Valvoline SynBlend 5w-30, 3k mi; Chevy 5.3L 161k mi
- Thread starter kanz
- Start date
Can you go ahead and appropriately rename the thread title real quick while your allowed to?
Naming the thread "oil analysis" sucks.
gathermewool
Site Donor 2023
How many miles on your Tahoe?
How much time on this sample?
Miles on oil: 3143???
Oil: Valvoline Maxlife?
Most else pretty blurry. From what I can see:
Lead: 7 ppm (should be zero)
Viscosity: 9.6??? That's fine
TBN: 2.6??? Seems low for such low mileage on the oil and such high Ca
How much time on this sample?
Miles on oil: 3143???
Oil: Valvoline Maxlife?
Most else pretty blurry. From what I can see:
Lead: 7 ppm (should be zero)
Viscosity: 9.6??? That's fine
TBN: 2.6??? Seems low for such low mileage on the oil and such high Ca
Please title your posts with oil brand/visc, oil mileage and vehicle
Thanks for the reply. I cleaned it up and answered the questions in the original post.
gathermewool
Site Donor 2023
Thanks, much better.
Potassium is high at 7 ppm. If Sodium isn't a constituent of Maxlife, then that's another red flag for coolant intrusion.
Are you losing any coolant?
Potassium is high at 7 ppm. If Sodium isn't a constituent of Maxlife, then that's another red flag for coolant intrusion.
Are you losing any coolant?
For 3143 miles, I think iron, lead and copper are all high as it silicon. TBN is low for 3183 miles.
Thank you for the reply. According to the report it says it found no coolant or water in the oil.
gathermewool
Site Donor 2023
I don't know of any other source of Potassium in used oil, unless you've got a good amount of water in the oil, too, which could break down the KOH into its constituents
Has anyone else seen evidence of KOH breakdown into K in oil due to the presence of water or is K always an indicator of a coolant leak, like a suspect?
@MolaKule
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To be honest I never did an oil analysis before. I figured in about another year I will do another one to see what changes.
Your use will give higher numbers. I did my 2006 Toyota when I suspected maybe a coolant leak but it wasn't and that engine had about 4,000 miles in a year doing local driving and the numbers were much higher than when I had about 10,000 miles of free way driving.
Ok. I don’t use the truck much as the mileage shows. 1/2 of the 3143 miles was highway driving.
a-lot of idling too.
It's good to have analysis of fresh oil so you have something to compare to.
Without it you can't make educated decision as to what really happened to the oil.
The 72% drop in TBN is alarming in just 3,143 miles.
Here's virgin MaxLife 5W-30
KV40 68.53
KV100 11.75
TBN 9.91
TAN 2.87
Mo 188
P 1014
Zn 1175
B 69
Mg 1123
Ca 1216
Si 16
Without it you can't make educated decision as to what really happened to the oil.
The 72% drop in TBN is alarming in just 3,143 miles.
Here's virgin MaxLife 5W-30
KV40 68.53
KV100 11.75
TBN 9.91
TAN 2.87
Mo 188
P 1014
Zn 1175
B 69
Mg 1123
Ca 1216
Si 16
That is pretty steep with TBN, but I've not seen TBN to really be linear in its decline. I've seen steep declines that leveled out and wound up good even at 8k miles. So I look at TBN as either a go or no go number. I may be wrong, but that's been my experience.
Yes, it was steep but if one doesn't have a TAN then we don't know if there was enough TBN to combat the acid.
Is this something that can be corrected with a different motor oil?
May want to consider a 6 month interval for less wear metals and better results all around. Which should help the engine quite a bit.
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Maybe some oil with higher TBN and lower TAN. That MaxLife has pretty high TAN to begin with.
Reminds me RL with high ester content.
gathermewool
Site Donor 2023
I compared to every VOA and UOA (I could quickly find) using it I could over the past few years, focusing mainly on the Na and K.
