Mobil 1 0w-20, 5053 miles, 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid

[cutlassvillager]

The first 3-4k miles of this oil change the car was often short-tripped and spent a lot of time sitting. The oil filter was a Mobil 1 Extended Performance M1-110. This combo was in service for 23 months/5053 miles. No makeup oil was added. The air filter is OEM Honda, however part way into the oil change an animal had pulled "bedding" into the airbox.

In went a little under 4 quarts of SN Mobil 1 0w-20 and a Honda Honeywell filter.

 

[addyguy]

Not bad at all for the usuage profile.

 

[Artem]

So much for "dump it every 12 months..." They just want you to buy more oil!

 

[chubbs1]

It will be interesting to see the 0w20/SN TBN retention compared to this. Not too shabby of a UOA.

 

[Chris]

Any comments on the iron here? The typical M-1 iron thing?

 

[Hokiefyd]

I don't think it's a stellar UOA. Wear is generally higher than average (whatever that is) and TBN is lower than what I'd expect from Mobil 1 on a 5,000 mile OCI. Silicon is low, so it doesn't seem that the airbox issue caused any dirt ingestion.

Maybe the short-tripping really did hit the oil hard, but Honda 4s like this typically run a little cleaner.

 

[btanchors]

Regarding the TBN, I have been observing this myself ever since Mobil switched to their new low-sulfated ash SN formula for both the AFE line and the EP line - TBN retention is not as good as the older SM formula.

I know the TBN depletion is not linear, as it approaches 1.0, the supposed condemnation point according to Blackstone Labs. But it's getting awfully close to that level which does not inspire confidence that it will last until 10K miles with a reasonable amount of safety margin.

For this reason, I am investigating switching oils, after having used Mobil 1 for over 35 years.

 

[tig1]

Originally Posted By: btanchors
Regarding the TBN, I have been observing this myself ever since Mobil switched to their new low-sulfated ash SN formula for both the AFE line and the EP line - TBN retention is not as good as the older SM formula.

I know the TBN depletion is not linear, as it approaches 1.0, the supposed condemnation point according to Blackstone Labs. But it's getting awfully close to that level which does not inspire confidence that it will last until 10K miles with a reasonable amount of safety margin.

For this reason, I am investigating switching oils, after having used Mobil 1 for over 35 years.


There is a 10K warranty on all M1 oils except the EP variety which is 15K. I run 10K with the 0-20 with excellant results.

 

[Brons2]

Originally Posted By: btanchors
Regarding the TBN, I have been observing this myself ever since Mobil switched to their new low-sulfated ash SN formula for both the AFE line and the EP line - TBN retention is not as good as the older SM formula.

I know the TBN depletion is not linear, as it approaches 1.0, the supposed condemnation point according to Blackstone Labs. But it's getting awfully close to that level which does not inspire confidence that it will last until 10K miles with a reasonable amount of safety margin.

For this reason, I am investigating switching oils, after having used Mobil 1 for over 35 years.


This oil wasn't necessarily SN as it's been in the car for 2 years.

 

[cutlassvillager]

Thanks for the comments everyone. The oil for this OCI was SM. I still had a bottle in the spare tire compartment for top up.

 

[btanchors]

Well, I apologize, I must retract some of my earlier comments. I failed to recognize the following:

1) The combination had been in service for 23 months!

2) There was a lot of short trip service in the earlier part of the lifecycle.

3) This is SM, not SN Mobil 1.

Given this, I believe the TBN was excellent in the UOA, given these facts!

However, the one part of my post that I still believe true is that had this interval used SN instead of SM Mobil 1, the TBN would not have held up nearly as well.

Over the next several months, I intend to do some comparisons to see if TBN performance has declined with the SN version.

Thanks for posting this UOA!

 

[ltslimjim]

^I know this is just a forum, but it's always a health thing to line out some things you mistook previously. Nice going, we all have been there and I'm sure will be again. +1

I also agree TBN will probably have somewhat of a struggle in SN flavor from the initial boost of TBN SM has. Retention is probably about the same rate just not as high starting with SN, although I'm not saying that in a sense to imply it to follow itself in a linear manner. It's just easier to get nuked in short order, once it reaches a certain threshold it'll either stablize for a similar period of time or not. The thing is, the effective OCI length will be shortened either way.