I'd think just about any high ester oil would be. But what's the hive mind say?
Which non-HPL and non-VRP oils are known for cleaning?
- Thread starter Hohn
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Synthetics high in solvency and detergent can clean existing sludge and to some extent varnish. Also depends on the type of ester being used. Generally speaking, oils are designed to keep clean rather than clean. Amsoil SS, HM, certain grades of Mobil 1 and even Royal Purple HPS will clean up a dirty engine to some extent. I don't think they can clean piston deposits, but some possibly could.
Patman
Staff member
Amsoil and Redline are also very good at cleaning
Zee09
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In the old days when PYB was the flavor here and it was claimed Shell dumped excess GTL in it we all bought it and I still have a bunch of the yellow bottle Pennzoil.
A friend had a Chevy Aveo that had every $29 oil change on the east coast. I pulled the dipstick and it was completely varnished.
4000 miles of PYB and the dipstick looked like new. Of course I got reamed here then by the thought of it
A friend had a Chevy Aveo that had every $29 oil change on the east coast. I pulled the dipstick and it was completely varnished.
4000 miles of PYB and the dipstick looked like new. Of course I got reamed here then by the thought of it
Valvoline PB "Restore" by the gallon still available at Cummins dealers part# C877377GA.
That's what I'm betting on. But I settle for "reduces deposit formation to a very high degree".
Just checked the engine of my car, being run on an ester containing oil for about 7k miles now, and no deposits of any kind I can see anywhere. Will get a dealer oil change in 1k miles, so no ester in that fill.
Hermann
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There are a hand full of extremely jerky people on this board. Some probably consider me one of them.In the old days when PYB was the flavor here and it was claimed Shell dumped excess GTL in it we all bought it and I still have a bunch of the yellow bottle Pennzoil.
A friend had a Chevy Aveo that had every $29 oil change on the east coast. I pulled the dipstick and it was completely varnished.
4000 miles of PYB and the dipstick looked like new. Of course I got reamed here then by the thought of it
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There is a YT video of a gentleman who has a Corolla with a major oil burning issue. He has run every chemical you can think of in the oil to try and stop the oil burning. Nothing has worked at all. He has done the Vavloline "Restore" product at $70 per gallon and it did nothing. He has done the "Restore and Protect" four-interval cycle and it did nothing. The sad part is that he has finally decided to remove the pistons and re-ring them. So, during his video he removed the oil pan to borescope the underside of the pistons and to inspect the oil relief holes for the oil control rings and they appeared to be clean. What wasn't clean wat the bottom end of the engine. After all of the products he ran in that engine I would expect the sump to be spotless. It looked horrible. Here is a snapshot from his video during oil pan removal. I am beginning to question whether those cleaning oils from Valvoline are worth anything.
I wonder what the problem was in the bottom end that caused "major oil burning" while the top end was clean? Where did the oil burn?
IMO the soft sludge is easier to clean and most oils claiming to clean will take care of it. The more crusty carbon seems harder to clean and varnish even more so. Pistons and ring lands seem to be the hardest to clean and is what makes R&P unique. I’m currently testing ESP 0w30 on my friends varnished Subaru that had a life of Quaker State synthetic. I will also see if ESP 0w30 will keep my rings clean where some other great oils could not.
Yeah, and appearance of clean doesn’t mean properly functioning. Was this an anecdotal or technical tear down? Oil leaking externally or through combustion. What, all the oil burned onto the bottom end ? It would be a gelatinous mass with quarts of oil just baking off at an alarming rate. Something is amiss.
My take from that is it was probably much worse before he started experimenting. How did the cylinder bores look? My guess (I don't have time to look up the video now) is there was already so much ring and liner wear that no amount of cleaning was going to stop the oil transport past the rings.
Likely the most accurate take. +1
Dave, former owner of Redline, allegedly stated that their high ester oils do not provide any cleaning. Allegedly Redline has the highest concentration of esters in the market.
The problem with esters is that they're polar and so they will compete with the anti-wear layer that the additives are trying to lay down. It's why esters are typically used in small amounts. Mobil 1 got around this by using alkylated-naphthalene (aka AN's) which compete less with the AW layer.
https://www.exxonmobilchemical.com/en/products/synthetic-base-stocks/alkylated-naphthalene
The reality is that at a minimum any euro spec or long drain oil on a reasonable OCI should run clean. Run clean defined as not leave deposits behind.
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This is an issue with the specific ester being used. HPL has discussed it in the past. Esters are a large class of compounds.
There are so many ester types and it's the overall formulation that matters most. There are just too many things to consider.
JAG wrote this and I thought it was very good:
"Some of us on BITOG, me included, are much like a detective somewhat early in an investigation. We know some things but there is so much we do not know. I know that the following things affect formation and/or clean-up of deposits: base oil solvency, antioxidant types and concentrations, base oil resistance to chemical reactions and thermal stability, detergent types and concentrations, dispersant types and concentrations, viscosity index improver type(s) and concentrations, mystery substances (like VRP's magic substance), synergy, antagonism, and maybe volatility.
I've seen oils with more base oil polarity form significantly more soft insolubles, which are deposit precursors, from high temperatures than oils with less polarity. It was surprising to see that. I apparently overestimated the ability of polar oils to keep those blobs soluble. Quaker State Ultimate Protection and Euro 5W-40 are relatively very non-polar, yet perform very well in terms of not forming those insolubles. The many factors in the first paragraph likely explain the behavior, but I don't know the relative contribution of each factor for those Quaker State oils. The Quaker State case seems to indicate that for deposit prevention, excellent performance can be obtained even with a relatively very non-polar oil mix. Group I has decent polarity/solubility, but we know it tends to perform badly in resistance to forming deposits because it ranks badly in the resistance to chemical reactions category. Better antioxidants help but they can't deal with every single aggressive oxidant, so the reactions still occur early on, even with the fresh antioxidants.
As you know, LS Jr and HPL's tests of multiple M1 0W-40's found a wide range of PDSC oxidation test results, and 0W-40 FS had the longest (best) time. Antioxidants and base oil types are the biggest factors in that test. 0W-40 FS was the only motor oil in that test without some ester base oil. I don't know the effect of that on the PDSC result but it's an interesting formulation difference, given the result. I bet the antioxidant types and/or concentrations are different by being more focused on long drain capabilities.
Non-euro M1 and PP seem to not prevent deposits as well as I used to think. I do not know why. For PP, we can rule out blaming its GTL base oil for being prone to reacting chemically."
JAG wrote this and I thought it was very good:
"Some of us on BITOG, me included, are much like a detective somewhat early in an investigation. We know some things but there is so much we do not know. I know that the following things affect formation and/or clean-up of deposits: base oil solvency, antioxidant types and concentrations, base oil resistance to chemical reactions and thermal stability, detergent types and concentrations, dispersant types and concentrations, viscosity index improver type(s) and concentrations, mystery substances (like VRP's magic substance), synergy, antagonism, and maybe volatility.
I've seen oils with more base oil polarity form significantly more soft insolubles, which are deposit precursors, from high temperatures than oils with less polarity. It was surprising to see that. I apparently overestimated the ability of polar oils to keep those blobs soluble. Quaker State Ultimate Protection and Euro 5W-40 are relatively very non-polar, yet perform very well in terms of not forming those insolubles. The many factors in the first paragraph likely explain the behavior, but I don't know the relative contribution of each factor for those Quaker State oils. The Quaker State case seems to indicate that for deposit prevention, excellent performance can be obtained even with a relatively very non-polar oil mix. Group I has decent polarity/solubility, but we know it tends to perform badly in resistance to forming deposits because it ranks badly in the resistance to chemical reactions category. Better antioxidants help but they can't deal with every single aggressive oxidant, so the reactions still occur early on, even with the fresh antioxidants.
As you know, LS Jr and HPL's tests of multiple M1 0W-40's found a wide range of PDSC oxidation test results, and 0W-40 FS had the longest (best) time. Antioxidants and base oil types are the biggest factors in that test. 0W-40 FS was the only motor oil in that test without some ester base oil. I don't know the effect of that on the PDSC result but it's an interesting formulation difference, given the result. I bet the antioxidant types and/or concentrations are different by being more focused on long drain capabilities.
Non-euro M1 and PP seem to not prevent deposits as well as I used to think. I do not know why. For PP, we can rule out blaming its GTL base oil for being prone to reacting chemically."
Of course but my point is they're not going to use a highly polar ester in large amounts. The OP is asking if more ester = more cleaning. The answer is obviously no.
Simple answer right here
Right, but not leaving more deposits behind and cleaning ones left by other oils are not the same.
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