Jeep 3.6L 20.5k mi; RL 0w-20 1.9k mi

Joined
Jul 22, 2025
Messages
5
Hi,
I have no clue what I did wrong. I used a little pump from Harbor Freight to take a sample. My air filter is clean. What else could cause a Silicon spike? Also I don't understand the so early oxidation of the oil.
Thanks for your comments in advance.

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no 150 ppm isn't normal.

has something been opened or replaced on the engine recently?

edit: is this the first UOA, at 20k miles it could still be from new assembly.
 
It's important to either know the VOA values from a similar sample, or pay to have your VOA run.

- The SI is high, but it could be from an additive (some anti-foam agents cause high Si readings). I'm not saying this is the case, but you'd want to check against a VOA of your specific product used. Of the several VOAs I looked at for Red Line from their other oils, they all are around the 20ppm mark (give or take). So your sample is high relative to what I'd expect to see.

- The Ox is high as well, for less than 2k miles. Some (much?) of that is probably due to the base stocks. Again, a VOA baseline would help here. The VOAs I've seen are typically around 70ppm or more, so yes, this seems reasonable.

- The Fe is a tad high, but given this is probably the second or third OCI, it's probably residual break-in.

- Wow; that's a shallow BN for an oil with such low use. The Ca and Mg are pretty darn low, as an observation.


NOTE: if you search our VOA section, make sure to check "Redline", "Red Line" and "RL" .... because folks are just darn sloppy when they title their threads.
 
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residual, additive, contamination, or a mix of that. A HF pump wouldn't give me a lot of confidence in being clean. I always get a fumoto valve or catch it mid drain from the pan. Messy sometimes but it removes an extra tool out of the equation for contamination.
 
Nice looking oil on paper. The oxidation value is showing the presence of an ester and a good amount of it. I don't know what's up with the silicon spike. Lowest Noack among 20 grades that I've seen.

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I think what is needed is an oil analysis on the next sampe. it's a 20k engine so could still be elevated si from sealants, and it seems to have slightly elevated metals still aswell.
Unless they were doing 10k oil changes, which I doubt, still Si shouldn't be that high. Would you agree?
 
I don't know how high it was to start with, so all we can do is see if it comes down in the next 2k or so miles. if it doesn't there's likely a problem.
Yes agree continue testing and I would be somewhat surprised if silicon was this high still from OEM sealants etc. unless going really long drain intervals.

OP: Which begs the question of how long were your intervals? I still would suspect the pump as being part of the problem. Can you start sampling from the oil drain going forward to eliminate a variable?
 
Really appreciate all the comments. Nobody has touched my Jeep. I do everything on it. Air filter was clean and the box properly closed. Oil has been changed multiple times before. I did a UOA before and things looked normal for the mileage. I was using Pennzoil at the time.
I am starting to blame the quality of this pump. Those hoses must have been full of dirt already. Oil is too expensive to drain at such low interval so this pump was the only way.

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