Engine wear comparison via Blackstone labs of 5W-30 versus 5W-20.

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Hi. I own a 2006 Honda Odyssey's with 117k miles on it. I'll be using the car for some very long daily trips from NYC to Southern New Jersey round trip daily
(perhaps 150 miles a day). I would like to take keep the car until it hits 300,000 miles.

Just trying to limit engine wear (Using Fram Ultra 99% @ 20 micron oil / air filters), and Penzoil Platinum full synthetic high mileage oil with 4,000k intervals.
I'm ok with the items above, and am not looking to change any of those.

My specific question for this post is would engine wear be reduced if I use 5W-30 instead of 5W-20.
Honda recommends 5W-20 on oil cap, but as discussed a million times by others, it was mainly for government gas mileage requirements
at the expense of long term engine wear.
I searched the extensive old posts on this question, saw a million threads on it, but I couldn't find a thread
where someone did 2 consecutive Blackstone oil analysis on the same car (1 with 5W-30 and 1 with 5W-20)
to see which have higher wear metals. If anyone knows of any thread like that or has done a oil test like that, please post here.

Hoping to get some good responses. Please refrain from 1 line responses like "You car won't know the difference either way", as those posts
won't add any new insight into this age old question.

Thanks.
 
Hi. I own a 2006 Honda Odyssey's with 117k miles on it. I'll be using the car for some very long daily trips from NYC to Southern New Jersey round trip daily
(perhaps 150 miles a day). I would like to take keep the car until it hits 300,000 miles.

Just trying to limit engine wear (Using Fram Ultra 99% @ 20 micron oil / air filters), and Penzoil Platinum full synthetic high mileage oil with 4,000k intervals.
I'm ok with the items above, and am not looking to change any of those.

My specific question for this post is would engine wear be reduced if I use 5W-30 instead of 5W-20.
Honda recommends 5W-20 on oil cap, but as discussed a million times by others, it was mainly for government gas mileage requirements
at the expense of long term engine wear.
I searched the extensive old posts on this question, saw a million threads on it, but I couldn't find a thread
where someone did 2 consecutive Blackstone oil analysis on the same car (1 with 5W-30 and 1 with 5W-20)
to see which have higher wear metals. If anyone knows of any thread like that or has done a oil test like that, please post here.

Hoping to get some good responses. Please refrain from 1 line responses like "You car won't know the difference either way", as those posts
won't add any new insight into this age old question.

Thanks.
That's not what UOA's are for.

Read this to start with:
 
It cost extra from Blackstone for the TBN. And their TBN testing is using a different standard. Oil Analizers from Amsoil uses Polaris labs and include the TBN. My suggestion would be to think about the oil change at 1/2 of your starting TBN.
 
What I was looking for is an engine wear answer to the 5W-30 versus 5W-20 question, with 2 consecutive blackstone labs tests on same car.
If either oil change had signifantly higher wear metals than the other, we might get an answer to the age old question of whether using 5W-30 has less engine wear than 5W-20.
 
What I was looking for is an engine wear answer to the 5W-30 versus 5W-20 question, with 2 consecutive blackstone labs tests on same car.
If either oil change had signifantly higher wear metals than the other, we might get an answer to the age old question of whether using 5W-30 has less engine wear than 5W-20.
As Overkill already noted, a $30 spectrographic analysis is not the tool for this job. It doesn't compare wear between two oils. Wear tests between oils are far more complicated and expensive tests.

Lots of reasons for that, some more fundamental than others. But the large number of uncontrolled variables is one reason.
 
Overkill, I'm glad you posted that.

I will make the blanket statement that UOA results provide absolutely no viable information about wear rates, despite the claims. Measurement with precise devices is required, we used a scanning electron microscope at Mobil Oil to do such measurements.

As for whether an engine lasts longer on oil one grade higher is also impossible to know. This may have a lot to do with how the vehicle is used, whether or not there is significant fuel dilution and in what temperatures it is operated.

Million mile non commercial vehicles tend to use higher viscosity oils such as 10W-40, but consider the duty cycle and fewer cold starts. Wear rates of certain components are higher with low viscosity oils, such as cam chains and piston rings. Manufacturers may or may not spend the money to produce components and designs that hold up with the lower viscosities. Honda has trouble with low tension piston rings failing to seal well after very low levels of wear. Higher viscosity oil tends to keep them alive longer. But once again, those low tension piston rings are not going to go 1,000,000 miles, regardless of oil choice.
 
Some relevant tests include ASTM D6984, D5966, D6891, D6425, D8279, D8350. There are more depending on which engine component is being tested and other factors.
 
Excelent post Cujet - Thanks. The low tension pistion rings only affected the 2008+ year Hondas so I am not effected.
 
Cujet - This was some good info from your post:
Million mile non commercial vehicles tend to use higher viscosity oils such as 10W-40, but consider the duty cycle and fewer cold starts. Wear rates of certain components are higher with low viscosity oils, such as cam chains and piston rings.

You seem very knowledgeable on this subject.

Perhaps an unrelated question can shed some light on this concern.
If you bought a brand new Honda or Toyota which recommends 0W-16 on the oil cap, and you didn't care about voiding the warranty,
and you wanted to keep the car for 300,000 miles, would you consider using 5W-30 in that engine?
 
If you bought a brand new Honda or Toyota which recommends 0W-16 on the oil cap, and you didn't care about voiding the warranty,
and you wanted to keep the car for 300,000 miles, would you consider using 5W-30 in that engine?

No, because it is totally unnecessary. I might use 0w20 mainly because there are a lot more choices.

The grade of oil is not going to make or break the difference between an engine lasting 250k, or 300k.
 
Honda has stated back in the day that wear with 20-grade oils is "acceptable". Oil related wear is related to engine design and the HT/HS, wear is higher with a lower HT/HS. Cold starts are not where the greatest wear occurs since the MOFT is high for all oils when it is cold.

No oil of a higher HT/HS than what is recommended in the manual will damage an engine. Thicker oils help prevent wear, not cause it.
 
Similar thread you started a while back:

 
Some other thoughts; this is assuming your are changing your own oil which looks to be around every six weeks at the rate you drive.

Why Pennzoil Ultra? Frankly, at that OCI I would just go with Platinum and save a few bucks each oil change. If the mileage is mainly highway you could go 5000 mile intervals which would be easier to keep track of.

I agree with the others that a analysis is not the tool for what you are looking for.
 
Any of the shelf well-known 5w-30 synthetic would be easy for that use case.

Like Mobil, Pennzoil, Castrol, Super Tech, etc,

If you want to do overkill, you could go euro oils, but that is possible a different discussion.
 
Just use the oil makes you "feel" the best. I would use 5w30 personally, but I won't pretend my choice is based on science or anything objective. Also, if longevity is your concern, the choice of oil is not likely to be significant. Accidents, rust, transmission failure, overheating, etc are more likely to send it to the junkyard than the engine going kablooie. I would change it every 5k with whatever decent quality oil is on sale and spend the money saved on undercoating, transmission service, premium brake components, better tires, etc.
 
Hi. I own a 2006 Honda Odyssey's with 117k miles on it. I'll be using the car for some very long daily trips from NYC to Southern New Jersey round trip daily
(perhaps 150 miles a day). I would like to take keep the car until it hits 300,000 miles.

Just trying to limit engine wear (Using Fram Ultra 99% @ 20 micron oil / air filters), and Penzoil Platinum full synthetic high mileage oil with 4,000k intervals.
I'm ok with the items above, and am not looking to change any of those.

My specific question for this post is would engine wear be reduced if I use 5W-30 instead of 5W-20.
Honda recommends 5W-20 on oil cap, but as discussed a million times by others, it was mainly for government gas mileage requirements
at the expense of long term engine wear.
I searched the extensive old posts on this question, saw a million threads on it, but I couldn't find a thread
where someone did 2 consecutive Blackstone oil analysis on the same car (1 with 5W-30 and 1 with 5W-20)
to see which have higher wear metals. If anyone knows of any thread like that or has done a oil test like that, please post here.

Hoping to get some good responses. Please refrain from 1 line responses like "You car won't know the difference either way", as those posts
won't add any new insight into this age old question.

Thanks.
Here you go. I would go a thicker 5w20 like M1 EP and see how the engine likes it or Ultra 5w-20. You can order online from Walmart. Over $35 ships free to your door 2-3 days delivery, weather permitting. Hope this helps.
 
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