So I picked up this Ascent a couple months back and within 150 miles or so I drained it and put HPL Premium Plus 0w30 and a Fram Endurance 7317 on. This is my wife’s vehicle, and she is probably 65% short-trip city and 35% highway as a guess.
When I pulled this in-service sample, I went ahead and changed the air filter to a Fram Ultra panel filter, and it’s a good thing. Whoever installed the last MIC panel didn’t take care and had folded over a couple pleats and wedged them in between the box, leaving a small gap. This obviously showed up in the sample, at 47ppm silicon which should come down significantly next sample. Also, due to the short tripping, fuel was a little high at 6.3%.
I’ll be swapping in HPL SuperCar 0w30 this week, but the car’s now just shy of 10k due to waiting on sample results and my wife drove her friend to Cleveland and back twice. It’s time to come out, but I’m not too concerned. Iron is <1ppm/1k, copper very low compared to many Subaru/oil cooler UOAs, and viscosity was still above what an Ascent would normally be since I chose a 30 grade, which seems to be a wise move if you’re going >5k OCIs. Oxidation was very low compared to VOA, and BTW… moly lovers- 740ppm!
All in all, not a bad initial run I think, even with the two items of note. Seems most “discerning” Ascent owners are in the 3500-4500 mile OCIs, so again we’re at the break-even or slight advantage to the more expensive, double-plus distance oil. Will see if I can “modify” the operator’s behaviors to get fuel below 5%.
Thoughts?
TBN was still 9.44!
Dave has said SuperCar is their best oil, but does not have as high a starting TBN as some of the PCEO offerings, so I will probably sample that at 6k and see where to go.
When I pulled this in-service sample, I went ahead and changed the air filter to a Fram Ultra panel filter, and it’s a good thing. Whoever installed the last MIC panel didn’t take care and had folded over a couple pleats and wedged them in between the box, leaving a small gap. This obviously showed up in the sample, at 47ppm silicon which should come down significantly next sample. Also, due to the short tripping, fuel was a little high at 6.3%.
I’ll be swapping in HPL SuperCar 0w30 this week, but the car’s now just shy of 10k due to waiting on sample results and my wife drove her friend to Cleveland and back twice. It’s time to come out, but I’m not too concerned. Iron is <1ppm/1k, copper very low compared to many Subaru/oil cooler UOAs, and viscosity was still above what an Ascent would normally be since I chose a 30 grade, which seems to be a wise move if you’re going >5k OCIs. Oxidation was very low compared to VOA, and BTW… moly lovers- 740ppm!
All in all, not a bad initial run I think, even with the two items of note. Seems most “discerning” Ascent owners are in the 3500-4500 mile OCIs, so again we’re at the break-even or slight advantage to the more expensive, double-plus distance oil. Will see if I can “modify” the operator’s behaviors to get fuel below 5%.
Thoughts?
Dave has said SuperCar is their best oil, but does not have as high a starting TBN as some of the PCEO offerings, so I will probably sample that at 6k and see where to go.
