UOA comparisons, syn versus dino...

[Bio-T]

Cold, PCV system not functioning, antifreeze in the oil, or?


I do agree with you, but this is the part where the OLM does not take those problems in consideration and the results are evident. Neither did the Dealer so two strikes, and the third strike is the customer loses.

 

[nickmckinney]

That much sludge that fast would take a cold running engine and sticky piston rings to create some serious blowby. I think we can agree looking at those pictures that the rings are gummed up well. Once this ring gumming process starts it can get to that disgusting level rather quickly I have learned. I have seen spotless engines do this in 6 months with the right owner, they would come back on warranty at the engine shop I worked at. Usually we would find the thermostat missing in an attempt to keep the engine from ever overheating. This old wives tale has killed many an engine and radiator.

My theory on Mobil 1 is that it seems to work really good on sticky rings, especially combined with VSOT. I myself am running a witches brew of 70%Havoline 5W20 dino, 20% Mobil 1 5W20, and 10% VSOT, and loving it so far.

 

[jsharp]

quote:

---

Originally posted by fuel tanker man:

quote:

---

Originally posted by jsharp:
So far, you've ignored the fact that in my application, a quality dino shears down and lead wear starts to increase vs. a previously run synthetic...

---

J,

I'm sorry I didn't address your UOA. While it does show that lead went up a tad with the longer Pennzoil dino drain, the brevity of the Mobil 1 UOA (less than 2000 miles) makes it hard to draw any firm conclusions. Regarding the Mobil 1, if you had run it to the 3200 mile point (to equal the Pennzoil's OCI) lead would likely have continued to accumulate at about 4ppm per thousand miles, and you'd have been somewhere between 12 and 13 ppm of lead--not significantly below the dino's number of 15 ppm.

I do agree with you, however, that the thinning of the dino was probably not helpful. A good dino recommendation for a high mileage 302 such as this one would be a 10W40--I would think. This would typically shear early on to a 30, and hold that viscosity for the duration of a reasonable (around 4000 mile) OCI.

Iron, on the other hand, was markedly higher with the Mobil 1 (about 12ppm per thousand miles as opposed to the Pennzoil dino's 5 ppm).

You have, however, done something that no one else here seems to want to touch with a ten foot pole. You've offered some evidence which appears to counter my idea. For the sake of the syn advocates, let us hope there will be more such data on its way.

Dan

---

Dan -

I think there are a couple of problems with using my UOA's for comparison, not the least of which the intervals are too short, but in this case they actually give every advantage to the dino oil.

The dino had the benefit of a quart of makeup oil shortly before the sample was taken. The M1 had none. This would make the numbers for the dino as much as 20% lower than had I not added the oil. That's interesting in itself, since with M1, the car uses roughly 1 qt in 5K miles vs. 1 qt. of dino in less than 3K.

The dino was used during all summer driving over a short period vs. two winters and two years of not much driving and lot of storage. We've all see how iron becomes elevated through the winter no matter the oil used. The M1 went though two winters.

And if the iron is some product of corrosion, 23 months vs. 6 months gives a huge handicap to the dino.

This comparison does show one reason why I refuse to use dino oils in my vehicles even with short intervals. It's not shear stable in my vehicles. It's that simple.

And just so we don't think this as a problem with only Pennzoil, here's a UOA from our Pathfinder. Motorcraft 5W-30 run about 3K miles. It's already sheared to a 20 weight. -

http://home.illicom.net/users/jsharp/personalphotos/OA/New_Nissan_oil_anaylsis_1.jpg

As you mentioned, I suppose I could start with a heavier oil and hope it shears to where I want it. But what happens to all those sheared polymers? Whatever it is, my guess is that it's Not A Good Thing and why should I need to? I can buy shear stable synthetics all day long.

Synthetics have shown to be almost completely shear stable out to 10K miles in my vehicles. To illustrate the point, here's a few UOA's from my 3.4L Toyota, an engine likely to be harder on oil than my other engines thanks to its gear driven intake cams -

http://home.illicom.net/users/jsharp/personalphotos/OA/Toyota_oil_anaylsis_5.jpg

How do you think a $1.50 per quart dino would work out in that application and with 10K intervals? I'll let someone else try it and post the results....

Back to this comparison though. I seriously doubt if the M1 lead would have trended upwards and caught up with the dino but it's just conjecture at this point.

I'll have another UOA for the Mustang to add to this discussion in about a month. A 6K-7K mile run with GC. My bet is I won't be looking at 25-30ppm of lead and that's where it would need to be to show as poor a performance as the Pennzoil...

Jim

 

[Bio-T]

quote:

---

One more thing, it bothers me that when the mods move a topic, because then it gets removed from your "recent posts" list.

---

I am so glad you found that because we as Mods get accused of deleting that post for that member.

 

[jsharp]

quote:

---

Originally posted by nickmckinney:

quote:

---

http://home.illicom.net/users/jsharp/personalphotos/OA/Mustang_oil_anaylsis_2.jpg

Notice the top end metals are bit higher with the M1? Check the silicon. It had a K&N filter in it at the time the M1 was run. Also, the M1 was in the car for 23 months and it sat through 2 Illinois winters. Think that might have been a factor in the iron numbers?

---

Correct me if I am wrong, but this car went 1935 miles in 23 months, then 3266 miles in 6 months, lead is up but copper is down in the 6 month run compared to the 23 month low mile run, I don't understand what you can infer from this?

And if lead is up, and copper down, why are you so quick to blame the oil shear? Is a Ford 302 so on the edge that 20WT will kill the bearings? Did you pump the oil pan dry doing a 5K shift from 1-2 and 2-3 at any time in the 6 month run? Was the lead left over inside the engine from the Mobil 1 period?

Not trying to nitpick, but there is alot of information missing to be able to call the oil itself the problem here.

quote:

---

So far, you've ignored the fact that in my application, a quality dino shears down and lead wear starts to increase vs. a previously run synthetic.
OW, the dino didn't protect the bearings of my 5.0L as well as M1. What was your point again?

---

That the bearings in a 302 Ford are made from more than lead?

Copper, copper, wheres the copper.............

---

This isn't my thread. I didn't make the initial assertion and don't need to prove it. Dan asked for a case where the metals shown in a UOA were lower with a syn than a dino. I provided that with one of my vehicles.

We can discuss where the lead came from but we can't argue about which oil gave lower lead numbers can we? The dino, with the benefit of 20% makeup oil, was still higher.

 

[Audi Junkie]

As far as dino oils meeting European drain standards, DuraBlend and Delo both claimed ACEA A3. I saw a Product Data Sheet on GTX Diesel that had it and definately saw it on the UK Castrol Page for GTX Start-up.

Statisticly, the best way to compile data would be UOAs within an agreed upon narrow range of say 4000-6000 miles with dino and synth run on the SAME engines. Take each ENGINE dino and synth sample and break it down by ppm/miles for each metal. Throw out the highest and lowest numbers and than average the metals together and the engine groups together for a nice look at wear rates, synth vs dino. I think you will see they are equal, ESPECIALLY if you pro-rate them on the actual VOA ADDITIVE levels...the base oils are both slippery fluids and until adds break down the bases are not critical. Am I being helpfull or just confusing? Just trying to throw out some ideas on the deadlocked subject.

 

[fuel tanker man]

AJ, that's right. The discussion was to be about syn versus dino in typical OCIs, and the wear metal counts of each oil type.

T-Stick and I have collectively posted at least two dozen UOAs showing how syns and dinos are totally comparable in the wear protection category.

The nay-sayers say that you can't necessarily call iron, copper, and lead counts "wear", and that scientific, controlled studies would need to be executed in order to "really know for sure."

So I bring up the link where Consumer Reports did a multi-engine, multi-oil, 6000 mile OCI study in 1996--a time when the quality spread between syn and dino was much wider than it is now. The very extensive study concluded that there was no difference in syn versus dino in matters of actual wear. (They measured engine wear with the engines torn down).

But that wasn't good enough. I'm rebutted with "The study was flawed and has been debunked." (No doubt by folks with much invested in the synthetic oil industry... keep in mind that after the FTC smacked down the Slick 50 peddlers, Slick 50 marched out some white coats with clipboards to tell everybody why the FTC got it wrong).

Ekpolk, referencing yours truly, said: "The artillery duel continues. . ."

This ain't about an artillery duel. If you see it that way I'm sorry for you, but it does explain why you keep lobbing smoke bombs.

You are convinced syns are better at wear metal mitigation, and nothing I can do is going to change that notion. That's okay.

So now I address the folks on the sidelines here... the ones who perhaps came here trying to learn something... trying to make sense of this whole matter; to seperate the relevant information from the rhetoric...

On the issue of the Porsche UOA Ekpolk posted. If the reader will look back, I asked him what relevance this had to wear metal mitigation differences between dinos and syns.

He said: "...There was plenty of TBN left, and the metals were still consistent with break-in, nothing more or less. What does it prove, and how does it do so? It shows the extreme distances at which syns still perform beautifully." (bold type mine).

Yes. It shows the extreme distances at which syns still perform beautifully. Only problem is that has nothing to do with my question. An additioinal problem is that this is a singular situation--we don't have a scenario to look at where dino oil was left in for four years. So the submission of that link must be relegated to the category of obfuscation--I'm sure that many of you will agree--though most of you are probably too polite to state it publicly.

Dan

 

[ekpolk]

quote:

---

Originally posted by fuel tanker man:
{snip}
Ekpolk, referencing yours truly, said: "The artillery duel continues. . ."

This ain't about an artillery duel. If you see it that way I'm sorry for you, but it does explain why you keep lobbing smoke bombs. {snip}

---

Dan, relax, you're taking this waaaaaay too seriously. Have you heard of having fun before? That's the spirit in which I make such comments. Life is a lot more enjoyable if you look at it that way.

=========================================

quote:

---

Originally posted by fuel tanker man:
{snip}On the issue of the Porsche UOA Ekpolk posted. If the reader will look back, I asked him what relevance this had to wear metal mitigation differences between dinos and syns.

He said: "...There was plenty of TBN left, and the metals were still consistent with break-in, nothing more or less. What does it prove, and how does it do so? It shows the extreme distances at which syns still perform beautifully." (bold type mine).

Yes. It shows the extreme distances at which syns still perform beautifully. Only problem is that has nothing to do with my question. An additioinal problem is that this is a singular situation--we don't have a scenario to look at where dino oil was left in for four years. So the submission of that link must be relegated to the category of obfuscation--I'm sure that many of you will agree--though most of you are probably too polite to state it publicly.

Dan

---

The problem you continue to dodge is that your question is really unanswerable (legitimately) as you've posed it. You still have not explained how you can arrive at such definite conclusions based upon a hodge-podge of uncontrolled, unsophisticated UOAs. As I just said in the parallel thread, I don't disagree that dinos do fine in the short-drain context, but based upon our primitive data, it's another thing to say that they're on parity with synthetics, which are simply a different animal. Again I ask, how can you even tell for sure what's a wear byproduct and what's from contamination or corrosion in a $25 UOA. You still haven't explained that. Thus, you have no basis for comparing dino vs. syn, short or long, on a value you really can't even nail down conclusively.

As I asked in the parallel thread, do you really think that things are exactly the same inside an engine at 5k miles on 95% exhausted dino as they are at 5k miles on a syn that has another 10k miles of life left in it?

 

[Pablo]

(of note - my comments have garnered about zero feedback)

Let me see if I have this right - and this is the last time I will simplify:

I say all yellow fluid is peee, because peee is yellow. (see my photographs of yellow peee and some purple grape juice)

I say you must prove otherwise, using only the rules I outlined (such as the peee must be fresh), OR my statement is true. It is up to YOU to prove any yellow fluid is NOT peee and if you don't provide proof it shall be "determined to be peee."

My world does not work this way.

 

[XS650]

Pablo, if you drink enough beer, peee loses it's color, so my theoory is that clear liquids are also peee until proven otherwise.

 

[fuel tanker man]

"Again I ask, how can you even tell for sure what's a wear byproduct and what's from contamination or corrosion in a $25 UOA."

Okay. Let's give the syn the benefit of the doubt and say that the extra iron and copper aren't wear at all--they're corrosion.

Who wants that? When the dino oils come in with lower metal counts--whether they have reduced actual wear or reduced corrosion--it's still a good thing for the dino, and a bad thing for the syn.

Pablo wrote: "I say all yellow fluid is peee, because peee is yellow. (see my photographs of yellow peee and some purple grape juice)

I say you must prove otherwise, using only the rules I outlined (such as the peee must be fresh), OR my statement is true. It is up to YOU to prove any yellow fluid is NOT peee and if you don't provide proof it shall be "determined to be peee."

Yes.

And when you peee on my leg and tell me it's raining I think it's a safe bet--based on the smell and where it's coming from--that it's peee--so you'll get no argument from me there.

The above is submitted only in fun--please understand.

Dan

 

[bulwnkl]

quote:

---

My world does not work this way

---

Nor mine, Pablo.

Particularly when my definition of peee is essentially different from the established definition of peee on the continent where I am, and this is critical to making my assertion 'true.'

 

[jsharp]

quote:

---

Originally posted by XS650:
Pablo, if you drink enough beer, peee loses it's color, so my theoory is that clear liquids are also peee until proven otherwise.

---

Is there a corollary here, that if you drink enough beer, everything looks clear?

 

[fuel tanker man]

"My world does not work this way"

The first time thru I didn't realize that line was part of Pablo's text.

I thought it was his new sig line.

 

[Pablo]

wow - maybe I should have used a different substance.

 

[fuel tanker man]

I just figured we ought to start having fun at this point. We've all stated our cases ad nauseum. Maybe some onlookers have been convinced one way or the other... I don't know.

Likely, however, most folks are probably reading over this thread wondering why none of us have gotten as bored as they already are...

I has been interesting. I don't know if we've solved anything. I must say I have enjoyed the discussion.

And none of have gotten personal! That's rare in debates as intense as this one--and a testament to our civility, I think.

PBR! (not peee)

 

[Gary Allan]

Welp, I, for one think both camps are aiming at semi false targets. I tried to spark some interest in doing a "time" indexed evaluation of the like mile OCIs that seem to be the anchor bolt of the arguement here. No one was interested. It would have either added or discounted some things in one form or another ..or maybe it would have proven the non-viability of the comparison. Geography could have also been added to the mix just for the sake of seeing if it had any bearing on the subtle modifiers to results. Anyone who has read a few of my posts in the UOA forum have routinely seen me ask for the time duration of the OCI if it wasn't mentioned. It is my way of asking "Why in the heck are you ONLY doing 5k on an expensive oil?".

We're starting to get ugly here out of frustration again. Since this appears to be a topic that performs it own flight of the pheonix ..repeatedly.. I find it difficult to kill it ..as it will only emerge again. So let's see if we can return to some level of sensible exchange here. Make your concessions where they are due and please quit trying to irritate and insult each other ..either outright ..or passive aggressively (although this is while I make the concession that my writing style tends to PPO in the extremes that I use as examples)

 

[nickmckinney]

IMHO - The fact that there are no statistical differences in wear metals, while does not state one or the other is better, but rather states that to determine a winner, alot more testing needs to be done. Little can be infered with the various UOA from this board as many variables are missing, thats real world statistics.

However - It does lead one to realize, if you have to make the testing exponentially so much more detailed and complex to determine a "winner", then by definition the difference was not that great to begin with.

Thats the problem for this prior synthetic only person. I used to use synthetic everywhere, and after learning from this forum, I now use it only where it is really needed, it has its place IMHO.

 

[fuel tanker man]

Nick, good answer. That's what I believe as well. If there is so little difference it is not easily and readily measureable then why bother with an expensive and drawn out tests. Dinos and syns protect about the same in the short term--which is what most folks do.

I would like to see some discussion as to why dino wear numbers from under 10K OCIs are generally lower than syn wear numbers. Typically not by a lot--mind you--but certainly noticeable. If the superior start-up protection of syns is indeed fact, the syns appear to be giving back some of that wear advantage later in the drain. (Notice I said "appear" so the point is debatable--in another thread!).

Dan

 

[Winston]

I cant believe that there are now three threads on the exact same subject!