I’d like someone to explain contamination of oil due to sand.
After doing a little reading, I’m a bit confused. On the one hand, an article like this (http://www.ennyman.com/syn-dirt.html) makes it look like the danger from sand is from an individual particle of sand, that will cause damage to all the parts of an engine that it touches, until it is either caught up in the oil filter, or perhaps (not sure if this happens) is pulverized by the moving parts of the engine. If this is how sand can damage an engine—one particle at a time—it seems rather silly to change the oil at 4000 or 5000 miles, to eliminate sand, as that would be like locking the barn door after the horse has escaped. If small particles of sand are going to cycle through the engine a few times, or hundreds of times, I’m not sure that changing the oil--after the particle of sand has already cycled through the engine dozens if not hundreds of times--will do much to prevent engine damage and wear.
On the other hand, articles like this one http://www.machinerylubrication.com/Read/830/silica-contamination--see esp. Figure 2--make it look like you can safely accumulate sand in small amounts, but once it reaches 20-25 ppm, then engine wear takes off. This makes it look like it is more the combination of lots of sand that hurts your engine, rather just than one particle in particular. And if this is the case, then changing your oil early, before the silicon gets to 20-25 ppm, makes a lot of sense to me.
Which of these is the case? Or is there some other factor I’m not considering?
After doing a little reading, I’m a bit confused. On the one hand, an article like this (http://www.ennyman.com/syn-dirt.html) makes it look like the danger from sand is from an individual particle of sand, that will cause damage to all the parts of an engine that it touches, until it is either caught up in the oil filter, or perhaps (not sure if this happens) is pulverized by the moving parts of the engine. If this is how sand can damage an engine—one particle at a time—it seems rather silly to change the oil at 4000 or 5000 miles, to eliminate sand, as that would be like locking the barn door after the horse has escaped. If small particles of sand are going to cycle through the engine a few times, or hundreds of times, I’m not sure that changing the oil--after the particle of sand has already cycled through the engine dozens if not hundreds of times--will do much to prevent engine damage and wear.
On the other hand, articles like this one http://www.machinerylubrication.com/Read/830/silica-contamination--see esp. Figure 2--make it look like you can safely accumulate sand in small amounts, but once it reaches 20-25 ppm, then engine wear takes off. This makes it look like it is more the combination of lots of sand that hurts your engine, rather just than one particle in particular. And if this is the case, then changing your oil early, before the silicon gets to 20-25 ppm, makes a lot of sense to me.
Which of these is the case? Or is there some other factor I’m not considering?
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