 oil. If you're going to specify that, though, actually do so, and don't cloud the issue.
wink.gif
 
Originally Posted By: Garak
I don't doubt it's a leftover line in the least. But, as we went over before, that's the kind of thing that drives me crazy in manuals. There's certainly nothing wrong with specifying an ACEA A5/B5 oil. If you're going to specify that, though, actually do so, and don't cloud the issue.
wink.gif



Yup, agreed. When I called Hyundai USA about this, they said the specs page was an either or thing. As long as any one of them was met, the owner is in the clear, I.e., (page 8.6) API Service SM* or ILSAC GF-4 (or above) or ACEA A5 (or above).

*if API service SM is not available..., SL can be used. (Page 8.7)

Then on page 8.8, viscosity recommendation is discussed as SAE 5W-30 or 10W-30. No mention of 5W-40 ('for better performance') like it does in the manuals of other Hyundai turbo'd vehicles like the Genesis Coupe or Veloster Turbo.

As you said Garak, "issue clouded"
smile.gif
 
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All this talk about fuel dilution with D.I. had me worried enough to get my first UOA. Turned out to be a non-issue for my Ecotec 2.5L D.I (or perhaps just my driving patterns), even though I thought I could smell fuel. Less than 0.5% fuel found, and no concerns with the flashpoint. The UOA might be worth the investment for anyone worried.. I plan on following the OLM after seeing the results.
 
Originally Posted By: blackman777
Something nobody's mentioned:

You should be running Top Tier Gasoline, which was specifically designed for high-pressure injectors by Toyota, GM, Honda, et cetera. The injectors kept clogging (and costing carmakers warranty repairs) on the minimum EPA requirements.


Or E85 at least once in a while if the engine is designed for it will keep things cleaned out. Some of us out in fly over country have no close in availability of "top tier" gasolines. I have to go 50 miles to find an outlet that has it. But as a consolation, there are some true top tier additive products that can be used. Schaeffer has an additive specifically formulated to provide every bit of the top tier additives that are in the TT gas outlets. And I have an abundance of E85 around me, and I use that most of the time anyway, so top tier not needed.

I love how the OEM's will come up with something that needs "top tier" gasoline and seem to forget that a lot of us do not live near metropolitan areas where that stuff is more readily available. I have over 30 fuel outlets within 20 miles of me, and not one has top tier fuel. I have called or emailed all of their respective offices and they confirm they do not offer top tier, and have no plans to do so.
 
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