I asked Valvoline about Seq IVA

[Carbon12]

Passing this along just for information. Nothing concrete regarding wear, but somewhat informative.

My message to Valvoline:

Castrol claims that their Magnatec motor oil contains additives which cling to metal parts after an engine is shut off and that these additives reduce engine wear during the warm up phase. Are there any such additives in Valvoline oils such as Maxlife? Additionally Castrol shows a graph of camshaft wear in the sequence IVA test where Magnatec significantly exceeds the spec. How does Maxlife compare in camshaft wear to the sequence IVA spec?

Valvoline's response:

Valvoline’s Maxlife engine oils contain proprietary components, including anti-wear additives (e.g. ZDDP) and friction modifiers, which are surface active and adhere to metal surfaces in the engine. These additives remain attached to the metal surface over a range of operating conditions (including start-up), insuring these surfaces are protected from wear and damage, while also minimizing friction to help maximize fuel economy.

While Valvoline does not advertise specific engine test results, we can say that our MaxLife engine oils perform very well in the Sequence IVA engine test, surpassing the wear performance required by the current API and ILSAC engine oil specifications.

 

[mctmatt]

I know that Magnatec has some great reviews on this forum so I have often wondered if the Gold and Black bottles contained the same additives that cling and protect the engine at start up that is found in the Magnatec bottles. To be honest their response still leaves me wondering if they are Magnatec with increased additives and friction modifiers.

 

[BrocLuno]

I've never dissassembled a used engine and found no oil clinging to any surface. It's everywhere and has to be washed off. It's pure salesmanship

 

[SonofJoe]

It might be worth pointing out that in the formulaton game, ALL oils will, to a certain degree, EXCEED individual test limits, regardless of what the test is. Ones that don't are called test fails!

It's nigh on impossible to formulate an oil that 'just' passes every engine or rig test on every paramater. I'd liken it to trying to balance a pencil on it's pointy end. In theory it should be possible. In practice it just isn't.

One other thing worth saying here is that ALL US ILSAC grades tend to contain GMO (Glycerol Mono-Oleate) for fuel economy. GMO is made by reacting Glycerol (a simple polyol with three -OH groups) with Oleic Acid (a C18 unsaturated fatty acid). This is therefore by definition, an Ester.

Also, by restricting the amount of reacting Oleic Acid to make the Mono-Oleate (and not the Di-oleate & Tri-Oleate) you leave behind free hydroxy groups which impart polarity to the molecular chain. So the bulk of US oils already contain a Polar Ester, which if you believe the hype, sticks to metal surfaces.

 

[OilUzer]

so it sounds like all parents have "intelligent" kids

on a more serious note, a very good write-up! it sounds very logical even though its going way over my head ... lol

 

[Shannow]

A former member here was privy to a lot of the labs, having worked with more than a few of them.

He reckoned that Ashland/Valvoline had one of the best, most comprehensive labs out there...and stated that they used their science to provided the cheapest product that just got across the line on the combination of tests.

more than 10 years ago, but that's how you stay in business...things might well have changed.

 

[SonofJoe]

Originally Posted By: Shannow
A former member here was privy to a lot of the labs, having worked with more than a few of them.

He reckoned that Ashland/Valvoline had one of the best, most comprehensive labs out there...and stated that they used their science to provided the cheapest product that just got across the line on the combination of tests.

more than 10 years ago, but that's how you stay in business...things might well have changed.






Even if I say so myself, I'd judge that back in the day, I was head and shoulders above my contemporaries in applying the black arts of 'economic formulation' (achieving a given spec level at the lowest absolute cost). I was once told by our Latin-American head that Lubrizol put together a team of people to figure out how one of my products did what it did at such a low treat because they didn't believe it was possible!

Yet with all of my tricks & ruses, engine tests would regularly pass on some parameters by a country mile. Once you get in to it, you realise that oil formulation is more akin to gambling than to what most people would recognise as 'science'.

Regarding the Valvoline lab boasts, I'd personally be very wary of such claims only because there's often a serious economic penalty to pay for over-optimising a product. When a typical engine test costs you say $US 40,000 a pop, ideally you want to pass (and pass close) first time round. Every time you attempt to interate towards the perceived optimum point, it will cost you another $US 40k.

I once had the misfortune to work with someone who had a fixation on a particular DI treat rate for a product he was attempting to sell. I can't remember the exact details now but he ran something like an additional Sequence IIIF to shave an additional 0.1% off the DI. The test passed and he was very pleased. However I sat down, worked the numbers and concluded he'd spent $US 40k of the company's money to save a paltry $US 10k over the projected lifetime of the product. In my book, that's just plain dumb!

 

[Shannow]

Can see that with your work in the "SG" oils thread.

re your last point, 29 years in the Power Industry, there's guys who will send us broke optimising costs. An ISO efficiency test is $500,000, not to mention the opportunity costs of a shutdown, and start up costs of installing the calibrated orifices...Say $1.2M per event. Then having to do "before/after" tests to prove the worth of an upgrade, when the repeatability is 0.5%.

I've argued my way out of them every time, but these clowns "have to measure"

 

[goodtimes]

"We don't advertise engine wear tests" isn't very helpful. Olive oil clings to parts too due to surface tension, so that also isn't helpful to say all oil clings. I am though going to use the Magnatec in my Volt, meets Dexos, and I tend to believe what they say about it, because making that big of a stink about it in writing and videos probably means there is some truth there.

 

[oil_film_movies]

Originally Posted By: Carbon12
Additionally Castrol shows a graph of camshaft wear in the sequence IVA test where Magnatec significantly exceeds the spec.

The seq IVA is a 100-hour test, so Magnatec scores around a 10 micron result according to:


Published marketing results of the seq IVA have shown 13 microns (Kendall), 10 microns (Castrol Edge), 20 (Valvoline syn), 20 (Amsoil). Standard deviation is about 12 microns, so I hope some of these aren't cherry-picked.

 

[Carbon12]

Yep. That's the graph I was referring to. Makes me wonder why other oil brands do not produce a chart or some statement showing their product is statistically the same, unless they can't because they are statistically different. Why not take some wind out of Castrol's sails if they could. The magnetic oil drain plug in my somewhat older truck that sees numerous short trips was very very clean after a 12 month run of Magnatec but I will probably stick with Maxlife again. Doing an oil change again soon will seem how much metal is on the magnet after 12 months of Maxlife.