Four-Ball wear test: Amsoil versus Red Line
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Use some on your keyboard, it's good for unsticking caps-lock keys too.
Yep, every test that every company runs will hopefully make other companies produce better products and tighten their manufacturing tolerances. I love all the Amsoil tests and .pdf's. They also help me choose 'alternatives'.
IMO, Amsoil makes top notch products, as does Redline and other boutique manufacturers.
My sour creme and onion potato chips are better then your honey barbecue potato chips
IMO, Amsoil makes top notch products, as does Redline and other boutique manufacturers.
My sour creme and onion potato chips are better then your honey barbecue potato chips
Now don't start slamming my honey barbecue potato chips.
Originally Posted By: buster
Ah the good ol 4-ball wear test.
It's used as a "pre-screen" for certain additives and is a very simple bench test. Very poor correlation to real world engine testing, so I was told. I could be wrong about that, but that is what I found. I don't fault Amsoil for using it. It does have some validity to it for screening/testing AW additives.
You never want to rely heavily on bench testing. It's a decent machine that can give you some idea of wear performance characteristics, but is extremely limited in what it can tell you.
If the 4-ball wear scar was that important, all other companies would formulate so they achieved a good 4-ball wear scar. They don't. They have been ignoring this test for years and years.
Apparently both TFOUT/4-ball wear machines collect dust at most labs and are not used anymore. Much more sophisticated and expensive testing is available now.
Well put Buster.
The 4-Ball test is a perfectly valid test for measuring wear properties of lubricants under a specific set of conditions and metallurgy. It doesn't matter what type of lubricant it was developed for - grease and gear oils are lubricants, and a test can be valid and useful for different types of lubricants.
That said, there are different types of wear and many different types of wear testing machines, each operating under their own unique set of conditions. These different wear machines can and do rank oils in different orders, because oils perform differently under varying sets of conditions. This is why lubricant formulators use multiple wear tests to characterize an oil's performance in varying environments, rather than relying on a single test to tell the whole story.
Assuming you already have the machine, the 4-Ball test is a cheap and fast test, and so can be used to screen numerous additive/base oil combinations for relative wear under one set of conditions. This is useful for a formulator to get a feel for how ingredients are behaving before moving on to slower and more expensive wear tests.
Motor oils are exposed to many different wear types and environments in an engine, requiring different wear additives and different wear tests to evaluate them. The industry has settled on certain engine tests as specified for the API certifications. Oil and additive companies have their own in-house proprietary wear tests developed to correlate to these engine tests, so that they can play with various ingredients and ratios before committing to expensive engine tests. The 4-Ball test is not highly respected in the industry for correlation to engine tests, but still has some value in the formulation process.
Bottom line, one should not draw conclusions on a motor oil's wear performance properties based solely on any single wear test. However, a significantly poor result in any one wear test warrants further investigation.
Tom NJ
Ah the good ol 4-ball wear test.
It's used as a "pre-screen" for certain additives and is a very simple bench test. Very poor correlation to real world engine testing, so I was told. I could be wrong about that, but that is what I found. I don't fault Amsoil for using it. It does have some validity to it for screening/testing AW additives.
You never want to rely heavily on bench testing. It's a decent machine that can give you some idea of wear performance characteristics, but is extremely limited in what it can tell you.
If the 4-ball wear scar was that important, all other companies would formulate so they achieved a good 4-ball wear scar. They don't. They have been ignoring this test for years and years.
Apparently both TFOUT/4-ball wear machines collect dust at most labs and are not used anymore. Much more sophisticated and expensive testing is available now.
Well put Buster.
The 4-Ball test is a perfectly valid test for measuring wear properties of lubricants under a specific set of conditions and metallurgy. It doesn't matter what type of lubricant it was developed for - grease and gear oils are lubricants, and a test can be valid and useful for different types of lubricants.
That said, there are different types of wear and many different types of wear testing machines, each operating under their own unique set of conditions. These different wear machines can and do rank oils in different orders, because oils perform differently under varying sets of conditions. This is why lubricant formulators use multiple wear tests to characterize an oil's performance in varying environments, rather than relying on a single test to tell the whole story.
Assuming you already have the machine, the 4-Ball test is a cheap and fast test, and so can be used to screen numerous additive/base oil combinations for relative wear under one set of conditions. This is useful for a formulator to get a feel for how ingredients are behaving before moving on to slower and more expensive wear tests.
Motor oils are exposed to many different wear types and environments in an engine, requiring different wear additives and different wear tests to evaluate them. The industry has settled on certain engine tests as specified for the API certifications. Oil and additive companies have their own in-house proprietary wear tests developed to correlate to these engine tests, so that they can play with various ingredients and ratios before committing to expensive engine tests. The 4-Ball test is not highly respected in the industry for correlation to engine tests, but still has some value in the formulation process.
Bottom line, one should not draw conclusions on a motor oil's wear performance properties based solely on any single wear test. However, a significantly poor result in any one wear test warrants further investigation.
Tom NJ
I wonder what kind of cleaning properties bleach has. I bet it has 3x the cleaning power of Amsoil.
Those 2 posts are probably the most accurate I have read on the usefulness and significance of 4 ball wear tests. Thank you guys.
Originally Posted By: Tom NJ
Originally Posted By: buster
Ah the good ol 4-ball wear test.
It's used as a "pre-screen" for certain additives and is a very simple bench test. Very poor correlation to real world engine testing, so I was told. I could be wrong about that, but that is what I found. I don't fault Amsoil for using it. It does have some validity to it for screening/testing AW additives.
You never want to rely heavily on bench testing. It's a decent machine that can give you some idea of wear performance characteristics, but is extremely limited in what it can tell you.
If the 4-ball wear scar was that important, all other companies would formulate so they achieved a good 4-ball wear scar. They don't. They have been ignoring this test for years and years.
Apparently both TFOUT/4-ball wear machines collect dust at most labs and are not used anymore. Much more sophisticated and expensive testing is available now.
Well put Buster.
The 4-Ball test is a perfectly valid test for measuring wear properties of lubricants under a specific set of conditions and metallurgy. It doesn't matter what type of lubricant it was developed for - grease and gear oils are lubricants, and a test can be valid and useful for different types of lubricants.
That said, there are different types of wear and many different types of wear testing machines, each operating under their own unique set of conditions. These different wear machines can and do rank oils in different orders, because oils perform differently under varying sets of conditions. This is why lubricant formulators use multiple wear tests to characterize an oil's performance in varying environments, rather than relying on a single test to tell the whole story.
Assuming you already have the machine, the 4-Ball test is a cheap and fast test, and so can be used to screen numerous additive/base oil combinations for relative wear under one set of conditions. This is useful for a formulator to get a feel for how ingredients are behaving before moving on to slower and more expensive wear tests.
Motor oils are exposed to many different wear types and environments in an engine, requiring different wear additives and different wear tests to evaluate them. The industry has settled on certain engine tests as specified for the API certifications. Oil and additive companies have their own in-house proprietary wear tests developed to correlate to these engine tests, so that they can play with various ingredients and ratios before committing to expensive engine tests. The 4-Ball test is not highly respected in the industry for correlation to engine tests, but still has some value in the formulation process.
Bottom line, one should not draw conclusions on a motor oil's wear performance properties based solely on any single wear test. However, a significantly poor result in any one wear test warrants further investigation.
Tom NJ
Any reason why they tested the ASM and SSO differently on the 4 ball wear test. One was tested at 1200 rpm the other at 1800 RPM IIRC? Thanks
Originally Posted By: buster
Ah the good ol 4-ball wear test.
It's used as a "pre-screen" for certain additives and is a very simple bench test. Very poor correlation to real world engine testing, so I was told. I could be wrong about that, but that is what I found. I don't fault Amsoil for using it. It does have some validity to it for screening/testing AW additives.
You never want to rely heavily on bench testing. It's a decent machine that can give you some idea of wear performance characteristics, but is extremely limited in what it can tell you.
If the 4-ball wear scar was that important, all other companies would formulate so they achieved a good 4-ball wear scar. They don't. They have been ignoring this test for years and years.
Apparently both TFOUT/4-ball wear machines collect dust at most labs and are not used anymore. Much more sophisticated and expensive testing is available now.
Well put Buster.
The 4-Ball test is a perfectly valid test for measuring wear properties of lubricants under a specific set of conditions and metallurgy. It doesn't matter what type of lubricant it was developed for - grease and gear oils are lubricants, and a test can be valid and useful for different types of lubricants.
That said, there are different types of wear and many different types of wear testing machines, each operating under their own unique set of conditions. These different wear machines can and do rank oils in different orders, because oils perform differently under varying sets of conditions. This is why lubricant formulators use multiple wear tests to characterize an oil's performance in varying environments, rather than relying on a single test to tell the whole story.
Assuming you already have the machine, the 4-Ball test is a cheap and fast test, and so can be used to screen numerous additive/base oil combinations for relative wear under one set of conditions. This is useful for a formulator to get a feel for how ingredients are behaving before moving on to slower and more expensive wear tests.
Motor oils are exposed to many different wear types and environments in an engine, requiring different wear additives and different wear tests to evaluate them. The industry has settled on certain engine tests as specified for the API certifications. Oil and additive companies have their own in-house proprietary wear tests developed to correlate to these engine tests, so that they can play with various ingredients and ratios before committing to expensive engine tests. The 4-Ball test is not highly respected in the industry for correlation to engine tests, but still has some value in the formulation process.
Bottom line, one should not draw conclusions on a motor oil's wear performance properties based solely on any single wear test. However, a significantly poor result in any one wear test warrants further investigation.
Tom NJ
Any reason why they tested the ASM and SSO differently on the 4 ball wear test. One was tested at 1200 rpm the other at 1800 RPM IIRC? Thanks
Originally Posted By: bmwtechguy
Those 2 posts are probably the most accurate I have read on the usefulness and significance of 4 ball wear tests. Thank you guys.
I agree with bmwtechguy, that's a first
Great posts
Those 2 posts are probably the most accurate I have read on the usefulness and significance of 4 ball wear tests. Thank you guys.
I agree with bmwtechguy, that's a first
Great posts
Originally Posted By: Pablo
Originally Posted By: tig1
Here is a product with bleach in it that performs well on the 4 ball test.
http://www.idosi.org/wasj/wasj6(3)/14.pdf
I'll give you an B- for effort!!
A couple things. You said "bleach". AND that Palm grease
doesn't contain bleach it was "Bleach Deodorized".
I give him an O for Owned.
Originally Posted By: tig1
Here is a product with bleach in it that performs well on the 4 ball test.
http://www.idosi.org/wasj/wasj6(3)/14.pdf
I'll give you an B- for effort!!
A couple things. You said "bleach". AND that Palm grease
I give him an O for Owned.
Something I have noticed on this website. 99% of the people who use Amsoil must be Democrats.
Last edited by a moderator:
Nothing could be further from the truth. Besides, ummmmm, nevermind.
I use some Amsoil, and I am affiliated with neither party.
Originally Posted By: peterdes
Something I have noticed on this website. 99% of the people who use Amsoil must be Democrats.
You have GOT to be kidding~~!!!
Something I have noticed on this website. 99% of the people who use Amsoil must be Democrats.
You have GOT to be kidding~~!!!
Originally Posted By: peterdes
Something I have noticed on this website. 99% of the people who use Amsoil must be Democrats.
Finally found something more silly than a thread on the 4 ball test..
Bill
Something I have noticed on this website. 99% of the people who use Amsoil must be Democrats.
Finally found something more silly than a thread on the 4 ball test..
Bill
Originally Posted By: demarpaint
Any reason why they tested the ASM and SSO differently on the 4 ball wear test. One was tested at 1200 rpm the other at 1800 RPM IIRC? Thanks
1,200 rpms is generally more severe, but no idea why they choose those conditions.
Tom NJ
Any reason why they tested the ASM and SSO differently on the 4 ball wear test. One was tested at 1200 rpm the other at 1800 RPM IIRC? Thanks
Tom NJ
Originally Posted By: Ben99GT
Originally Posted By: peterdes
Something I have noticed on this website. 99% of the people who use Amsoil must be Democrats.
As an outsider is that the Blue or the Red states? I'm definitely a Red state supporter if I was living there!
Originally Posted By: peterdes
Something I have noticed on this website. 99% of the people who use Amsoil must be Democrats.
As an outsider is that the Blue or the Red states? I'm definitely a Red state supporter if I was living there!
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