Originally Posted By: shpankey
Originally Posted By: tig1
Originally Posted By: teddyboy
I didn't ask the question to pick an argument. I'm an economist, not an engineer. My interest was piqued by the alternating praise and virtol that M1 seems to evoke on this forum. Discrediting M1 seems to be the the raison d'etre for some regular posters.
I freely admit that my knowledge is less than 10% of those who really understand oil chemistry and the properties that make a good oil. For example, with the exception of TBN, I don't know what any of the numbers in a uoa really mean. What I do know is that I've used M1 for more than 30 years and have run many cars way more than 200 K. Did I change the oil too often? Undoubtedly! Stopping that is one of the benefits of finding this forum. Could I have done the same thing using some other brands? Again, undoubtedly. I am curious as to why the nepture test never enters into the discussion. Based upon my limited knowledge, it seems that both Amsoil and M1 faired pretty well and that one would be really hard pressed to make the case that either of those is a bad product.
As already stated I am a 32 year user of M1 oils like yourself with many high mileage engines. I never had a need for UOAs in the past but for kicks I did two, a year and a half ago with good results for 10K OCIs. So what I thought at the time. All of my vast experience with M1 oils has shown me nothing but clean, long lived engines showing no signs of wear in performance.
To be fair, such a response is actually only helpful if one is able to travel back in time and use the oil from then till now. There is no way for one to say that from this point till 10 years in the future that would continue. It probably will... maybe... but then in this corporate world where it's common to buy a good name and then put junk out under that name to make money is not so uncommon.
One can appreciate that M1 has done well for many people up until now, but this is no way proof that it can and will continue to do so forevermore. They very well could have watered it down, or a version (5w30) down and we won't know the end result of that for probably years from now b/c even if they did water it down from previous versions, it's not going to be so bad as to have catastrophic failure in any kind of short period of time. Heck, even the cheapest dino's take awhile to do some damage.
Having said all that, you can see below, I have no qualms with running M1 and my car loves the 15w50 in it right now.
But I wouldn't run 5w30 and I wouldn't even run 0w40 (just b/c T. Dyson says it won't last 1k mi. in a car like mine). Though I have no doubt 0w40 is a great oil (I have a stash of it) and will perform great in most applications (mine is brutal on any oil!). Anyhow, just kind of tired of this argument you make every time... it has some merit, but imo, not a whole terrible lot. If I was to go by this, I'd still use my grandpa's oil b/c he tells these same stories about his old oils. ;P
Yes, of course we don't know the future with anything, I can only say what has been my experience. However I have two friends that run M1 5-30. One has a 99 Silverado with 280K with 15K OCIs and another with a 2000 Taurus Duratech with 320K using M1 5-30 8K oci and both still perform very well. Also I don't believe M1 puts water in their oil, at least I haven't seen any. HaHa!
