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Based on my truck getting a lot of shorter trips/cold starts, would you say the HPL 5-40CC is about as good as I’m going to find for protection?
HPL Oil 5w-40 5.7k mi; 6.7 Powerstroke 35.6k mi
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It's a solid oil but I'm still a couple months away from running my first UOA on it myself.
My wife's TGDI Fusion gets short tripped daily & runs the base HPL PCMO 5w-30 & 5w-40. I've posted her UOA's here & it's seriously as close to a VOA as I've seen. That said, there's plenty of other factors that can impact wear (silicon/dirt intrusion into the air intake for one) that can & will skyrocket wear rates no matter the oil you're running. If it was my rig I'd pull a sample at 5k miles & see how you're doing checking for wear, dirt, fuel dilution, etc.. extend the run as needed.
No, it usually means the opposite. Esters, particularly polar di-esters, are great at cleaning. The reason you see high oxidation with esters is because ester contains oxygen via C-O and C=O bonds, a result of carryover of the alkyl group from the creation process. (reacting acids with alcohols)
The FTIR machine, which measures oxidation, cannot discern harmless oxygen in ester from actual oxidation (where hydrocarbon bonds are broken and replaced with oxygen) thus it all gets read as oxidation.
This is one of the cases where UOAs can be misleading for someone who doesn't have background knowledge of oil chemistry, formulating, lab equipment, and analysis processes. Much like many things in our world, data is only as accurate as the knowledge of the observer. Hence, anecdotal claims are wrong >80% of the time. It's also why UOA comments are wrong, or at least missing the mark, about half the time since the rookie techs in these labs aren't often fully educated in lubricant chemistry. Thus, they flag things that shouldn't be flagged. This is why BITOG exists to help eliminate these confusions.
Some things to note though... not all esters have the same oxygen content. It can vary wildly depending on the type and feedstock. Thus, you may have 2 oils with the same ester concentration (say 10%) with one showing oxidation of 20 and the other showing 60 because the 2 oils are employing different esters. So note that just because one oil has higher virgin oxidation than another doesn't mean it has more ester or has a linear increase in ester. VOAs are important for knowing things like this so you know where your start point is. You can calculate your actual oxidation increase relative to the virgin oxidation value. Relative oxidation is usually condemned when it reaches +25 over virgin value.
EDIT: Also note that the oxidation value from ester does not indicate how well that particular ester cleans. Just because one ester shows higher oxidation, at the same concentration, doesn't mean it cleans better. The two parameters are unrelated. A high virgin oxidation value merely means ester is present in some substantial amount. It doesn't tell you how much, which type, or how well it cleans.
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I'd say you'd be very hard fought to find something better that's commercially available.
Dave was telling me about a fleet customer that uses basically the PCMO version of their oil. 15-20k OCIs, dusty conditions, hundreds of hours of idle time. The oil is still serviceable, but basically they do the OCIs on that schedule simply so they have a reason/opportunity to check out the other things on the truck. While I used the No VII version and not the PCMO, my 14.4k UOA came back looking great; no contamination and great reserve TBN; a little thickening but it was just barely a 40 grade which isn’t overly offensive.
Considering that fleet accumulates approximately 2 BILLION miles per year without any oil-related failures, I think it’s quite humorous and wasteful to see other 3.5 Eco owners still believing the 3-5k hysteria. The HPL comes out cheaper over the service life of the vehicle and creates much less waste overall, while sacrificing absolutely nothing.
Who would’ve thought you can have high performance AND be “green” at the same time? Hmm
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AWESOME info. THANK YOU!
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Does the non cold climate hold any advantage over the cold climate formulation in the warmer/hotter months in northern Indiana? Or is the cold climate better to run even in those months?
As long as everything else in the system holds together it’s great. I’m doubling my wife’s OCI for her 95% city driving/severe service schedule because of HPL & getting great results.Dave was telling me about a fleet customer that uses basically the PCMO version of their oil. 15-20k OCIs, dusty conditions, hundreds of hours of idle time. The oil is still serviceable, but basically they do the OCIs on that schedule simply so they have a reason/opportunity to check out the other things on the truck. While I used the No VII version and not the PCMO, my 14.4k UOA came back looking great; no contamination and great reserve TBN; a little thickening but it was just barely a 40 grade which isn’t overly offensive.
Considering that fleet accumulates approximately 2 BILLION miles per year without any oil-related failures, I think it’s quite humorous and wasteful to see other 3.5 Eco owners still believing the 3-5k hysteria. The HPL comes out cheaper over the service life of the vehicle and creates much less waste overall, while sacrificing absolutely nothing.
Who would’ve thought you can have high performance AND be “green” at the same time? Hmm
Now my Canyon otoh, I had to waste HPL because I needed to locate a silicon intrusion that shot my Fe count up to 190ish in just under 5k miles. Hence Chevron Delo, 5min oil flushes & 2-3k mi OCI’s & sampling while hunting down the issue. Had two HPL short OCI’s that kinda hurt.
MolaKule
Staff member
No. The CC version has a substantial amount of PAO. The CC version is the better oil for all temps.
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