Not to beat a dead horse here but if it's about oil with specs I really liked QS Euro for anything and everything. Everything I have has seemed to like it. Having said that and full disclosure, I'm running Red Line 5w30 which doesn't have any of the specs and the B58 motor in my Grenadier has never ran smoother. From idle on up it's simply quieter and smoother. I fully acknowledge that doesn't mean it's greater wear protection but looking at the VOAs of it it's very impressive. It's not an EURO oil but for short OCI it sure feels superior. However, again, for basically anything and everything (especially my yamaha 225SHO outboard) the QS Euro seems to keep everything happy and be of very good off-the-shelf quality.
What makes Euro oils different?
- Thread starter FlyingTexan
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edyvw
$50 site donor 2025
Most obvious difference is base stock:
AFE: 25-50% GTL, rest probably group III.
ESP:
50-75% GTL
10-25% PAO
There are other things like polymers etc. that are probably of higher quality in ESP.
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The oxidation level of the Virgin 0w30 is indicative of some ester content too, no? The 5w30 has about 20% lower Virgin oxidation per the voas posted on this forum. Although a GTL/PAO blend is certainly a high quality base.
Alkalyted naphthalenes could be used as an ester substitute.
https://www.exxonmobilchemical.com/en/products/synthetic-base-stocks/alkylated-naphthalene
edyvw
$50 site donor 2025
Yes, ESP 0W30 has ester. I was referring to 0W20.
garageman402
$100 Site Donor 2024
Amsoil buys it's base stock from EOM I believe, so it's a good chance they are using AN in place of PAO?
The ONLY Amsoil Euro that meets all the specs that @Kalle.J mentioned is the 0w-30, the only one that meets SP specs. Lake Speed Jr. says AW & detergent additives (Calcium for one) compete for space, & SP lowered the calcium level to fight LSPI. This results in more wear protection without raising ZDDP levels. He also says you don't really need high TBN anymore because U.S. fuels have no sulfur, which is the main acid producer. In analysis, I've noticed the Euro has a minimum amount of Molybdenum compared to it's signature series line.
AN falls into Gr 5 and would be used in place of an Ester (Gr5). From XOM blending guides not a lot is required for the desired effect. Think 10% or less.
True but some have huge sumps, that dilute contamination and reserve additives so it can do those crazy intervals. My 3.2 Porsche has a 9 qt sump and 15k mile interval (I do 5k, though).
edyvw
$50 site donor 2025
Porsche, BMW etc. are outliers.
Approvals are there for a reason. Next is fuel, it is far cleaner in EU. Also, the minimum is 91(RON). The roads are cleaner etc. Not all EU or European countries have those intervals. Countries with bit more sulphur or dirtier roads etc. have OCI usually between 7,500mls to 10,000mls.
The best way to notice that is to go to Croatia and rent a car. Drive to Germany. Once you fuel up in Austria, oh boy, do you feel the difference.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
No, as @BMWTurboDzl notes, AN's would be used in place of Esters (POE, Adipate...etc), which are used to balance the seal shrink tendency of PAO in the base oil blend, while improving solvency. You could get a bit of insight into this by looking at VOA oxidation values, if they are really low, they may be using AN's, while if they are elevated, they are using esters (of course you can also use both like HPL does).
SN+/SP introduced the LSPI requirements, but there are Euro OE LSPI tests now (see: Mercedes). I'd be far more concerned about the Euro OE approvals than SP, which the requirements of are very easy to meet with even cheap oils.
This was introduced with API SN+ (LSPI mitigation) and one of the drivers of LSPI is the reduction of ZDDP, which is an LSPI mitigator. Detergent content has been reduced for ages in your bog standard API-targeted PCMO, the problem was that calcium, which was the most common detergent, due to cost, instigates LSPI in these lower ZDDP lubricants, so the solution was to swap out Calcium for Magnesium, which you can see in VOA's.
Eh, that's not really an accurate depiction of the situation, since ZDDP is capped due to the implementation of the phosphorous limit, so those levels cannot be raised. What was discovered was that when detergent levels were reduced, AW performance increased with the same amount of ZDDP. Now, how much it increased, relative to having more ZDDP isn't discussed however. We also saw the detergent changeover in the full-SAPS Euro oils like M1 FS 0W-40 to a more magnesium-heavy package, but of course it, being a 40-grade, isn't subject to the phosphorous restriction.
We haven't had sky high TBN levels in PCMO's for ages now, this isn't new with SN+/SP. Take a look at some old VOA's to see what I mean. Where you tend to see higher TBN's is HDEO's, for example, D1 0W-40 has a TBN of 11.
Now, that said, there are various things that deplete TBN. The HPL full-SAPS Euro 0W-40 has a virgin TBN of 12.8 and it was down to 4.2 in my SRT Jeep after 9,795km (6,086 miles) and that's with no meaningful fuel dilution in a 7 quart sump.
edyvw
$50 site donor 2025
SP in Euro vehicles is irrelevant. Overkill explained above.
I would go Amsoil 5W30 AEL if going with Amsoil, and I have no clue what API specification it claims.
Is "some" an "outlier"?
edyvw
$50 site donor 2025
All Porsche and BMW have big sumps compared to similarly sized appliance vehicles. Heck, my BMW has a sump almost the size of my Toyota V8, just 0.4qt smaller.
garageman402
$100 Site Donor 2024
So the whole ZDDP reduction is what brought on LSPI & lowering calcium is a way to mitigate that with lowered ZDDP levels. Lake didn’t mention that. Lol.
That’s pretty much what Lake is saying on his channel, that lowered calcium is helping AW properties, & that SP is the best thing to come along in a while.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
There really isn't much of a difference between SN+ and SP, as LSPI mitigation was implemented with SN+.
Let me try this another way:
If you blend an AW package with a base oil blend and completely avoid any detergents, you will have less wear than when you add the DI package; when you add the detergents and dispersants, because these detergents, in preventing agglomeration and keeping particulate in suspension, also negatively impact the ability of the AW additives to do their job. This is one of the reasons that racing oils, which don't have to deal with extended drain intervals, have lower levels of detergents.
With a full-SAPS lube, this doesn't matter, because there's no limit on phosphorous, so you can balance out of the impact of the detergents and dispersants by just adding more AW chemistry. With the restrictions on phosphorous imposed by API SM, AW performance was negatively impacted.
The Euro marques, ages ago, determined that with the reduction or elimination of sulfur in fuels, that they could dramatically reduce the amount of detergent required and still maintain acceptable drain intervals. So they could reduce the SAPS level of the lubricant, while maintaining their standards for performance. You see this with the ESP oils. This became an important plank for protecting aftertreatment devices.
Of course reduced ZDDP also increased the propensity for LSPI, and so we saw a pivot from calcium to magnesium detergents with SN+ and SP in North America, but we also saw a reduction in the volume of detergent used, which is facilitated by the same reduction or elimination of sulfur in fuels as Europe pushed for ages ago, which reduces the requirements.
So SN+/SP is really just following in the footsteps of the Euro marques from back when they went to low and medium SAPS by reducing detergent levels. That this improved AW performance for given AW package was already well known.
garageman402
$100 Site Donor 2024
First off, thanks for that detailed explanation, it helps clarify this issue.
So what would be a reasonably safe drain interval with a race oil?
How much would the higher detergents impact the higher level of AW chemistry? Can you counter it simply by adding more (AW) or would lower detergent be more desirable? In desirable I mean for AW properties.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
You are quite welcome.
Race oils aren't developed, or tested, with extended drains in mind, so you'd have to test it. Motul 300V for example is a decent street oil, as is Redline white bottle, but Redline has considerable amounts of detergents despite its claim of having "race oil" pedigree. Mobil's dedicated race oils state that they aren't recommended for street use at all.
I've never seen exact numbers quoted, but yes, you can counter it by simply adding more AW chemistry, if you aren't dealing with restrictions on it, or if the restrictions are high enough that they don't matter. This was basically the original white bottle Redline approach, have a robust detergent/dispersant package, and then, due to the impacts of the esters and that package, also top treat the heck out of the AW additives. This is of course a bit crude and I believe they've been fine tuning with a more comprehensive and nuanced approach in their recent reformulation efforts.
The current version of M1 FS 0W-40 has the magnesium-based detergent package because it's SP, but it's also full-SAPS, so still has more ZDDP than you get in the API-constrained 30 grades and below. I would assume Mobil is only using the amount of detergents necessary to meet the performance requirements dictated by the approvals, which is why I am personally a fan of the full-SAPS lubes, as I feel you aren't sacrificing AW chemistry for emissions systems protection, while at the same time, aren't being buried in unnecessary levels of detergents. Specifications like 229.5 set a TBN floor at 10, which, while higher than for the ESP oils, isn't really "high". While the upper limit for phosphorous for 229.5 is 1,100ppm, we don't see full-SAPS lubes generally at that level, so it seems the sweet spot is somewhere between 900 and 1,000ppm with the typical A3/B4 style detergent levels.
Would you expect the TBN to continue to deplete at the same rate, and with heightened concern after 9,795km ?
My guess is no and I posit that your 0W40 would be good for a while longer.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
No, initial depletion is much faster, and the rate falls off as you get down. With 2,100 additional kilometers, the TBN on the oil in the RAM was at 3.77.
