CdnMax -
My apologies if I offended you. However, as you stated and admitted, "comments welcome", so I foolishly took that as an open invitation to speak out with facts and data for my position. Further, in your initial thread you did not restrict the topic to ONLY that oil brand/grade of lube; had you asked for comments only from those persons that also use/used RL lubes, that would have changes things for me as well. You posted an open invitation without restriction; that's the response I offered. If you've read my nearly 2500 posts, then you should recognize I have a dark, satirical sense of writing. That in mind, please allow me to openly offer my sincere regret for answering your post in a manner that apparently made you upset; that was not my intent.
To get back on topic:
You did mention the soot, and there were few direct comments. Here's mine on that as well:
I presume you used Blackstone, by the general layout of your post. If not, that changes my viewpoint; but for now, I'm going on that assumption. So, as for soot, you cannot get a direct reading from a Blackstone UOA, but they include the soot in the insolubles count. (Other labs break it out seperately). Generally, soot at 3.5% is a concern, or insolubles above .6 is a concern; as always, some situations will be slightly different, depending upon lab used, equipment used, etc. (YMMV).
Consider that you used a synthetic oil, with an expensive bypass filter, for the same duration and type use as my dino oil with only a full flow filter, and yet my insolubles were actually LOWER than yours, and the wear metals were nearly the same. (Statistically, there isn't enough difference in all the UOAs from Blackstone to warrant discussion over the .1 difference, so let's just consider the two UOA points equal). However, my UOA was based upon a sump that was 20% underfilled. Had I topped off along the way and near the end, it would have diluted the oil with fresh fluids, and dropped my contaminants lower, helped my vis, and lowered my wear metal count even further. It shows something I've argued about for years now. The oil additives are what control contamination in (reasonably) fresh sump systems. Until the additives are overwhelmed, the oil is what is in control, and not the filtration when soot is still very small. Since a bypass filter only sees 10% of the total volume of flow for any full sump cycle, then the bypass filter cannot be the controlling entity. Rather, the anti-agglomerate portion of the additive package is in control. Until that is overwhelmed, filters don't assist with small particles. Soot starts out sub-micron generally, so even bypass filtration is not especially effective until the particles get 2-3um or so. And particles that small are of no consequence to engines in general. Depending upon your source of info, particles in the 5-15um range are really the big damaging range to fear. So, as long as the oil additive can keep the soot/insolubles down in size, the bypass filter is moot and the full flow filter does not need to catch stuff that is too small to be of consequence. Really big chunks of particulate are caught by the full flow filter because it sees 100% of the total volume per cycle.
I also would point out that a particle count would show some clear evidence that a bypass filter does a "better" job at lowering particulate, but what REALLY matters is how the particulate either does (or does not) affect wear. In the case of our engines, the particulate count was low enough in both to not adversely alter engine wear. Since I don't have a bypass filter, and yet our results are the same, the only logical conclusion to draw is that filtration below a certain level makes no difference in short-to-moderate OCIs; the oil controls soot, not the filter. Contamination is only an issue if it results in wear. No matter how large or small the particles are, if they don't do damage, they don't matter. A particle count will tell us of the size of particles and quantify them, but it wil not tell us how much damage is occuring. Only the wear metal analysis will infer that, short of a full tear down. This is akin to a large debate I had at another site. Filter do NOT affect an engine directly; they INdirectly affect the engine. Filters DIRECTLY affect the oil. As long as contamination is low enough, regardles of method, then wear will be low accordingly. Filtration is a method; cleanliness is an effect. Do not confuse causation with correlation.
Now, at this junction I hope I haven't ticked off again. But, let me be blunt. Your expensive oil and filter did no better at controlling soot/insolubles than my dino oil with regular filter, because the mileage accumulated was not great enough to yet overwhelm the minimalist approach of my conventional oil and filter.
If you stated that you were intending to do UOAs every 10k km, and OCI up to 50k km on the same load and filter set up over several years, then I'd applaud your approach. Allow me to ask; what is your intent?
Sir, you may not like my many posts, nor my approach, so I'll let the UOAs speak for themselves. It's clear that for the given conditions where you and I used our vehicles in a VERY similar manner, the evidence shows these two different methods of maintenance (syn with bypass vs. dino with conventional filtration) result in essentially the same relative sump health and engine health.
Facts and data are what matter to me, not mythology and rhetoric. If you want to constrain the conversation to ONLY RL lubes and ONLY by those who use them, please say so up front. Otherwise, I'm going to put in my two-cents.
You have a good UOA. So do I. You spent 4x more money to get the same results. This website is for the free and open exchange of ideas and information. I responded to your open post because, initially, you didn't restrict it. You may want to shoot the messenger, but that does not alter the reality of the situation.
My final thought is to make sure that all of those following along understand that I did not mean to offend you; for that I am sorry.