UOA section - Conclusions?

[Seth]

I have been noticing this trend where in folks come in and post their UOAs only to see couple of replies/comments/questions. While this section gets ton of traffic... not much seem to be going on in UOA section. Are people not aware of that section much?

I'd like to see which oils are consistently performing well... in terms of low wear metals not withstanding oil/air filtration issues.

Also, is it possible that a UOA may be good but deposits still happen?

What about oil darkening quickly after changing brands? Is UOA representative of the current oil or how the previous oil is impacting current UOA and such...

 

[TimVipond]

I think it takes a pro to correctly interpret UOA's. Wear metals could settle in engine internals and never be picked up in an oil sample. They could be trapped in a very efficient filtration system. The oil might pick up wear metals from previous oil changes. You could have false positives. You could have interferences. Lab errors. I think people expect too much from a $20 oil analysis.

But I do think they serve their purposes for warranty claims, deciding to purchase an extended warranty, whether or not to buy or get rid of a car, improve air filtration, check for coolant leaks, shearing, etc.

Also oil formulations can be different every time you get the oil analyzed, making trending more difficult.