How often do you guys do one? Assuming nothing is wrong with the engine.
How often to do a uoa
- Thread starter ARB1977
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I did the first one after breakin at ~ 10,000 miles and the second at ~ 50,000 miles. If I keep the vehicle to my usual 120,000 miles I may do another at 90K or so. I don't get excited about UOAs as it is not a hobby for me. Ed
Hermann
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Did one at 25K when the motor was fully broken in. Did another at 55K. both were good reports. I have a couple of bargain Wix kits, so I will do one in November after a 12 month low mileage OCI. Doing this to see if my new driving parameters have affected my results. I would recommend one every couple years or when your driving habits change,
A OCI is like putting on clean drawers,,,,makes one feel good I guess,,,,,,,,,lolllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
Originally Posted By: Eddie
I did the first one after breakin at ~ 10,000 miles and the second at ~ 50,000 miles. If I keep the vehicle to my usual 120,000 miles I may do another at 90K or so. I don't get excited about UOAs as it is not a hobby for me. Ed
I'm with you on that one. Neither of my vehicles have had one. The taco sees 6K or every six months and the V sees 9K or every six months. Both run excellent with no oil burn. Then again if I do one I maybe in for a surprise, lol.
I did the first one after breakin at ~ 10,000 miles and the second at ~ 50,000 miles. If I keep the vehicle to my usual 120,000 miles I may do another at 90K or so. I don't get excited about UOAs as it is not a hobby for me. Ed
I'm with you on that one. Neither of my vehicles have had one. The taco sees 6K or every six months and the V sees 9K or every six months. Both run excellent with no oil burn. Then again if I do one I maybe in for a surprise, lol.
Originally Posted By: Hermann
Did one at 25K when the motor was fully broken in. Did another at 55K. both were good reports. I have a couple of bargain Wix kits, so I will do one in November after a 12 month low mileage OCI. Doing this to see if my new driving parameters have affected my results. I would recommend one every couple years or when your driving habits change,
Thanks.
Did one at 25K when the motor was fully broken in. Did another at 55K. both were good reports. I have a couple of bargain Wix kits, so I will do one in November after a 12 month low mileage OCI. Doing this to see if my new driving parameters have affected my results. I would recommend one every couple years or when your driving habits change,
Thanks.
Originally Posted By: ARB1977
How often do you guys do one? Assuming nothing is wrong with the engine.
Unless the engine is known for coolant loss, fuel dilution or known bearing issues or i am looking for some sort of dilution then only if have done work to the heads or manifold (wet).
Otherwise i spent the extra money on a good oil and filter. For a daily driver a UOA is good money after bad in most cases.
Some guys run cheap dino with a cheap filter then spend another $20+ on a UOA, for what? To prove the cheap oil is not shredding the engine? The thing could be sludging, creating deposits and varnishing holding lots of particles in the deposits but that wont show up in a UOA. How can it, its in the engine not the oil.
When i started working with a large fleet of Police vehicles in the 80's UOA was standard operating procedure yet we were having deposit issues on some of the VW and Audi engines, course the oils were beaten to death but wear metals still appeared low.
All had reasonable UOA's, proving the bulk dino was working. Wrong as soon as we started running synthetics and the deposits started clearing the UOA's showed high wear metals.
Was it the synthetic shedding the engine? No it wasn't, it was releasing the metals caught in the deposits as the engines were getting visibly cleaner. IMHO one could conclude these were the wear metals that should have been in the previous UOA's.
We stopped the general UOA fiasco unless there was some issue suspected that could be detected with one and went with a high quality synthetic oil and filter.
We saved money, over 10% less in the maintenance budget overall in fact. Less lube related engine failures and overall longer engine life saved a lot of money.
I got another sweetheart here last night. Another Honda 3.5 iVTEC (i swore i wouldn't do another one of these again). 5K dino OCI and it looks like the black hole of Calcutta in there.
I would love to see a UOA on this thing just for laughs, it would probably be stellar, problem is is only running on 3 cyl. LOL
Buy something like PU, M1, PP, QSUD or other top shelf oil and a good filter for less money than cheap dino, filter and UOA.
Some of these UOA readers are like tea leave readers, palm readers and crystal ball viewers IMHO. They have people changing oil brands and weights more than most people change socks looking for lower numbers.
Before anyone get fired up, i have nothing against dino in general or UOA's in general. Both have their place but doubling the price of an oil change to look for wear metals
instead of using top quality in a small sump for less money IMO is a fools errand.
Over the road trucks and racing engines my benefit greatly from UOA's but a daily driver holding 5qts of oil isn't seeing much benefit from it IMO.
Just my own experience and
How often do you guys do one? Assuming nothing is wrong with the engine.
Unless the engine is known for coolant loss, fuel dilution or known bearing issues or i am looking for some sort of dilution then only if have done work to the heads or manifold (wet).
Otherwise i spent the extra money on a good oil and filter. For a daily driver a UOA is good money after bad in most cases.
Some guys run cheap dino with a cheap filter then spend another $20+ on a UOA, for what? To prove the cheap oil is not shredding the engine? The thing could be sludging, creating deposits and varnishing holding lots of particles in the deposits but that wont show up in a UOA. How can it, its in the engine not the oil.
When i started working with a large fleet of Police vehicles in the 80's UOA was standard operating procedure yet we were having deposit issues on some of the VW and Audi engines, course the oils were beaten to death but wear metals still appeared low.
All had reasonable UOA's, proving the bulk dino was working. Wrong as soon as we started running synthetics and the deposits started clearing the UOA's showed high wear metals.
Was it the synthetic shedding the engine? No it wasn't, it was releasing the metals caught in the deposits as the engines were getting visibly cleaner. IMHO one could conclude these were the wear metals that should have been in the previous UOA's.
We stopped the general UOA fiasco unless there was some issue suspected that could be detected with one and went with a high quality synthetic oil and filter.
We saved money, over 10% less in the maintenance budget overall in fact. Less lube related engine failures and overall longer engine life saved a lot of money.
I got another sweetheart here last night. Another Honda 3.5 iVTEC (i swore i wouldn't do another one of these again). 5K dino OCI and it looks like the black hole of Calcutta in there.
I would love to see a UOA on this thing just for laughs, it would probably be stellar, problem is is only running on 3 cyl. LOL
Buy something like PU, M1, PP, QSUD or other top shelf oil and a good filter for less money than cheap dino, filter and UOA.
Some of these UOA readers are like tea leave readers, palm readers and crystal ball viewers IMHO. They have people changing oil brands and weights more than most people change socks looking for lower numbers.
Before anyone get fired up, i have nothing against dino in general or UOA's in general. Both have their place but doubling the price of an oil change to look for wear metals
instead of using top quality in a small sump for less money IMO is a fools errand.
Over the road trucks and racing engines my benefit greatly from UOA's but a daily driver holding 5qts of oil isn't seeing much benefit from it IMO.
Just my own experience and
What is your goal in doing a UOA?
If for general engine health, then once every year or two.
If to extend a OCI, then you need to check at 7500 and again at 10000 to see how its doing. But once you got a handle on it and you stay with same oil, you should not have to do it again.
If for general engine health, then once every year or two.
If to extend a OCI, then you need to check at 7500 and again at 10000 to see how its doing. But once you got a handle on it and you stay with same oil, you should not have to do it again.
I don't always UOA, but when I do, I don't...
I have the kit, just never got around to doing one.
+1 on Trav's post.
I have the kit, just never got around to doing one.
+1 on Trav's post.
I've done them in the past for kicks, but I won't bother in the future unless there's an issue I'm trying to track down.
If you don't keep your vehicles very long, then don't worry about a UOA program. If you keep them past warranty, then do one before it expires. If you find a keeper, then sample and test whenever you want. You will eventualy fall into a comfort zone.
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