How much cleaning to expect with Renewable Lubricants oil?

[VersysVsWhat]

I recently ran a little over 3k OCI on my spouse's car with VRP. I got a great deal on Renewable Lubricant's 5w-30 Bio-SynXtra Passenger Car Motor Oil ($16 a gallon) awhile back, and when I changed out the VRP, I put the R.L.I. stuff in hoping it would continue the cleaning process some. I've read that the R.L.I. oil has fairly high ester content, and that esters are known for carbon cleaning. But I've also heard that there are many different esters and with various different properties. Does anyone here know if the particular ester(s) in this oil are good at cleaning like T.M.P. and some others are?

Her car is a Prius C. and usually I run Kirkland or Supertech synthetic in it for 7.5k miles (same with my car below), because our climate, the car, her driving habits, work route, etc are all pretty easy on the oil most of the time.

Seeing as the R.L.I. oil is considerably better quality than the above ones, what do you think is a reasonable estimate range of an OCI? Not sure, but was wondering if it could possibly go for around 15k or so after say a cleaning cycle of 5k?

In my own car, I've recently run a Kirkland + HPL EC cycle for a bit under 2k miles, and just put in M1 Euro FS 0w-40 + HPL EC. After another 2k miles, should I put in the Renewable Lubricants or run a VRP cycle? I have plenty of the R.L.I and no VRP on hand. Like my spouse's car, my car is fairly easy on oil, plus my driving habits and conditions are fairly easy on it. (This is a beater, commuter car only, which I bought used, and it doesn't really make any sense to run something like HPL PCMO in it. VRP is about the highest priced I would go for oil in this car. Btw, just passed over 200k).

 

[FranklinJL]

I think with a Prius, it wont matter much, those motors arent high hp, and are known to run clean with regular oil changes using Walmart oil. So Im sure youre engine is already spotless.....

Only guys I know that run RLI have like 800hp GTRs.....its a popular oil with that community.......

 

[VersysVsWhat]

I think with a Prius, it wont matter much, those motors arent high hp, and are known to run clean with regular oil changes using Walmart oil. So Im sure youre engine is already spotless.....

Only guys I know that run RLI have like 800hp GTRs.....its a popular oil with that community.......

Regardless, is it considered a more intensely cleaning oil?

 

[VersysVsWhat]

Dang, I can't tell if I'm being ostracized or if no one has good (or more certain) info/data on this and thus are hesitant to share a more opinion or guess based answer?

I guess I should contact Renewable Lubricants directly and ask.

 

[OVERKILL]

Dang, I can't tell if I'm being ostracized or if no one has good (or more certain) info/data on this and thus are hesitant to share a more opinion or guess based answer?

I guess I should contact Renewable Lubricants directly and ask.

I don't think anyone knows if their base oils are cleaners or not. Not all esters clean.

 

[VersysVsWhat]

I don't think anyone knows if their base oils are cleaners or not. Not all esters clean.

It sounds like it is the highly polar esters that tend to clean the most? I'll be sure to ask RLI if there are significant quantities of highly polar esters in the formulation.

 

[VersysVsWhat]

Alrighty, talked to Luke Bruce recently on the phone. He is one of their technical, tribologist type guys over at RLI. Short version: most of their car and diesel oils are moderately high in cleaning action because of the esters.

Bit more filled in version: He said most esters are on the cleaning side because they tend to be polar, but some are more highly polar than others. Their oil has a decent amount of the latter, though he didn't mention any percentages. He said that when he first ran RLI oil in his own vehicle, he did a somewhat shortened OCI and found that the oil was pretty dark/dirty. He recommended a shortened OCI for my first run*, but I told him that I had just run HPL EC in my car and think I could probably get away with a moderate OCI for the first run. He seemed to agree with that assessment. (I didn't mention that I was running another cycle of HPL EC before going to the RLI, which may mean I might be able to get away with a longer OCI of the RLI).

I forgot to ask him about OCI lengths in general (once major cleaning has taken place), but imagine he'd probably say something like it depends on a lot of factors like any good engineer type would.

Yeah, so I think after I do a second run of the HPL EC in my car, I'm going straight to RLI and skipping over VRP. I'll probably alternate between Kirkland and RLI for awhile. Once I run out of the RLI, unless they have another sale, I'll switch out the RLI to VRP for every 2nd or 3rd cycle of non Kirkland.

* I had mentioned in voice mail message, previous to us talking, that I had bought a used, high mileage car and had no idea how it had been treated.