Maxlife 5W30 // 99 Nissan Maxima 3.0L V6 // 4950mi

[sky jumper]

boring stuff here. I really am trying to extend my OCIs, but when my oil blotters start showing dark black centers, and the valve train starts to look like it's getting stained, well, I get the oil change itch - and it must be scratched.

I would like to understand why my oil blotters look the way they do. as best I can tell I have no sludge. valvetrain is nice and clean, and dissected filters look almost new.

Si seems a bit high. the air filter was new last November. maybe it's that fresh filter/open pores letting more dirt get in thing? likewise, ingested winter road salt might explain the Na?? (the GC gold was also a winter OCI).

'99 Nissan Maxima
94,606 Vehicle miles
Oil Type: Maxlife 5W30
OCI: 4,950 mi
Oil Filter: nissan 9E
Air Filter: Nissan OEM w/ 4950 miles on it
Driving Style: 70/30 city/hwy

Blackstone comments:
No problems were found in the latest sample from your Nissan. All wear read well below universal averages and in the proper balance. As nicely as your engine wears you could easily run the oil longer. 6,000 miles shouldn't be too long for you, if you're interested. At 94,606 miles we see no signs of an obvious mechanical problem developing. The oil was in good shape physically, containing no moisture, fuel, or coolant. Both silicon and insolubles read normally showing good air and oil filtration. Yours is a nicely wearing 3.0L!


Code:

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Oil Maxlife GC Maxlife GC ST Syn

Type 5W30 Green 5W30 Gold 10W30



OCI mi 4950 4810 4053 4778 3050

Veh mi 94,606 89,656 84,843 80,790 72,926





Al 3 2 4 3 2

Cr 1 0 0 2 1

Fe 4 4 2 5 4

Cu 2 2 3 12 2

Pb 0 1 1 3 1

Sn 0 0 3 0 0

Mo 245 14 257 48 36

Ni 0 0 0 0 0

Mn 0 0 0 0 0

Ag 0 0 0 0 0

Ti 0 0 0 0 0

K 3 1 1 2 0

B 18 17 20 0 0

Si 13 10 5 10 4

Na 3 1 3 4 2

Ca 2169 2816 1838 1291 1716

Mg 16 112 14 309 7

P 665 742 656 628 595

Zn 814 885 778 774 710

Ba 0 0 1 0 0



Visc 61.2 62.6 57.6 63.3 60.4

Flsh Pt 400 385 405 385 415

Fuel
Coolant 0 0 0 0 0

H2O 0 0 0 0 0

Insol 0.3 0.3 0.2 0.3 0.4

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oil blotter from this maxlife at 4500 miles...

 

[Merkava_4]

At what quantities are you mixing Maxlife and GC together?

 

[Merkava_4]

Nevermind, I see now it's because your columns aren't straight.

 

[sky jumper]

hmm. what do the columns look like? they're straight on my computer.

I know this breaks the forum rules, but here's the excel table. this is what the above table looks like on my screen...

 

[INDYMAC]

Fantastic UOA's here Sky Jumper. I noticed that #@$%! said you could go 6K, but I don't see a TBN. Did they do one? Are you using ML syn or blend? Why are you alternating with GC? Is it because GC is doomed and you decided to go back to ML?

 

[INDYMAC]

I meant Blackstone, not #@$%!.

 

[dcoyne78]

Looks great. I think the thinner 5w30 works a little better, you might consider a 5w20 or even a 0w20 during the winter for 4k just to see if the wear changes for better or worse if you feel like tinkering. Otherwise keep doing what your doing, it seems both GC and Maxlife work well, but I think any name brand SM oil would be fine up to 5K, you could take a syn to 7.5k easily.

Dennis

 

[sky jumper]

thanks guys. now that you mention it indymac, I think this fill may indeed be ML full synthetic. I know the previous ML fill was in fact their "regular" blend (which I think they now call syn blend?) -- but I did have a 5qt jug of the full syn, and a couple cases of the regular stuff, and I can't remember what cars I put it all in. the add pack looks identical, but the visc is thicker, which would be consistent with the full syn. Right now I have the pepboys rebated PP 5W30 in there.

I dabbled with GC a couple times, but it caused a cold start knock that I wasn't comfortable with. I still have 5qts of GC green that I might try one last time. and I also have a bunch of $0.99/qt synpower 5W30 I might try. but like dcoyne says, it doesn't seem to matter what oil I run in this engine.

I don't get TBNs anymore b/c I have no plans for really long OCIs. I did get a TBN on the initial sample of supertech syn, and it was 3.7 (wish i had an oil blotter of that oil to compare).

 

[TeeDub]

Looking at your blotter paper, I'd say this engine is running rich, which is increasing the # of carbonacous blowby into the oil. Given the amount of city driving you do, this may be par for the course. I'd make sure the plugs, air filter and PCV valve are in good shape and you are getting a good spray pattern out of the fuel injectors. You might try some Techron, Redline SL-1 or the new Amsoil PI, and see if you can't get the engine to burn a bit cleaner.

As for the oil, I'd try something that meets the ACEA B4 or B5, light duty diesel specs as well as the gas engine specs. These higher detergent/dispersant (TBN > 10.0) oils will do a better job of suspending and dispersing the soot particles in the oil....

TS

 

[Merkava_4]

Quote:

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hmm. what do the columns look like? they're straight on my computer.

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They look like this on my screen:

 

[ThirdeYe]

Same, they're all lopsided for me as well.

 

[John_K]

Hmm...looks perfect on my screen.

John

 

[ThirdeYe]

Merkava, are you using Firefox? I noticed that it looked normal when I opened it in IE.

 

[Merkava_4]

I've got Firefox loaded, but I don't use it much.

Safari is the browser of choice.

 

[jeepman]

Fantastic UOA's across the board. This affirms my faith in MaxLife as a premium oil at a reasonable price, but the ST Synth held up better than I would have expected. Even on a 3k UOA, it seems to have a good basestock, since the add pack is so weak. The MaxLife is the best oil I have used in my oil chewing Jeep 4.0l, and based on this I think MaxLife Synth is going in the wife's fickle "I don't like any oil you try" PT Cruiser this weekend with a UOA to follow...

Congrats again on finding what looks to be the perfect oil for your application!

 

[hominid7]

Nice report, thanks for sharing!

I will be interested to see how the PP performs. It would also be interesting to see how a plain dino or even cheapo supertech dino performs compared to the base line you've charted using syns and blends.