Mobil's Million mile car......

[csandste]

How about Pennzoil's million mile truck. This one did more than run on a track--AND it wasn't synthetic.

http://www.pennzoil-quakerstate.com/indx_pqs/about/products/pr2002-02-07.htm

 

[Patman]

I've read about that million mile truck before and the math just doesn't make sense. I find it extremely hard to believe that he could do 800 miles a day, what about bathroom breaks? What about eating? How could he average the kinds of speeds necessary to do that? It just doesn't make sense.

And even if it did, why was this moron changing his oil every four days? He could've easily gone 6k on that same oil with that kind of driving. Or better yet, use a synthetic oil and go as long as possible (using oil analysis to determine the longest interval he could possibly use)

It just seems incredibly stupid and wasteful to change your oil every 4 days. I bet that oil wasn't even close to worn out. I still think it's some sort of publicity stunt.

 

[Dr. T]

The facts:
Total mileage: 1,005,000 miles
After break-in (1,200 miles) only 5W-30 Mobil 1 and Mobil Super Unleaded were used.
BMW maintenance and service requirements followed completely.
Test run on an outdoor instrumented roll stand (to subject the car to changing weather conditions).
Hourly speed cycle was 75% at 80-85mph and 25% at 50-55mph.
The test was run over a 4 year period night-and-day schedule equivalent to 66 years of typical American driving.

The only failures:
2 differentials,
1 drive shaft,
1 water pump and
1 automatic transmission.
*No engine parts failed*.
Fuel injectors changed at 680,000 miles because 1 showed signs of deposits.

After the test, the engine was removed and disassembled for inspection:

"The engine was extremely clean and free of deposits.
There were no visible top-of-stroke cylinder ridges.
Cam lobes and valve guides showed little wear and were in excellent operating
condition. (The cam shaft rotated over a *billion* times during the test).
With 2 exceptions, all the engine parts were within BMW specifications.
The exceptions were...
The No. 2 piston ring end gaps were .004" over.
Two con rod bearings were .0008" over."
After the tear-down, the engine was reassembled, the car was driven from New Jersey to
Las Vegas and back, and then shipped to Europe for "display and touring purposes". BMW
inspected the engine and issued a paper on the test.

 

[Patman]

I remember hearing about this test a long time ago though, so they were most likely using either the Advanced Formula Mobil 1 (the one just before Tri-Synthetic) or even the version older than that.

While it is impressive, it honestly means nothing now, since the new oil is so radically different than previous formulas. Also, this car wasn't subjected to a typical driving situation with normal warm up and cool down cycles, which is the kind of test I'd like to see.

What they should have done is run the exact same type of car on the same test simultaneously but while using conventional oil. Who knows, perhaps the results could have been almost the same!

 

[Johnny]

Patman: No publicity stunt, just facts. Now don't call the man a moron for changing is oil every 3,000 miles. That's the way he was raised. Heck, that's the way I was raised. Now I will speak to you from my marketing background. Why on earth would I, or anyone else selling any brand of oil want someone to change their oil every 5,000 to 15,000 miles. It's very simple, we want to make money. If you read my post on your question "What kind of car do you drive" you will see that I change the oil in my company car, maybe every 6,000 miles. Why, I'm lazy and it is a good chance to prove the oil I sell will do it with no problem. Something was said somewhere about oil company warranties. Why do we have them. I've never seen an oil failure in 22 years of doing this. We do it because it's good marketing if you can get someone to change their oil every 4,000 miles for the life of the car. You sell a lot of oil that way. Could Pennzoil, Valvoline, Chevron, Mobil, and others make an oil that would last 30,000 miles. You bet we could, but the general public would not pay the price for this kind of oil. You would have to see the marketing figures that are cramed down our throats everyday. The lubricants market in this country is flat and has been for several years. It is dog eat dog. As Bror Jace says, it's MARKETING, MARKETING, MARKETING.

Now I will tell you where the publicity came in on this truck. It was from the owner of the lube center that did all the oil changes. If he had not contacted the media about this, no one would have ever known. Heck, the guy got a free truck out of it.

Moron, NO, good loyal customer, YES. I wish we had another 250 million just like him, and so does every other oil company.

Someone asked for honest answers from an oil rep, well this is about as honest as I can get.

 

[sprintman]

Johnny, I think we better make you an honourable Aussie! Those who have been here will know exactly what I mean. Some good people on this forum, just so different from the US Sprintcar ones I participate in. An engine building mate here wanted ideas on better lubrication for methanol sprintcar engines, it's what got me on to this forum initially, but gone way beyond that now though IMHO.

 

[Patman]

I guess you are right, from a marketing standpoint of course they want us doing 3k changes. I just simply don't understand why this guy spent so much more money on oil changes than necessary? In the end it obviously worked out, but what if he didn't get a new truck?

Wouldn't it have made more sense, from a marketing standpoint, to show people that this oil could easily go 6k? Then people would switch from other brands, and even if they didn't change every 3k, the company still got their business since they weren't using their oil to begin with.

I guess I have a real hatred for the way that the 3k/3mo rule has been shoved down everyone's throats.

 

[msparks]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Patman:
I guess you are right, from a marketing standpoint of course they want us doing 3k changes. I just simply don't understand why this guy spent so much more money on oil changes than necessary? In the end it obviously worked out, but what if he didn't get a new truck?

---

Yes it is all marketing hype and scar tactics. I mean why would they tell someone to change their oil at 3000? If you know anyone with a European Car, just ask them to take a look at their owners manual.

There are thousands of VW driver out there(Drivers wanted

) Anyhow you tell me what the oil change interval is? And I don't believe it mentions synthetic. Only the TDI has the synthetic requirement. I also believe that Mercedes uses Mob 1.

Give us a report on what you find out.

 

[Al]

Johnny: certainly appreciate your honesty. Thats what is nice about this board vs Edmunds. Even though some post here under different names-the conversations are at a higher level and more civil.

Patman you said "While it is impressive, it honestly means nothing now, since the new oil is so radically different than previous formulas" I posted on Edmunds some time ago comparisons of Mobils papers written in the SAE on Sequence testing of their pre-TriSyn version and the TriSyn version. The TriSyn was better. I'll resurect and post later.

Al

 

[Johnny]

msparks: I am very aware of what VW says. My wife drives a 2000 VW Eurovan. I have the oil changed at my local VW dealer every 5,000 miles just like the manual says. It's there for every scheduled service. If the van was a highway vehicle like my company car, I would probably change the oil every 7,000 to 8,000, and maybe 10,000. I use Pennzoil European Formula 5W40 Synthetic (Group III).

Now here is a good comparision. The little V6 VW motor holds 6 quarts of oil, with a big filter. My company car, Pontiac Grand Prix with a 3.8L motor only holds 4.5 quarts of oil with a little filter. Which one do you think gets the best protection.

I will tell you why the oil industry says 3,000 miles. It's not hype. On a national average, the average person changes their oil at 5,800 miles. Now if we told the world to change their oil at 5,000 miles, they would probably bump the average to 7,000. That's why all the oil company warranties say 4,000 miles or 4 months. To increace the oil change interval.

Everyone has to remember this. A very small minority (that's us) have analysis performed on passenger car oil. If something goes wrong and there is sludge or other problems, the first thing they do is blame it on the oil. No one will admit they have bad driving habits or they neglet their car. And the majority do. That's just the facts.

Besides, if someone pays $25,000 and up for a new car, an extra oil change or two is just cheap insurance.

All you Honda lovers will get a kick out of this. My next door neighbor has a 2001 Honda (I think it's a Prelude). He changes his own oil every 1,500 to 2,000 miles. He even goes to Wal-Mart and buys Pennzoil. God I love him. I have told him many times, there is absolutely no reason to change his oil that often, but he still does. I guess this could become our million mile Honda, unless he wears the threads out on the oil drain plug and it falls out.

It's just surrival guys.

 

[Patman]

Johnny, that is an excellent point you made about how people will take that 3k recommendation but then turn it into 5-6k in the real world! I guess we have to take into account for those people that won't follow the rules laid out for them!

And about the guy changing his oil every 1500 miles, it's funny you should mention that, because I just spoke to someone on LS1.com who was planning on changing his oil every 1500 miles! Why? He says because he wants to get 200k out of his car! I told him that even if he tripled his oil change interval he'd still get the same engine life. I also mentioned how the new SL oils are so much better than even the cheapest oils will get you long engine life now.

Thanks for your honesty Johnny, it's greatly appreciated here!

 

[Dr. T]

You think that's bad...a buddy of mine with a beater `88 BMW 3 series changes the oil every 2k km...just calculating that....1250mi.!! Are you kidding I ask.....that's roughly 4 tankfulls or 4 weeks....crazy...

 

[Patman]

I just remembered a guy that I used to know whose father owned a 1990 Corvette. He bought it new and only drove it about 300 to 500 miles per year at the most (was very anal about not getting it dirty or wet). He changed the oil in that car every 3 months still! He owned a repair shop though so he just used the bulk oil he had sitting around there (I think they used Valvoline 10w30) But in his case what he would do was drain that perfectly good oil out of his Vette, and put it into his daily driver which was an old Volvo. That Volvo had over 500,000 miles on it's engine! He actually took the engine out of an older Volvo that was rusted out, and put it into a slightly newer one in better condition.

 

[widman]

Johnny is right with most companies. And those of who live selling oil must consider that. However, I take the other view and try to win more customers by demonstrating, through analysis, that the oil can last longer. This is a market where the average oil change was at 1500 miles. The interesting thing is that the two brands I sell show more additive reserve and less wear, and less shear at 4,000 than most of the other oils at 1,000 miles. But when customers want to go beyond 5,000 - or 12,000 highway, I try to talk them out of it. Partly it is risk of getting dirt or stuck injectors, partly it is that I need to sell something. I reduced one customer's oil consumption by 80% and wear metals by 99.5%, so now he is a loyal customer, but not a very big one.
Because of luxury taxes on motor oils and fuels, the average retail price of a qt of Group I motor oil here is $3.00 U.S.

 

[Al]

As promised. I dug this information out of the past. It is a comparison between Pre TriSyn, TriSyn and Delvbac 1:

The following numbers for cam wear come from three SAE publications: 95 1026 (1995), 98-144 (1998) and 2000-01-1993 (2000 Delvac 1) I tried to pull common test data from these publications to give some idea of the change in performance in the pre-TriSyn (1995), the TriSyn (1998) and Delvac 1. Again I chose to look at cam wear because this is the standard for all API/ACEA wear tests. The tests are: The IIIE Sequence API test. It represents high speed, high load and high temperature. The single duration test is 64 hours. Engine oils are typically designed to just pass this test. Naturallly double and quadrupple test times are extremely demanding and conventional oils would not be able to normally pass even a double length test. The VE test is a simulated low temperature stop and go test of 288 hour duration. The MB OM 602A is an ACEA test for Light duty diesel engines.

The first number represents the year, the second column represents the grade of oil, the third colume is the max average wear permitted in microinches. The final column is the actual wear of that oil. One problem is that they (Mobil) tested several versions of an oil and we never will know which is the final product-if any. I assume the ones with the bet results are close to the final product.


The year 95 represents pre TriSyn
The year 98 represents TriSyn
The year 2000 represents Delvac 1

IIIE

98 0W-30 30 11
98 5W-30 30 26
98 0W-40 30 21
2000 5W-40 30 7 Delvac 1

Double IIIE

95 5W-50 30 12
95 5W-50 30 28
95 5W-30 30 21.5
98 0W-30 30 10
98 0W-40 30 10

Quadruple IIIE

95 5W-30 30 29.8

VE

98 0W-30 130 103
98 5W-30 130 74
98 0W-40 130 13
98 5W-40 130 54

Double VE

95 15W-50 130 26
95 15W-50 130 51
95 5W -50 130 24.9
95 5W -50 130 20
95 5W -30 130 12.5

ACEA MB OM 602A

1998 0W-30 50 4
1998 0W-40 50 4
2000 5W-40 50 2.2

Sooooo... In general I would say that the TriSyn is better than the pre- TriSyn based on the head-to-head double length IIIE test. If you do a lot of stop and go in Alaska you might be better off with the pre-TriSyn however. (VE Test)
The 5W-40 Delvac 1, appears to be best of the bunch, followed by the TriSyn 0W-40, followed by the 0W-30. You can form your own opinion.

I am not being a Mobil 1 nerd, so pleas don't take it as that. I am just really just looking for the best oil and being objective as possible. I'm really though interested in the Shaffer's #132 (moly)

Al

 

[Dr. T]

Are these for U.S. Spec. M-1's???? Because both the 5-40 and 5-50 listed are not available here....and the specs. for the 5-30 and 0-40 etc. differ in diff. continents... Where's more data for the 15-50???

 

[Bror Jace]

Guys, don't bite the hand that feeds you.

Often, for most guys, good enough is just not good enough. And, if these guys want to change their oil & filter too often, let 'em. As long as they recycle the used oil, what harm does it do?

When you add up the cost of keeping a relatively new (no more than 3-4 years old) car on the road these days, excessive oil changes are a drop in the crankcase. Think of depreciation, insurance, fuel, tires, highway tolls, parking etc ... which can add up to $2,500-$4,000+ per year Dropping an extra $30-50 on oil & filters in a year is insignificant.

Besides, as was pointed out earlier, it IS awfully cheap insurance against sludging, oxidation, wear, etc ...

I suppose the time and hassle of buying the oil & supplies, doing the change and then returning the oil is something to consider. I put over 17,000 mile on my car a year so these extremely short intervals would have me changing my oil about every other month ... not something I’d like to do.

If I had a Honda S2000 (stock redline is 8,900 RPMs) or a high-winding sport bike, I'd be doing mine every 2,000 with a dino oil or 3,000-3,500 with a synthetic or good synthetic blend.

 

[TheLoneRanger]

Just thought I would make this point, since it hadn't been mentioned. These "million mile" tests are bunk, because the most wear an engine sees is upon start-up. They should try the same tests with 6-12 starts per day, and a cold start-up every morning. I suspect the results would be very different....

 

[msparks]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Johnny:
msparks: I am very aware of what VW says. My wife drives a 2000 VW Eurovan. I have the oil changed at my local VW dealer every 5,000 miles just like the manual says.
I will tell you why the oil industry says 3,000 miles. It's not hype. On a national average, the average person changes their oil at 5,800 miles.
.

---

Wow the EuroVan must be different than the Jetta Models!

5800 miles, Last year I was reading National Oil and Lube News and the average was 4700 miles. So its up 1000 miles from last year.

 

[VaderSS]

My stepmother bought an '87 Mazda 323 new. My father had the oil changed in it when he asked when the last change was, she said she had never changed it, the odometer at that time said 15000 miles. She said she had not been able to afford an oil change. Paying notes on a new car and can't afford to change the oil. I'm afraid that's more common than I'd like to think.