Further anecdotal evidence that GC has esters?

[G-MAN]

I changed out the German Castrol 0w30 in my Chrysler this afternoon. It had 5009 miles on it, and I'll be mailing off the sample to Blackstone on Monday for the UOA.

One of the things the all-aluminum 3.2 and 3.5 Chrysler V6s are known for is a "weeping" rear main seal. This is something that you'll see on virtually every LH car you crawl under that has one of these engines. It's rare that the seal every seeps enough to actually cause an oil spot under the car, and that was the case with mine. The two bolts at the back of the engine where the transmission collar connects to the block are perpetually "wet," but never enough to drip. The first thing that jumped out at me today when I slid under the cars was they they were almost completely DRY. Given that esters are supposed to condition seals, it seems that GC has done just that to my weeping rear main.

 

[JohnBrowning]

G-Man II, I experinced the same effect with Redline C+ ATF fluid in my Dakota. All of the other 45RFE transmissions weep or leak a bity out the rear output seal on the trans. Mine was always dry. It disturbed my service rwriter so much he pointed this out to me as an oddity every time I was in for a TSB or Recall.

I never told them I was useing Redline instead of ATF+4!

 

[cangreylegend]

I've been wondering about the "ester" issue since the suspicions about GC being heavily ester based. Two things came to mind, 1. Cleaning abilities, and 2. seal conditioning. You answerd #1. I wonder if anyone has noticed whether it "cleans" better than say M1. Maybe it cleaned the seals in a similar fashion to how AutoRX cleans it.

 

[TooSlick]

All PAO based synthetics contain a small amount of esters for additive solubility and to balance out the seal swell characterisics. However, given the price of this product, my educated guess would be that it's 80% PAO and perhaps 20% ester.

I should add that I think the blended PAO/Ester basestocks are the best for long drain street use. The 0w-30 Syntec looks to be an excellent oil for the price.

Tooslick

[ October 25, 2003, 08:33 AM: Message edited by: TooSlick ]

 

[G-MAN]

quote:

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Originally posted by TooSlick:
All PAO based synthetics contain a small amount of esters for additive solubility and to balance out the seal swell characterisics. However, given the price of this product, my educated guess would be that it's 80% PAO and perhaps 20% ester.

I should add that I think the blended PAO/Ester basestocks are the best for long drain street use. The 0w-30 Syntec looks to be an excellent oil for the price.

Tooslick

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TS, I guess the point I was trying to make was that GC may have MORE esters than other OTC synthetics. I used Mobil 1 previously, and the area around the rear of my engine in noticeably "dryer" using the German Syntec.

 

[Patman]

quote:

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Originally posted by G-Man II:
I changed out the German Castrol 0w30 in my Chrysler this afternoon. It had 5009 miles on it, and I'll be mailing off the sample to Blackstone on Monday for the UOA.

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I'll have a UOA too this week (Tuesday night or Wednesday night) from GC in my sister's 99 Civic, with 6900 miles on the oil. Unfortunately, it's the last UOA from this vehicle (otherwise I would've tried a much longer interval on the next run!) as she's moving out west in a week or two, and is selling the car.

 

[Patman]

I've been thinking that perhaps GC doesn't have quite as many esters as we think, based on the fact that we don't see the typical Redline type behavior where the wear metals (especially the softer metals) spike up on it's first run then settle down.

 

[G-MAN]

quote:

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Originally posted by Patman:
I've been thinking that perhaps GC doesn't have quite as many esters as we think, based on the fact that we don't see the typical Redline type behavior where the wear metals (especially the softer metals) spike up on it's first run then settle down.

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Couldn't that be accounted for if the types of esters used in each are different? Also, I'm quite sure RL has more esters than GC. My gut says GC is 70-80% esters, and the rest Group III, not PAO.

 

[Patman]

quote:

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Originally posted by G-Man II:

quote:

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Originally posted by Patman:
I've been thinking that perhaps GC doesn't have quite as many esters as we think, based on the fact that we don't see the typical Redline type behavior where the wear metals (especially the softer metals) spike up on it's first run then settle down.

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Couldn't that be accounted for if the types of esters used in each are different? Also, I'm quite sure RL has more esters than GC. My gut says GC is 70-80% esters, and the rest Group III, not PAO.

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I guess I automatically assumed all esters were "super cleaners" too, so perhaps you're assumption is correct.

I'd really love to know more about this mysterious oil, but I doubt we'll ever truly figure it out. For instance, how does it show such low wear when it seems to be devoid of any of the usual suspects? (moly, boron)

And seeing the wear come down quite a bit more on the second run in my sister's car also makes me wonder if they're using some sort of antiwear additive which behaves similar to moly, in that it needs time to plate up in order to show it's true potential. For instance, I was pleased with the lead content in my sister's first run with this oil, but the improvement on the second run was quite a big jump. In ppm/1000 miles, the first run showed 0.81 lead while the second run was only 0.31! Everything else came down too, such as iron going from 2.54 to 2.17, Aluminum from 0.45 to 0.30, Copper from 0.54 to 0.26 and Chromium from 0.14 to 0.08. Of course, this is assuming that the lab results are totally accurate on each run, so it is possible some of the improvement could simply be lab variation.

 

[WeyounDS9]

This might be my imagination, but after 400-500 miles on GC, my dipstick seems cleaner.

It was always pretty clean, but now it seems clean somewhow..

Fred...