Valvoline MaxLife Full Synthetic NOACK - 6.3%

[buster]

http://www.valvoline.com/pdf/maxlife_full_synthetic.pdf

A 10w30 may become obsolete soon in the U.S. but as a synthetic it will have the best oxidative & thermal stability of all the 30wts and will hold up best at high temps. It has the least polymeric thickener, so it runs very clean. It's also the most shear stable grade in turbocharged engines due to the low polymer.

In a SAE paper, Mobil found their 0w oils produced slightly more varnish and were slightly more volatile than their 5w/10w counterparts. Not significant enough to make it worth avoiding those grades, but there was a difference. You see this in most 0w grades among all brands. Narrow span oils produce less deposits also.

NOACK of RL 0w30 is only 424F and NOACK is 9%. That's 50% higher than the 10w30 which is 6% NOACK.

Platinum 0w-20, NOACK is 8.9%
PU 5w-20, NOACK is 5.0%

Quote:
So the volatility of the 0w-20 is 80% higher. This means it will thicken that much faster at low temperatures. The reason is that the most volatile components burn off first. These portions of the base stock and/or additive package provide the oil with its cold pumping characteristics. If you were to test both these oils after 3000-5000 miles of use, you'd see almost NO difference in cold weather performance.


15w-40 continues to be favored for commercial Diesel engines for this reason.

 

[chevrofreak]

The NOACK of 5.0% for PU 5w-20 is why I am running it in my car. Bought all they had at Walmart on clearance today.

 

[buster]

^ Good stuff. Can we confirm that PU NOACK ? I'm still confused why Pennzoil's website takes you to the dated PU data sheets? You have to use the epc.shell.com link to find the current specs.

If the current Ultra on the shelf has the specs they claim in the latest PDS, I'd say Ultra is probably the #1 oil right now. Nit picking of course.

 

[Turk]

VML Full Syn is what I'm running in my wife's Camry right now.

 

[Hermann]

Have 12 qts of the Maxlife full syn in 10w30. Going to try it in the Tacoma this summer season. The extra 1/2 qt each time will go to lawn mower duty. It specs 10w30. I noticed that Noack # myself. Wonder if my BMW old airhead would like it. Its a bit thin but seems stout.

 

[panthermike]

Originally Posted By: buster
^ Good stuff. Can we confirm that PU NOACK ? I'm still confused why Pennzoil's website takes you to the dated PU data sheets? You have to use the epc.shell.com link to find the current specs.

If the current Ultra on the shelf has the specs they claim in the latest PDS, I'd say Ultra is probably the #1 oil right now. Nit picking of course.


That's annoying that Pennzoil's site takes you to the dated PDS sheets.

But here it is, dated May 2012 Ultra PDS

How is Pennzoil getting the NOACK this low?

 

[skyship]

Interesting part from Buster:
In a SAE paper, Mobil found their 0w oils produced slightly more varnish and were slightly more volatile than their 5w/10w counterparts.

That's true and is one of the reasons why some engines only have 5w40 and not 0/40's approved. If you don't need to start below minus 25C the 0W part is bad not good news for long OCI's. M1 0/40 has more Ca to try to deal with that disadvantage, BUT there is only room for a limited amount of additives before one steps on another in function terms, so all that Ca just results in the AW additives not functioning and increases the Fe figures.

 

[friendly_jacek]

I always believed 10W30 was better than 5W30, unless one has very cold winters. This is what I run now in my RAV4 that sees towing in hot climate, while it's specified for 5W30.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: skyship
so all that Ca just results in the AW additives not functioning and increases the Fe figures.


Do you have any actual proof of this, or is this another baseless anecdote leveraged to support another one of your hyperbolic tangents?

 

[OVERKILL]

Buster:

Interesting note:

http://www.valvoline.com/pdf/premium_blue.pdf

Valvoline Premium Blue 15w40:
NOACK: 12%
Flash: N/A

VS

http://www.liqui-moly.de/liquimoly/mediendb.nsf/gfx2/1306%20Synthoil%20High%20Tech%20SAE%205W-40_EN.pdf/$file/1306%20Synthoil%20High%20Tech%20SAE%205W-40_EN.pdf

Liqui-Moly Synthoil High Tech
SAE 5W-40
NOAK: N/A
Flash: 220C


VS

http://www.mobil.com/USA-English/Lubes/PDS/GLXXENPVLMOMobil_1_0W-40.aspx

Compared to M1 0w-40:
NOACK: 8.8%
Flash: 230C



I don't think one can just assume that because the viscosity spread is narrower that the oil is going to have a lower NOACK and higher flash point, as this is clearly not the case.

 

[Danh]

Originally Posted By: panthermike
Originally Posted By: buster
^ Good stuff. Can we confirm that PU NOACK ? I'm still confused why Pennzoil's website takes you to the dated PU data sheets? You have to use the epc.shell.com link to find the current specs.

If the current Ultra on the shelf has the specs they claim in the latest PDS, I'd say Ultra is probably the #1 oil right now. Nit picking of course.


That's annoying that Pennzoil's site takes you to the dated PDS sheets.

But here it is, dated May 2012 Ultra PDS

How is Pennzoil getting the NOACK this low?


The base oil in Ultra seems to be the result of converting natural gas to liquid (GTL) via the Fischer-Tropsch process. Most other mass-market synthetics in North America have base stocks derived from heavily processed crude oil instead. Doesn't automatically make Ultra better, but low Noack is one of the outcomes.

 

[buster]

Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
Buster:

Interesting note:

http://www.valvoline.com/pdf/premium_blue.pdf

Valvoline Premium Blue 15w40:
NOACK: 12%
Flash: N/A

VS

http://www.liqui-moly.de/liquimoly/mediendb.nsf/gfx2/1306%20Synthoil%20High%20Tech%20SAE%205W-40_EN.pdf/$file/1306%20Synthoil%20High%20Tech%20SAE%205W-40_EN.pdf

Liqui-Moly Synthoil High Tech
SAE 5W-40
NOAK: N/A
Flash: 220C


VS

http://www.mobil.com/USA-English/Lubes/PDS/GLXXENPVLMOMobil_1_0W-40.aspx

Compared to M1 0w-40:
NOACK: 8.8%
Flash: 230C



I don't think one can just assume that because the viscosity spread is narrower that the oil is going to have a lower NOACK and higher flash point, as this is clearly not the case.


Great point. It is true that higher quality base oils will have higher natural VI's and also lower NOACK values. So if you compare a 15w40 semi synthetic or one using a lower quality Grp III vs a very high quality oil like M1 0w40, you will see the 0w having better #'s.

However, I would I think that if you took Mobil 1 0w40 and removed the VII's completely, you'd have a NOACK < 5% and maybe slightly better deposit control. Just a guess.

The quality and range of VII's also makes a big difference.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: buster

Great point. It is true that higher quality base oils will have higher natural VI's and also lower NOACK values. So if you compare a 15w40 semi synthetic or one using a lower quality Grp III vs a very high quality oil like M1 0w40, you will see the 0w having better #'s.

However, I would I think that if you took Mobil 1 0w40 and removed the VII's completely, you'd have a NOACK < 5% and maybe slightly better deposit control. Just a guess.

The quality and range of VII's also makes a big difference.


In that vein, M1 0w-40 has a higher flash than all of their 5w-40's as well, save the ESP 5w-40. However, the old SM version of M1 0w-40 had the same (as the ESP 5w-40) FP of 236C and the low (for the grade) 8.8% NOACK.

I'm quite certain that these characteristics are a result of just how much you want to spend on base oils and R&D to arrive at the performance characteristics of the final product. Mobil has a PILE of money and engineering dumped into the 0w-40, and it shows.

That being said, it is certainly CHEAPER to meet a given NOACK/Flash target with a narrower visc spread. I think this is significant and should be considered a part of this discussion.

 

[artificialist]

I never thought about NOACK levels when using 10w30 in a turbo car normally using 5w30.

I chose it because it may have less shear, which is an advantage with turbo engines.

 

[CATERHAM]

Quote:
[/quote]
However, I would I think that if you took Mobil 1 0w40 and removed the VII's completely, you'd have a NOACK < 5% and maybe slightly better deposit control. Just a guess.

The quality and range of VII's also makes a big difference.
[/quote]
Is you removed the VIIs from MI 0W-40 the NOACK would be largely unaffected and remain at 8.9% or so. You'd probality have a 0W-20 oil.
Just take a look at RL 0W range of oils. They all have the same NOACK of 9%. In fact the 0W-20, 0w30 and 0W-40 are all exactly the same formulation except for the VII concentration; the 0W-20 has none, the 0w30 a pinch, and the 0w-40 the most.

Getting back to Maxlife 10w30 and why it has little appeal. We don't now what it's HTHSV is but it'd not as high as 3.5cP and with a VI of only 143 this oil is heavier on start-up than GC at temp's as high as 120F. And M1 0W-40 is lighter than GC at temp's below 80F.
This is one reason why a 10w30 syn' doesn't make much sense.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: CATERHAM

Is you removed the VIIs from MI 0W-40 the NOACK would be largely unaffected and remain at 8.9% or so. You'd probality have a 0W-20 oil.


I would have figured maybe a 0w-30, just based on the HTHS.

 

[Ben99GT]

Originally Posted By: CATERHAM
Just take a look at RL 0W range of oils. They all have the same NOACK of 9%. In fact the 0W-20, 0w30 and 0W-40 are all exactly the same formulation except for the VII concentration; the 0W-20 has none, the 0w30 a pinch, and the 0w-40 the most.


Has Dave ever confirmed this? How do we know the only difference between those 3 oils is VII concentration?

 

[buster]

I believe Dave has said the 0w oils do in fact use more VII's. RL generally does not like VII's and in fact they mention it in their literature.

Redline usually recommeds 10w grade oils from the folks I've spoken to.

There are also benefits of using VII's. They are not always bad and in some cases they are greatly beneficial.

 

[CATERHAM]

Originally Posted By: buster
I believe Dave has said the 0w oils do in fact use more VII's.

The only 0W oil of RL that uses a normal amount of VIIs compared to most multi-grade oils in it's formulation is their 0w-40. Their 0W-20 uses none and the 0w30 "just a pinch" and this is a quote from Dave.

 

[buster]