Why doesn't Schaffers oil get more love?

[dnewton3]

I will speak to the topic of judging wear, not contamination, etc.

The proper way of doing it is 5 oci consecutive changes and have a steady trend analysis.

Five samples is an inadequate amount of data to establish any sense of understanding of normal wear. Trends do NOT indicate normal behavior; they indicate changes are still occurring. Small sample-sets of anything are subject to wildly inaccurate standard deviation calculation results, and to come to any other conclusion is purely laughable.

A uoa can show differences and which oil doing better and how long you can go. You can still see difference with 2 oci changes.

Two OCIs is proof of nothing in terms of wear. It's ludicrous to even suggest that two samples is adequate for anything. Sure you can "see differences", but that doesn't make it correct to come to any conclusions worthy of trusting.

This has come from lake speed jr himself so I definitely trust what he says over anyone here. Lake even did uoas on his daughter’s car during break in to get wear as low as possible.

LSJr. is a tribologist, not a trained statistician. I doubt he has any reasonable understanding of how to analyze data sets in terms of statistical analysis. He's an oil nerd, not a numbers nerd. So placing your faith in him is a choice, but perhaps not the best one to make.

Definitely gonna have to agree to disagree on this one respectively.

Absolutely your prerogative to do so.




Maybe read this and you'll understand better:
https://bobistheoilguy.com/used-oil-analysis-how-to-decide-what-is-normal/

 

[buster]

Lot of good articles on oil analysis. Google F1 and oil analysis.

https://www.chevronlubricants.com/e...rial-machinery/interpreting-oil-analysis.html

 

[kschachn]

Posted all this after reviewing the thread because there seemed to be a lot of questions and relatively little hard checking to back up anything said or claimed. Hope this helps.

Which posts are factually incorrect?

I find it humorous when people make Lake out as "just a salesman." Tribology is his passion. I've known him for many years. He doesn't push any product on anyone that he knows isn't right for the application. He's not like a shady car salesman. His passion is lubrication. It's why he went to Total Seal because piston rings go through all 3 lubrication regimes each stroke. It's a tribological wet dream, and his degree in marketing allows him to take what he knows and translate that into something the general public can understand and be informed on. He does not make videos for the people of BITOG. There's 2 kinds of BITOGers; those who want to dive into chemistry, formulating, and physics with emphasis on brands who take those things seriously, and the other growing group who only care about the cheapest oil that meets bare minimum spec (regardless if actual testing shows it meets that spec or not) and bash everything else. Neither group are a target audience of Lake.

UOAs are not designed to show engine wear. They show the condition of the oil, not the condition of the engine. High wear metals in a UOA is usually pretty conclusive for excessive wear. In contrast though, if wear metals are low, it's not conclusive that there isn't excessive wear. For one, the ICP can only see elements <5 um in size. (because it's looking for additives, not wear metals) There's also wear metals that get caught by the filter and thus aren't in the oil sample sent to the lab. The same for magnets. Wear metals can attract to and get trapped in sludge as it forms which can make a UOA look deceivingly better than it actually is. While UOAs can be a tool for assessing possible wear, it's not conclusive. Lake states this too in his videos which is why he does ring on liner tests with profilometer scans.

Plus the fact that a UOA as seen on here is completely uncontrolled. There are numerous variables that affect the results and no matter how people claim they “drive the same route” or “everything is the same” it is not. There is no way to isolate the singular variable of the oil from the rest of the interval. Besides, for most oils on the market today wear isn’t the primary issue.

 

[RDY4WAR]

The only way you'll get controlled oil tests is in a dyno cell, with carefully controlled ambient air, perfectly consistent fuel, same load, same rpm, same temperature, etc... for the same amount of time.

Even if you do manage to drive exactly the same route, with the exact same load, same rpm, same time, etc... you can't control ambient weather and can't control the fuel consistency. Pump gas can vary, sometimes quite a bit, from one batch to another depending on the season and availability of feedstocks. Even meticulously controlling every variable you can, there's still going to be a substantial margin of error.

 

[OVERKILL]

The proper way of doing it is 5 oci consecutive changes and have a steady trend analysis. A uoa can show differences and which oil doing better and how long you can go.

How long you can go, absolutely. Because that's the purpose of the tool. "which oil doing better", if you look at this comparative UOA:

2

Thread 'Triple Lab Showdown: Mobil 1 AFE 0w-30, 3.5k mi; '24 Ford Bronco 2.7L EB 14.5k mi'

Feb 13, 2025

Just for fun, all 3 taken from the same oil drain. Main differences seem to be fuel dilution (Speediagnostix showing ~1/2 Oil Analyzers and Blackstone "estimating" less than 1/5th OA); then big differences in Ca & Mg between the SpeeDiagnostix report and the other two. Switched this vehicle to HPL PP PCMO 0W-30 on HPL's recommendation, have at least one more analysis with this M1 AFE in my other Bronco though. Wear metal results seem pretty even between all 3 labs.

• 2.7ecoboostFordBronco
• Replies: 21
• Forum: Used Oil Analysis - Gasoline

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It becomes quite obvious how imprecise the tool is. You simply cannot use it draw conclusions about wear due to a few PPM variances between brands. Furthermore, because the tool is blind to particles above approximately 5 microns, if you have wear skew upwards into that realm, the tool isn't going to even see it.

You can still see difference with 2 oci changes. The second is just to get all cross contamination out. This has come from lake speed jr himself so I definitely trust what he says over anyone here.

OK, well Doug Hillary ran millions of miles of fleet testing for ExxonMobil, Shell and Castrol, doing UOA's to see how long these lubricants could safely be pushed, doing random tear-down testing along the way to validate the oil's performance. He used condemnation limits on various parameters to dictate change intervals, if you are really interested in this subject, I suggest going back and looking at some of his historical posts as well as Dave Newton's article on statistical normals.

Lake even did uoas on his daughter’s car during break in to get wear as low as possible. I’ve seen a sample as well during break in from 4 different oils the the 4th that had a lot higher miles you would think wear rates would be lower from breaking in more. They increased and had better results with the oil on the 3rd oci.

Without actual comparative tear-down analysis you don't know if wear increased. You know one or more of the numbers in the UOA's increased, this could be chemical (chelation), particle distribution skew, actual abrasive wear via something getting into the engine when the oil filler was opened, the filter was changed, the intake tract was opened for some reason, or just plain old batch/machine variation...etc. Remember, we are talking parts per MILLION, something as simple as some dust making its way into the cylinder could increase both aluminum an iron temporarily.

Assuming the use of an appropriate lubricant, UOA's allow you to determine the range of statistical norms for a given engine/oil combination, which in turn allows you to monitor for deviations from those norms (signs there might be something amiss) and how long you can safely operate the combination.

Just another data point, this is the same oil, run twice by the same lab (#2 in the first image):

Both VOA's of the same sample run by the same lab, only re-run because the blender is a member of the forum (HPL) and told me the elemental analysis didn't look right.

 

[GI_GRIFF]

Where do you buy it ? Never seen it in any stores. If the only way to buy it is to find a local "distributor" who you then have to contact to find what stores they sell it (be it the small, independent parts shops or in bulk to garages), no thanks....

In my area, they says I can buy it at a Line-X dealer, used car dealers, etc.

www.schaefferoil.com This will give you their main page. Click on the find a rep link. There are a couple ways to find a local rep on that page where you are, if they exist. I have 2 within 50 miles of where I live. It has been my experience that you get a much better price from the distributors. The only problem there is they sell by the case. You can get the stuff on Amazon, but the prices are jacked up there. There are better more expensive boutique oils out there that are probably better by the numbers. Schaeffer is probably better than Mobil 1 or Pennzoil Ultra products, but not as good as Amsoil or Red line. The thing is you can probably buy Walmart synthetic oil and do ok as long as you change your oil every 5000 miles or six months. Schaeffer Oil makes great products. Keep in mind, this is just my opinion. I am really not "technically" schooled enough to get into a big engine oil debate. I have used their products in the past, ordered it from my local distributor in my class 8 big trucks that I owned and also my personal cars my wife and I drove. It is good stuff. Their industrial lubricants and greases are very good. They used to have a great grease I used on my trucks. It was a synthetic blend product # 274. I have no idea if they still sell it or not. I am retired now, which is the only reason I have time to give you this long-winded response. Take Care!