Taurus 12v 3.0, Havoline 10w30, 8228 miles, 8 mos

[Santo Fontana]

I did let this go a little longer that Id like to, but it doesnt look as bad to me as Blackstone is saying.

The car is throwing a p0340 code - cam sensor - which most likely took out the gear too (I can hear ticking coming from the area) so the slight wear elevation could have something to do with that.

Its due for some service so Ill change the filters and plugs and stuff pretty soon.

This is with a pure one oil filter, pretty old paper air filter, and 5oz LC added at the beginning, then nothing else. Makeup oil unknown.

 

[Ray H]

The high phosphorus count strongly suggests an SL formulation to me. The final viscosity increased to a low 40 weight - probably from oxidation muck and additionally supported by inference from the marginal insolubles count. (Lemme guess - it drained pitch black?) I believe a TBN would've further put everything in context. I suspect that oil's additive package was fairly well SHOT a good 2K+ miles before you changed it out. The sodium and silicon counts are also disturbing. Though it tried to put up a valiant fight, this report shows it is possible to beat the life out of even Havoline. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Santo Fontana]

Thanks Ray! I cant remember if it was sl or sm, but it does look like sl. Honestly I have drained much nastier oil from cars before, it looked dark brown on the dipstick and in the sample container. Im considering calling up bstone and having them run a tbn, it would be interesting. Valv maxlife is in the car now Ill try to change it a little sooner this time.

 

[Gary Allan]

The only thing elevated out of whack is Cu ..and that isn't anything to get alarmed about. Your Fe is up a tick ...you Pb is down well below average. They didn't spec what the UA was based on in miles.

I don't see any AL or Cr to justify airborne abrasives.

I'm just trying to round up the usual suspects and they're shaking clean in my plebe view

 

[JohnBrowning]

The tin,cromium and nickle would a;arm me more then the copper. It looks good though for the milage and the fact it was dino! I would check filtration though because with silicone at 23 I think this is the source of most of the wear.

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

Potassium = 4 *plus* Sodium = 17 ==> Wouldn't that be a very mild coolant leak?

???

 

[The Critic]

With such a huge intake leak, and winter driving, the Sodium may very well be from road salt.

 

[Gary Allan]

Where in the heck is everyone getting this "major" air leak??? His chrome and aluminum are within a blond hair of the UA...

Now I'm not saying that he doesn't have some infiltration ..but it sure doesn't show in the normal elevations of Al and Chrome.

Look at his 6k UOA on 10/01/05 and look at those Si and Na levels. Where was the wear then with even a more substantial intake leak

 

[Santo Fontana]

I hope there isnt a coolant leak, but it sortof looks like the beginning of one. The coolant level hasnt budged. Im going to shorten up the next change a little and monitor it.

Id like to blame road salt for the sodium but its only snowed about 2 inches so far here. The weather has been amazingly warm, which is nice, but scary.

I think if we didnt have a history to compare this report to, or if I had used synthetic oil, the report wouldnt look so bad. I guess it shows how important keeping track of trends is.

It seems to me there is definitely an external factor, like an intake leek or coolant ingestion, because based on the previous reports, I dont see why the oil would all of a sudden fail after 6k miles. The car has gone this many months before, and more, just not so many miles on dino oil.

Its funny they mention washing the wear metals out of the oil with a shorter interval, because that level of ppm concentration and much more is considered normal in quite a few engines.

 

[Santo Fontana]

I requested a tbn if ther still have the oil.

 

[Bryanccfshr]

Cu appears to be from corrosion to me. Ater the TBN was mostly depleted the acids had their way with the copper parts. Not that bad a UAO otherwise.

 

[Santo Fontana]

TBN= 0.1

The tech I talked to thinks the extra wear is coming from the silicon, despite the tbn.

 

[CharBaby]

The Moly suggests SM and the Zinc/Phos suggests SL

 

[LargeCarManX2]

The silicon has just gone close to abnormal....and, there could be a small coolant leak as mentioned before.

Put some good stop leak in the radiator and change the air filter. Try it all again. 6K is a nice round number.

I sure would like to see oxid, nit, and tbn levels in the report...us/me with little experience in looking at UOA's need all the help we/I can use!

 

[TeeDub]

I'd fix the dirt ingestion problem and go to an HDEO (10w-30 or 15w-40 depending on ambient temps), if you intend to run 8k-10k service intervals in this beater...

In cold weather you can increase the # of LC20 to 2oz/qt and thin out the oil that way so that it pumps decently at low temps. Provided you don't overdo it that should work pretty well.

 

[Santo Fontana]

The 5/6/06 uoa was with rotella synth 5w40, and it seemed to work pretty well.