Red Line oil in passenger cars

EEE

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I have spent more hours than I care to admit reading about oils. This site is very helpful, but have some questions still. To give a little background on where I'm coming from. I have a car with 100k miles on it. It has consumed oil from day 1. I have followed the minder and changed oil at around 9-10k using PAO oil (Royal Purple). Recently I noticed the oil consumption had increased and it could be due to oil rings clogged as has been documented in other cars. Oil consumption is a known issue with this engine (2.4L Honda). Short of doing an engine flush, I found that ester based oils actually clean a dirty engine whereas PAO may not. So, read alot and decided to get the Red Line oil. I should have stopped there. Read some more and now I found out that ester based oils have compatibility issues with some plastics and elastomers like RTV, Honda bond, etc. My car has RVT used in some areas (from the factory). So, as they say the "road to hell is lined with good intentions". My good intention was to use an oil that can clean my engine and piston rings hoping it would help with the oil burning. Now I have another "problem" to worry about.

Is RL 100% ester or a mix, like Amsoil which blends PAO/ester. If blend, do we know how much is ester?

I would think the street car version of RL oils would have to be compatible with materials commonly used in engines or am I expecting too much from the manufacture? I don't want to deal with seals leaking due to incompatibility....a $20 rear seal will set be back a ton at the dealer due to labor involved.

Any thoughts on this? I'm not looking to poke a hornets nest or anything. I have seen some threads on this site go down the drain pretty fast.

Finally, if you have been using RL in late (2013+) accords or any other car I guess, please let me know how it has worked for.

Thanks
 
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Redline oil ,the expensive ones are a blend of base oils it I have used the gear, engine oil and the trans lubes, over the years. But the reality is especially with the engine oils is any of the major brands will let your engine outlive your ownership of the vehicle . Only you can decide is the cost is a benefit . Redline will not hurt and seals etc.
 
You might want to try Valvoline Premium Blue Restore which is formulated to clean up carbon deposits; esters in there


Ignore the joker comments, people make comments before they even understand the product.
 
Redline oil ,the expensive ones are a blend of base oils it I have used the gear, engine oil and the trans lubes, over the years. But the reality is especially with the engine oils is any of the major brands will let your engine outlive your ownership of the vehicle . Only you can decide is the cost is a benefit . Redline will not hurt and seals etc.
Thanks. I think when you take into account what I spent on the car, about $24k, spending $120 a year on two oil changes isn't going to cause me any concerns....what will cause me concerns is if I'm damaging my car in anyway. As they say, engines are expensive and oil is cheap. I have used conventional oil in a 2001 civic that went 250k miles (~7500 mile OCI)...sold it for $2500 :) and the engine was in perfect condition. So you are right, the engines will outlive me even if I used the cheapest synthetic or even conventional. I just wanted to use RL to see if it would clean out the piston rings (if that is what is the cause of my increased oil burning).
 
You might want to try Valvoline Premium Blue Restore which is formulated to clean up carbon deposits; esters in there


Ignore the joker comments, people make comments before they even understand the product.
Thanks. I read about the Valvoline too and its good results.
 
I don’t really see a need for Redline but of course it’s your car. I’d use some Castrol or Valvoline I’ve used it to clean engines many times. Pennzoil will do as well. And I think by RVT you meant RTV. 🙂
 
I don’t really see a need for Redline but of course it’s your car. I’d use some Castrol or Valvoline I’ve used it to clean engines many times. Pennzoil will do as well. And I think by RVT you meant RTV. 🙂
Absolutely right....RTV.

Do you have any pictures before/after cleaning?

How many miles before seeing results?
 
Here is my valve covers after running Valvoline High Mileage Synthetic Blend for 3,000 oil changes. Before I bought it and before my aunt bought it and sold it to me it used to get serviced at quick change places.
 
Here is my valve covers after running Valvoline High Mileage Synthetic Blend for 3,000 oil changes. Before I bought it and before my aunt bought it and sold it to me it used to get serviced at quick change places.
That looks really clean. Nice!
 
RL seem to be overkill for regular street driven vehicle. But it's your money and choice.
RL TAN baseline (2.8-3.1) is pretty high to begin with given the high amount of ester and therefore subject to shorter OCI.
Some people use it as oil additive to beef up add pack in whatever oil they use due to it's high content of Mo, Zn, P, B and Ca.
If given a choice for street driven vehicle let's say between RL or M1 ESP I'd definitely pick Mobil.
 
The answer is you want the higher priced Red Line and a few others specific oils that actually contain a healthy margin of esters to mitigate carbon ring land deposits. The upper percentages of ester content mixed with PAO and add packs should not cause any harm to non metal parts in your engine. You probably won't see much in the way of ester content in Valvoline Max Life Synthetic blend and other bottom shelf Walmart loss leaders. Some will question the use of Red Line and higher zinc content. I don't anymore.

 
I would be interested to see how this works in the 2.4 My wife has a 14 CR-V and we were doing ~5k oil changes with mobil1 at the dealer. I think they were using AFE. My last change was M1 EP but I am not exactly how many miles since the last change but it has been a year. Tomorrow we are changing it with Amsoil SS. I would use redline once in the car if it could go a year with my guess going less than 10k miles and would clean up anything that could "possibly" be there. I wouldn't use it all the time. After this change, if all stays the same it will be either a yearly OC or whatever the MM says. I'm not stuck on any brand but I have enough for 2 OCs. If the are lasts maybe Kirkland or ST next or maybe back to M1 EP.
 
The answer is you want the higher priced Red Line and a few others specific oils that actually contain a healthy margin of esters to mitigate carbon ring land deposits. The upper percentages of ester content mixed with PAO and add packs should not cause any harm to non metal parts in your engine. You probably won't see much in the way of ester content in Valvoline Max Life Synthetic blend and other bottom shelf Walmart loss leaders. Some will question the use of Red Line and higher zinc content. I don't anymore.

Thanks. So, Red Line is PAO + Ester blend then? Do we know the ratio? I used the 0w20 you have linked (4 qt jug).
 
Another option is the ask Dave over at Redline and get an answer from the source:

Red Line Synthetic Oil is open for business Monday through Friday, 7:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. PST.

Red Line Synthetic Oil
6100 Egret Court Benicia, CA 94510
Phone: (707) 745-6100 or (800) 624-7958

I used a lot of Redline over the years in many engines and really like their products. Now however I prefer a vegetable based oil, Renewable Lubricants. 'Not because it is a bio based oil but rather it has resulted in less wear in my engines.

AEHaas
 
i've used Redline 0w20 in 2 of my previous oil changes for my 2014 Subaru Crosstrek. i bought it because i was curious, had coupons, and I knew it was going to be overkill for my car; i wanted to maximize antiwear basically. My car is out of warranty too so I didn't mind that Red Line isn't officially certified, despite claiming API SN / GF-5.

Overall, once the car reaches operating temperatures, it felt smoother and more responsive and it was quieter. In the winter, it does take a while for the car to feel normal.Currently, I'm using Motul because its cheaper and with covid, i'm not driving as much, so Redline feels even more of a waste.

Once the world's back to normal, I would continue using Redline until my stash is all gone. After that, who knows?

Since your car is burning oil, why not use a thicker oil or High Mileage oil?
 
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Thanks. So, Red Line is PAO + Ester blend then? Do we know the ratio? I used the 0w20 you have linked (4 qt jug).
This is unknown but some here have extrapolated about 20% POE, the rest PAO, add pack and carrier. Chances that any of the bargain oils having ester approaching that number is about zero. You may also want to look into Motul and there are some flavors of M1 and others that have measurable POE content that are cheaper and may supply ring land carbon dissolving results.
 
i've used Redline 0w20 in 2 of my previous oil changes for my 2014 Subaru Crosstrek. i bought it because i was curious, had coupons, and I knew it was going to be overkill for my car; i wanted to maximize antiwear basically. My car is out of warranty too so I didn't mind that Red Line isn't officially certified, despite claiming API SN / GF-5.
Redline oil prevents wear?
 
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