Mobil 1 HM 5W/30, 5,336 miles, 2003 8.1L Suburban

[WishIhadatruck]

It has a K&N cold air kit from a previous owner, I replaced the K&N cone filter with an Amsoil cone filter not long after I purchased it in 2013 and again in the spring of 2018. It seems to be filtering well.

2 Quarts of make-up oil during this OCI, pretty normal for the 8.1L

Oil filter is K&N (great deal on them at $3.99 each)

Blackstone Coments:
Quote
There's good progress in this latest report for your Suburban. Lead is holding steady at an acceptable 17 ppm, and copper is the lowest we've seen so far at 22 ppm. That shows a solid drop in brass/bronze wear compared to previous reports, and it didn't take a shorter oil change interval to make that happen. Top-end metals like aluminum and chrome are still in great shape, and iron is pretty low for the oil change interval. No contamination is present in this M1 5W/30, and the viscosity didn't stray outside the expected range. This 496 is handling the towing well.


I've been dealing with some higher wear metals with this engine. It does a large % of its time towing, especially from 2013-2017. This last OCI was still probably about 60% towing 8,000 lbs. I have not posted here any of the past UOA's except the first one but I'm including all of them in the data. I think the longer OCI back in Sept. 2018 was negatively influenced by 2 things. First, I intended to change it by the OLM, but I think someone re-set it at some point. Normally it would go off around 8,000-8,500 miles. At 9,500 I decided it wasn't going off and changed it. Second, just before the start of this OCI ending 9/18/2017 I changed the radiator out due to a leak around one the oil cooler fittings. This introduced new brass into the system with the new tank cooler.

Since this vehicle didn't seem to like longer OCI's, I decided to switch from Amsoil to M1 HM and stick to about a 5k mile OCI. It seems reasonably happy with this oil and OCI. I'll probably check it again after the next OCI which will be during the winter and with little towing, similar to the 5/7/2018 UOA with the Amsoil. If it still looks fine, I'll probably not check it for a long time.

Code


OIL M1HM 5W30 AMSOIL SS 5W30 AMSOIL SS 5W30 PP 5W30 Uni Avg

MILES IN USE 5.3K 5.1K 9.6K 5.3k 4.2k

MILES 169.7K 164.4K 159.3K 140.0k

SAMPLE TAKEN 8/26/18 5/7/18 9/17/17 10/30/14



ALUMINUM 6 6 6 3 4

CHROMIUM 1 0 1 1 1

IRON 15 10 25 15 21

COPPER 22 38 136 43 17

LEAD 17 17 67 31 10

TIN 0 0 1 2 1

MOLYBDENUM 96 147 169 67 77

NICKEL 0 0 1 0 1

MANGANESE 1 0 0 0 4

SILVER 0 0 0 0 0

TITANIUM 0 0 0 0 0

POTASSIUM 1 1 3 2 2

BORON 53 126 90 22 52

SILICON 12 13 20 11 13

SODIUM 10 13 16 29 34

CALCIUM 1599 3330 3905 1133 2043

MAGNESIUM 704 26 49 1153 223

PHOSPHORUS 739 715 753 914 743

ZINC 839 780 911 1317 900

BARIUM 0 0 0 0 0





INSOLUBLES 0.3 0.3 0.4 0.1

WATER 0 0 0 0

FLASHPOINT F 430 420 435 390

SUS VIS 210 F 61.2 60.7 63.5 73.8

cSt @ 100 C 10.56 10.41 11.19 13.94

TBN n/a n/a 5.4 n/a

 

[dave1251]

Interesting the increased wear metals you have stated with the extended OCI are in line with your shorter OCI's and both are slightly less than the universal averages for this engine. Also the lube has plenty of life left when you changed. Being said you are likely changing for peace of mind which does not have a price tag. Thank you for posting.

 

[WishIhadatruck]

Just noticed a typo, the first oil used was not PP 5W30 but Shell Rotella T6 5W-40.

dave1251, some of the wear metals track with the mileage, but the lead and copper were quite a bit higher in the first UOA compared to the most recent one with the same OCI. It is hard to judge the cause of any of it. The vehicle was new to me with 134k miles on it so who knows how it was treated before that. It could be that just more OCI's flushed out the poor maintenance from before? 5k OCI's on M1 is cheaper than 10k OCI's on Amsoil although it is very close. I don't put a ton of miles on it, so costs are not a huge concern but longevity is. I'm sure I'll have this for many years so taking good care of it is paramount. Like you said, peace of mind does not have a price tag. We all have to feel good about what we're doing. Right now I feel good.

 

[irv]

It's surprising for me to see such a wide array of wear metals no matter what oil you used, (some a bit worse than others) but from what I have read and been told, this is normal for GM engines.

I never would have guessed, that after this many miles on this unit, that wear metals would still be as high as they are.

Not a slam or a dig towards anything, I am just vocalizing my observations.

 

[dave1251]

Originally Posted by WishIhadatruck
Just noticed a typo, the first oil used was not PP 5W30 but Shell Rotella T6 5W-40.

dave1251, some of the wear metals track with the mileage, but the lead and copper were quite a bit higher in the first UOA compared to the most recent one with the same OCI. It is hard to judge the cause of any of it. The vehicle was new to me with 134k miles on it so who knows how it was treated before that. It could be that just more OCI's flushed out the poor maintenance from before? 5k OCI's on M1 is cheaper than 10k OCI's on Amsoil although it is very close. I don't put a ton of miles on it, so costs are not a huge concern but longevity is. I'm sure I'll have this for many years so taking good care of it is paramount. Like you said, peace of mind does not have a price tag. We all have to feel good about what we're doing. Right now I feel good.



Your in Michigan so I would not recommend going too thick especially with winter around the corner. I would try a thicker 30 grade or 40 grade synthetic, but that is only what I would do.

 

[ZZman]

Nice add pack on M1 HM