Synpower 5w30, 7k miles, '03 GM 4.2L

[SnPb]

Here are the results from my recent Synpower UOA. Any Valvoline haters out there can rest easy now as I filled it with Quaker State Ultimate Durability this time. I typed the data into a code block rather than linking to an image. Hopefully everything works OK.
Code:
OIL Val SP Val SP Mobil1 Val SP Rot T6 Mobil1 PP Mobil1

GRADE 5w30 10w30 5w30 10w30 5w40 5w30 5w30 5w30

MILES IN USE 7k 6k 6k 6k 6k 6k 6k 6k

MILES 121k 114k 108k 102k 96k 90k 84k 78k

SAMPLE TAKEN 02/23/12 09/17/11 04/24/11 12/11/10 07/29/10 03/28/10 11/07/09 05/30/09



ALUMINUM 2 3 3 2 3 3 3 3

CHROMIUM 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 0

IRON 7 6 8 6 11 11 8 10

COPPER 7 4 3 4 8 14 9 8

LEAD 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1

TIN 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0

MOLYBDENUM 3 13 101 9 74 104 58 88

NICKEL 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1

MANGANESE 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

SILVER 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

TITANIUM 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

POTASSIUM 6 2 0 0 1 2 4 1

BORON 3 7 74 4 31 64 30 51

SILICON 8 11 9 11 17 13 13 9

SODIUM 344 370 53 310 11 8 5 7

CALCIUM 2202 2121 2550 1638 1136 2571 2745 2691

MAGNESIUM 11 13 28 99 1147 14 11 15

PHOSPHORUS 659 588 743 586 1060 709 600 682

ZINC 735 585 847 606 1489 870 710 887

BARIUM 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0



SUS VIS 210ºF 59.1 61.0 60.5 61.9 73.3 62.6 59.9 63.6

cSt @ 212ºF 9.96 10.50 10.36 10.76 13.82 10.95 10.19 11.23

FLASHPOINT ºF 410 415 390 420 420 420 400 405

FUEL
ANTIFREEZE 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

WATER 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

INSOLUBLES 0.3 0.3 0.2 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.2

WATER 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

TBN 2.4 2.7 3.3 1.9 2.7 3.5 3.6 2.8

 

[3311]

Why get away from the Valvoline? Looks it was working well.

 

[SnPb]

I am satisfied with the Synpower, but it is getting a little expensive lately.

 

[Ayrton]

Wow. It looks like your engine does fantastic with all these oils. Nice.

 

[tomcat27]

thanks for posting! I notice a few things:

M1 has higher iron (this is noted frequently here)
10W-30 gives you lower wear on copper


I agree - SynPower looks good - and the price is too high

 

[Unearthed]

If it works for you $5.66/qt is not too much to pay.

http://www.amazon.com/Valvoline-SynPower...2245&sr=8-1

 

[dnewton3]

This is nice to see a series of UOAs. However, we need to be cautious about making certain conclusions here. We can say that the engine does well with nearly any grade/brand that it uses. We cannot say that any one lube it "better" or "worse" than another because of the inconsistent approach.

One thing is sure; you're changing oil too often, and not getting the value out of your sump loads. Looks to me like you could go 8-9K miles, maybe 10k. But I would work up to those limits rather than run headlong into them. Your recent 7k mile OCI is a good start to extending the OCIs.

TBN retention is the one key here, without knowing TAN. TBN tends to often be a bit parabolic in it's degredation, but that curve can often flip/flip from concave to convex, depending upon application and specific lube used. Because you jump around so much with brand/grades, you really don't know if the TBN degredation is slowing or speeding up. You only know how it tends to be at 6-7k miles. It would not suprise me to find that the TBN is still good at 8-9K miles, but you won't know until you try.

Essentially, you're overpaying for your wear protection at this point.

 

[Unearthed]

Originally Posted By: tomcat27
thanks for posting! I notice a few things:

M1 has higher iron (this is noted frequently here)
10W-30 gives you lower wear on copper


I agree - SynPower looks good - and the price is too high


7 vs 8? 3 vs 4? Those are numbers worth noting? I'm sure a $20 UOA has a larger margin of error. 8 vs 50 now that would be something...

 

[dnewton3]

Originally Posted By: Unearthed
Originally Posted By: tomcat27
thanks for posting! I notice a few things:

M1 has higher iron (this is noted frequently here)
10W-30 gives you lower wear on copper


I agree - SynPower looks good - and the price is too high



7 vs 8? 3 vs 4? Those are numbers worth noting? I'm sure a $20 UOA has a larger margin of error. 8 vs 50 now that would be something...


Not only are those possilby within the margin of error, but they also are probably within the statistical standard deviations of overall averages. We don't know the gage R&R values, etc. We don't know the historical universal averages. And because of the brand/grade jumping, we don't know specific lube averages.

Hence my comment that we cannot compare/contrast the lubes directly, but we can say that the engine responds well to most any lube/grade.

 

[Bill in Utah]

Originally Posted By: SnPb
Here are the results from my recent Synpower UOA. Any Valvoline haters out there can rest easy now as I filled it with Quaker State Ultimate Durability this time. I typed the data into a code block rather than linking to an image. Hopefully everything works OK.
Code:
OIL Val SP Val SP Mobil1 Val SP Rot T6 Mobil1 PP Mobil1

GRADE 5w30 10w30 5w30 10w30 5w40 5w30 5w30 5w30

MILES IN USE 7k 6k 6k 6k 6k 6k 6k 6k

MILES 121k 114k 108k 102k 96k 90k 84k 78k

SAMPLE TAKEN 02/23/12 09/17/11 04/24/11 12/11/10 07/29/10 03/28/10 11/07/09 05/30/09



ALUMINUM 2 3 3 2 3 3 3 3

CHROMIUM 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 0

IRON 7 6 8 6 11 11 8 10

COPPER 7 4 3 4 8 14 9 8

LEAD 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1

TIN 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0

MOLYBDENUM 3 13 101 9 74 104 58 88

NICKEL 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1

MANGANESE 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

SILVER 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

TITANIUM 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

POTASSIUM 6 2 0 0 1 2 4 1

BORON 3 7 74 4 31 64 30 51

SILICON 8 11 9 11 17 13 13 9

SODIUM 344 370 53 310 11 8 5 7

CALCIUM 2202 2121 2550 1638 1136 2571 2745 2691

MAGNESIUM 11 13 28 99 1147 14 11 15

PHOSPHORUS 659 588 743 586 1060 709 600 682

ZINC 735 585 847 606 1489 870 710 887

BARIUM 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0



SUS VIS 210ºF 59.1 61.0 60.5 61.9 73.3 62.6 59.9 63.6

cSt @ 212ºF 9.96 10.50 10.36 10.76 13.82 10.95 10.19 11.23

FLASHPOINT ºF 410 415 390 420 420 420 400 405

FUEL
ANTIFREEZE 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

WATER 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

INSOLUBLES 0.3 0.3 0.2 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.2

WATER 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

TBN 2.4 2.7 3.3 1.9 2.7 3.5 3.6 2.8


THANK YOU! Excellent data and typed in PERFECT!

Bukk

 

[Artem]

Originally Posted By: dnewton3


One thing is sure; you're changing oil too often, and not getting the value out of your sump loads. Looks to me like you could go 8-9K miles, maybe 10k. But I would work up to those limits rather than run headlong into them. Your recent 7k mile OCI is a good start to extending the OCIs.

TBN retention is the one key here, without knowing TAN. TBN tends to often be a bit parabolic in it's degredation, but that curve can often flip/flip from concave to convex, depending upon application and specific lube used. Because you jump around so much with brand/grades, you really don't know if the TBN degredation is slowing or speeding up. You only know how it tends to be at 6-7k miles. It would not suprise me to find that the TBN is still good at 8-9K miles, but you won't know until you try.

Essentially, you're overpaying for your wear protection at this point.


I wouldn't say that he's wasting money by dumping it with a TBN of 2-3. Is his goal to try and get as close to 1.0 as possible? With 6k OCIs across the board, i doubt it.

Because he switches brands so often, it's hard to get good accurate data from one brand and slowly work up to it's limit.

That said, based on the data shown, he "could" increase the OCIs another thousand or two but it still feel that with TBN @ 2.0, he pretty much got him money's worth outta the lube after 6-7k.

 

[dnewton3]

I'd have to disagree, but only upon suspicion at this point. There are two separate thoughts here:
1) these syn loads could go further
2) quality dino oils could likely return these same results because the OCIs are to be kept moderate (at 6k miles).

I suspect he could get just as good of wear results with a quality dino fluid every 6k miles. Hence, paying for a syn to get the same wear and TBN results is a waste.

I don't have direct proof of that, but I have seen a lot of UOAs where dino oils can go this far easily.

This would be an excellent test mule vehicle. Clearly there is evidence that syn's work well as far as protection goes. What I'd like to see him try is a few OCI/UOA cycles with some decent brand dino fluids. If the wear metals are statistically in the same ball park, and the TBN tracks similarly, it would remove all doubt.

Regardless, his current loads are all being cut a bit short. Having TBN of 2-3 left at the OCI, when the wear and contamination are all well in check, is a wasted fluid. No other way to look at it factually. The oil in all those samples is not used up; each had more life left in the sump loads. How is that not waste? His average TBN over 8 different brands is 2.8 TBN at the time of dumping!

Here's my view:
low wear + low contamination + decent TBN left = useful life left in the sump. Dump the oil at this point = waste.

Specifically, what is driving the OCI trigger? Some predetermined mental number that he probably cannot get out of his head no matter how hard he tries. It certainly isn't the wear numbers, the TBN retention, or the contamination. So tell me, when would you change oil here?

OCIs based upon mileage are acceptable means in lieu of UOAs. But when you have UOA evidence such as this, showing repeated excellent wear and low contamination with a variety of fluids, WHY CHANGE OIL AT 6K MILES?

Why did he change oil? Because he "wanted" to do so; not because he "needed" to do so.

WASTE = WASTE no matter what "spin" you want to put on it.

 

[Artem]

Originally Posted By: dnewton3


Regardless, his current loads are all being cut a bit short. Having TBN of 2-3 left at the OCI, when the wear and contamination are all well in check, is a wasted fluid. No other way to look at it factually. The oil in all those samples is not used up; each had more life left in the sump loads. How is that not waste? His average TBN over 8 different brands is 2.8 TBN at the time of dumping!

Here's my view:
low wear + low contamination + decent TBN left = useful life left in the sump. Dump the oil at this point = waste.




Isn't the point of changing the oil ON TIME is to change it BEFORE excess wear happens, BEFORE the oil gets to a point where there's little to no TBN left and engine wear increases..?

Although i disagreed with you that his 6k OCIs are wasteful (because the engine is getting pampered and that isn't such a bad thing) i did state that "based on the data provided, he could extend another 1-2k to squeeze out that last bit of life outta the lube." So we agree on that part.

Instead of jumping to dino (like A LOT of suggestions are always posted) he can simply extend further to get more useful life outta the oil.

I agree that there are high end dino oils available with as much starting TBN as this Synpower and they could easily do 6k with similar results but i personally (as well as the OP, from what i can see) prefer synthetics for piece of mind.

 

[dnewton3]

Perhaps we're closer than I thought; my apologies.

As for the wear, we have to look at two things:
1) wear rates
2) total condemnation levels

The wear rate here is low, and the levels are NOWHERE near any fair condemnation points. Same can be said for contamination.

The syns should be run further, or it's a waste.

 

[rbarrios]

since there was a mention of extending the interval, and since you have 03 4.2 (trailblazer/envoy), and since I love Valvoline DINO 5W-30- ill post up my UOA.
2003 Trailblazer 4.2- now with about 165,000. When it was the daily driver- I would change oil when the OLM was 0%
the silicon was traced back to an air filter cover that was not seater correctly.

 

[KCJeep]

rbarrios, WOW!

 

[Artem]

x2, definitely an amazing run on dino oil.

 

[3311]

Originally Posted By: SnPb
I am satisfied with the Synpower, but it is getting a little expensive lately.
I understand that.

 

[ltslimjim]

...now the catch: When it was the 'dd' what type of service conditions? Highway? Winters/summers are like ____ what? Idling? Stop and go? Trips shorter than 5 miles in summer? 10 miles in the winter? Not surprising to see dino go that far IF it saw good conditions and ate through those miles in short time...but still one of the best conventional UOAs we've seen.

By the way, most would here don't have the balls to take the TBN that low.

 

[dnewton3]

Rbarrio's UOA kinda puts my point right in line, does it not?

He averages about 20k miles a year, looking at the last two UOA cycles. Seeing that those UOAs are around 10-11k miles, he's probably doing two OCIs per year.
Dino oil, very low wear rates, low contamination, TBN used to near depletion. Perfect use of his resources. He is letting the data speak to him; he's letting the UOA determine his OCIs.

OTOH, the OP here runs syns to 6k miles. He is seeing low wear rates and contamination, but he's leaving TBN in the crankcase to be dumped into the drain pan. He's throwing away available miles. What does one call that? WASTE! He's letting some preconcieved notion of odometer use dictate his OCI. He gets UOAs done, but to what end? He's not using the data to tell him anything useful. He's using the UOAs like a toy, rather than a tool. In fact, I presume this vehicle has an OLM, and I suspect he's changing oil before the OLM (which is predicated on "normal" oils) tells him to. So the way I see it, he's wasting oil and he's wasting UOA data. He's throwing away tangible assets that cost real money. Actually, it's waste heaped upon waste. He pays for an oil that he does not fully utilize, and then he pays for information he ignores. Waste + Waste = BIG WASTE.

Now, I'd certainly agree we don't know everything about either persons driving cycles, but we DO know that the repeated approach of using syns every 6k miles is NOT maximizing the use of the lube. Even if the syn were to go the same 10k miles as rbarrios, the OP would be paying 2-3x more money for the same wear results. Some people just cannot see the forest for the trees.


Like I said before, why not prove me wrong? Why not test the scenario out? Why not try a few dino OCI cycles for the OP? It's not like the engine is going to be irrevocably damaged. All I'm suggesting is running some 6k mile OCI/UOA cycles with a few dino brands. It's not like consistiencey of brand/grade is a big thing to him; he's clearly willing to experiment. Well - willing to experiment with one exception; he may not want to try dino fluids because he's afraid he might learn how wasteful his program is. It's easy to deny the situation when you don't allow yourself to try the experiment. But if he does try it, and the results are favorable, then there's no denying the results and he'd be left with simple emotional "wants" as his only justification. Yes - I'm calling him out (in a friendly challenge). I'd like to see him do one of two things:
1) try longer syn OCIs
2) try dino at 6k mile OCIs

Why does he change syn oils at 6k miles, when the data clearly, repeatedly tells him he could run further? He "wants" to. He does not "need" to. He maintenance plan is run on emotion and not facts. There is nothing wrong with that approach unless he (or anyone else) trys to justify it as logical. There is no "safety" margin to discuss here. Dino oils and OLMs have safey margins built in. Pre-fixed OCI durations have safety margins built in. Using a syn lube for short OCI durations and ignoring UOA data is not a safety margin; it's nutty. Don't give me that age-old "it's cheap insurance" addage; that's baloney.

Look - I'm not trying to pick on the OP; I'm trying to open his eyes (and a few others). The data is right there for all to see. I'm throwing down the gauntlet (in a playful sense) to see if he can shift his paradigm and get out of the rut he's in.

Folks - consider it an oil intervention. Friends don't let friends drive drunk, and True BTIOGERS don't let other fellow BITOGERS waste lubes.