Interesting long road trip observation

[AngryScientist]

Just returned from a cross country road trip with my oldest son from my home here in NJ out to Yosemite and back, hitting many national parks. Fun times!

My truck is an 18 Colorado with the V6. It normally gets 5k OCI's with Penzoil Plat 5w-30.

As a prep for this trip, I knew I would not be home in under 5k, so (probably unnecessarily, but made me feel better) I chose to go with Castrol's Extended Performance oil which boats 25k OCI's possible.

I have a Gold Plug oil plug on the truck with the magnetic tip. Normal oil changes see a bit of metal wear material on the magnet, a bit of a grey paste look to it, very normal with every vehicle I have ever owned.

To my surprise, after almost 8k miles with the road trip, dang if that magnet was clean as a whistle. Zero sign of any wear material!

I know a lot of wear happens on start-up, and those were very minimal over this OCI. The truck went over many mountain passes, 11k+ feet, and spent between 6 and 12 hours a day running at 80mph, so working quite hard. I expected to see at least the normal wear material on the magnet, but did not. Oil was visibly quite clean/clear too.

I think I'm sticking with the Castrol product from here on.

 

[JavierH19]

Can't argue with that, I too would get the same impression. Is it the api sp 20k or sq 25k variant. Some say they're the exact same minus a label change since the "old" oil was good enough to do 25k in the first place and I think I could believe that.

 

[altaylar]

I wonder of that was the oil doing its job great, or the way you drove on that interval. Probably that would be a good idea sticking with this oil for one more interval to see the results over your regular use pattern

 

[Zee09]

All things considered it's really inexpensive too...

 

[AngryScientist]

All things considered it's really inexpensive too...

Agree. I buy all of my oil on Amazon generally these days. This is the stuff I bought, by the 3-pack

https://www.amazon.com/Castrol-Exte...8-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&th=1

 

[Cujet]

Sounds like a great result and a good trip.

I've switched all my vehicles to M1 5W-30 EP, and get similar results. The oil drains out clean and clear, with an unusual reddish tint, no metal on my drain plugs and zero debris or carbon in the oil filters. Just solid performance.