Question on oil specs...

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Oil guru's.....why is it that say for example...I go to shell rotella's website for technical data and specs on their oils, and read for example..."rotella 15w40 triple protection has a flashpoint of say 408 F (which is current specs by the way) but after reading used oil analysis reports on this website I see that the labs doing the used oil analysis report the same flashpoint of this "used oil" being higher than the virgin sample? I just read a used oil analysis on this website on a cummins diesel using this same exact oil showing a flashpoint of 430 F plus....is there a big difference in the way certain used oil analysis labs report certain specs? Or is there a big difference in the virgin specs of oils??
 
Was it Blackstone by chance? They've been double blind checked against other labs and themselves lately and have been shown to be completely bonkers on their numbers. Probably ok to trend with, but not so accurate on an absolute number level.
 
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The flash point test (ASTM D-92) has a reproducibility between labs of +- 15F. Therefore, if a flash point is actually 400F, one lab may read 415F while another may read 385F, and both results are considered acceptable per the method.

Tom NJ
 
Originally Posted By: shpankey
Was it Blackstone by chance? They've been double blind checked against other labs and themselves lately and have been shown to be completely bonkers on their numbers. Probably ok to trend with, but not so accurate on an absolute number level.


No kidding? Wow, that seems to be the lab of choice around here.

Is there some readable material on this study?
 
Yes, there are definitely a few threads here on BitoG where this has been shown. I read one the other day where they sent a (well shaken bottle) sample from a single quart of oil to 3 labs, Blackstone being one of them. The other 2 labs had much much higher numbers and were pretty close to each other, whereas Blackstone's were very low. So the guy shook up the same bottle again and sent them another sample and once again, the numbers were very low compared to the other 2 labs. To make it even worse for Blackstone, the numbers the other 2 labs came up with were both pretty close to the amounts the manufacturer claimed they should be at. So it was like a 3 against 1 and Blackstone was just way off.

You could probably dig and find this.... and if I run into it I'll come back and post the thread about it where it was discussed here at BitoG. But the members here basically were saying they would never do a used oil analysis again. There was also a big discussion about Terry Dyson and something about him using Blackstone on some occasions and some other lab too, though I think nobody ever came to a final conclusions. But the result was so bloody awful, I think it pretty much made me to never want to do a used oil analysis again and put a huge cramp in even believing anything from a Blackstone report... which really REALLY sucks for me, as I very much enjoyed that!

I'm sure someone here will link the thread soon, as it had surfaced again recently and I know many people here know of the thread. Also, there's been a couple other threads where something similar has happened. It's very upsetting to me that they are apparently so far off and have such low quality control.
 
In any case, an oil is the sum of all its specs, including the ones that are not published and some that are proprietary information. One spec is no basis for choosing an oil. Many users results and many used oil analyses is better for choosing an oil.
 
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rotella 15w40 triple protection has a flashpoint of say 408 F (which is current specs by the way) but after reading UOA reports on this website I see that the labs doing the used oil analysis report the same flashpoint of this "used oil" being higher than the virgin sample? I


It is because of fuel dilution.
 
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