With a barrel of oil dropping like a rock......

[lubricatosaurus]

Joe90_guy, Your posts are great. Really enjoying them. Good insider's view. I have to say it is like the aerospace engineering and software business. The 5 phases of a project: 1. Enthusiasm 2. Optimism 3. Drudgery, 4. Panic, and, finally, the 5. Who-To-Blame phase.

When you say 'cheating', are you saying cheating on certification tests?? Aren't there "official monitors" watching those, or at least signing off on the tests, at independent labs??

 

[Joe90_guy]

Originally Posted By: lubricatosaurus
Joe90_guy, Your posts are great. Really enjoying them. Good insider's view. I have to say it is like the aerospace engineering and software business. The 5 phases of a project: 1. Enthusiasm 2. Optimism 3. Drudgery, 4. Panic, and, finally, the 5. Who-To-Blame phase.

When you say 'cheating', are you saying cheating on certification tests?? Aren't there "official monitors" watching those, or at least signing off on the tests, at independent labs??


The independent labs are scrupulously honest in what they do and report. However they only run what they are sent and report what they are told.
I once had someone ask me to work up an all mineral 5W30 formulation to run on a diesel certification test, which I duly did. This was going to be an almost impossible test but he said he would blend up the oil to my formulation, send it to the lab and pay for the test. The test passed. Hoorah!
A few months later, when much alcohol was flowing, he fesses up he sent a full synthetic mono-grade. No wonder it passed! There was nothing in the test report that indicated the anomoly between what was reported and what was actually run.
And what do you do when you know the truth?? This was something done by the customer for the customer so is it even cheating?? Some times you just have to accept that the world isn't perfect and individuals aren't perfect and you have to look the other way...

 

[Jetronic]

you'd think they would keep such things to themselves....

 

[lubricatosaurus]

Originally Posted By: Joe90_guy
And what do you do when you know the truth?? This was something done by the customer for the customer so is it even cheating?? Some times you just have to accept that the world isn't perfect and individuals aren't perfect and you have to look the other way...

I know what you mean. At VW, if one or two would have sent certified letters to a bunch (not just one, please) EPA diesel certification officials, it would have saved VW $20 billion dollars, although I guess you have to subtract from that damage the sales they got in those 5 years they cheated.

I had not thought of that way
to cheat to get oil to "pass" all certification tests: Just send the test lab an oil with PAO+GroupIII, or a particularly strong additive package, as in maybe more esters to pass, then cut back on basestock quality in production batches, and maybe the additives that don't show up in spectrographic oil analyses! Diabolical

 

[bobbydavro]

No one does such thing. If they do they are asked to they should question the ethics company they work for. If they do it themselves then they are a cheat

The reality of your example is that someone wanted it to pass so cheated and hid it from everyone else. This is NOT common practice at all

 

[Joe90_guy]

Originally Posted By: bobbydavro
No one does such thing. If they do they are asked to they should question the ethics company they work for. If they do it themselves then they are a cheat

The reality of your example is that someone wanted it to pass so cheated and hid it from everyone else. This is NOT common practice at all


Oh, so you're back again...

As I've said before, you really do need to get out more.

Also, many moons ago, your big boss crawled out of exactly the same stinking, primeval swamp as me. Do you think his hands are whiter than white? Do you think he's in a position to get oh so preachy about ethics??

 

[bobbydavro]

Sorry -have I upset you or something? Why do I need to get out more? Strange response

Why does it matter what bosses think or do? They don't do the running of programs. My colleagues or I have never cheated to pass engine tests - ever. If you did and it got found out it would be a dismissable offense.

I simply don't understand why you are giving the industry a bad name in this forum by claiming the whole industry is exactly like your experience.

I spoke up to try an provide some confidence in the products out there, ones that are 100% in accordance with codes of practice and not cheats.

Finally - I dont work for who you think either.

 

[lubricatosaurus]

Originally Posted By: bobbydavro
I spoke up to try an provide some confidence in the products out there, ones that are 100% in accordance with codes of practice and not cheats.


Sir bobbydavro, is it possible for the hypothetical scenario I outlined to happen? It occurred to me that the testing agency might NOT have control over what jugs of test oil it gets. So, hypothetically anyway, can a company (any oil formulator company) send out better basestocks with the same set of additives installed that show up on a spectrograph (i.e, moly, boron, etc.), and with density the same, in an attempt to fool the test agency? If the test agency did something like what PQIA (basic elements concentration and viscosity measurements), then would it be hard or easy to put in trick-best basestocks instead of, say, groupII/part-GroupIII etc.?

Is there real oil sample monitoring from source to test destination?

 

[bobbydavro]

Originally Posted By: lubricatosaurus
Originally Posted By: bobbydavro
I spoke up to try an provide some confidence in the products out there, ones that are 100% in accordance with codes of practice and not cheats.


Sir bobbydavro, is it possible for the hypothetical scenario I outlined to happen? It occurred to me that the testing agency might NOT have control over what jugs of test oil it gets. So, hypothetically anyway, can a company (any oil formulator company) send out better basestocks with the same set of additives installed that show up on a spectrograph (i.e, moly, boron, etc.), and with density the same, in an attempt to fool the test agency? If the test agency did something like what PQIA (basic elements concentration and viscosity measurements), then would it be hard or easy to put in trick-best basestocks instead of, say, groupII/part-GroupIII etc.?

Is there real oil sample monitoring from source to test destination?


Hi,

Yeah there is a possibility this could happen.

Testing agencies dont exist as such, there are independent test houses that run tests (they are also the guys that are part of the developed process). Some companies also have internal tests that are accredited for the industry specifications.

Test houses simply receive an oil according to the customers oil coding standard, they then test this oil and provide the data to the customer - usually they let them know if a pass or fail. They have no idea what is in the formulation.

The customer (oil company or additive company) will then use this data to either reformulate/tweak and retest or include in the datasets supporting commercial formulations. These datasets are very much self certified, however they need to be in a position where they could be audited at any time.

ATIEL in Europe and API in america do carry out market audits to analyse oils in the market against specification requirements - these are usually just basic phys/chem parameters. Also China government have been known to do this and include API bench tests.

OEM submissions do require samples to be sent to them, they will then have a record of the all the oils in the market and can quickly 'fingerprint' oils on the shelf (or oils in the sumps of cars) to ensure the products being sold are the same that are being approved. Within this database they will also have the oils that run in their own engine tests to allow comparison.

 

[weasley]

Additionally there are often the requirements for information traceability that are imposed by quality management standards such as ISO 9001 and ISO/TS 16949, which are audited by external parties.

To deliberately make and send an oil for testing that is not made according to the formulation that it is supposed to be would require collaboration and collusion across a number of parties. We now know that this is not impossible (see the parallel situation with emissions testing) but the consequences are significant.

 

[Shannow]

Not a big fan of ISO 9000 on a box as a proof of anything.

I could write an internal standard that I take a piece of poo, spray paint it gold, place it in a box of xyz specification, and wrap it in a pink ribbon.

And provided I did that every time, I'm compliant with 9000.
I could be audited, and found compliant to 9000...but it's still poo in a box.

Quality standards only mean anything when they (ultimately) link to a tangible.

 

[Brasileno]

Originally Posted By: Garak
Originally Posted By: Joe90_guy
Third, we, the BITOG generation have transformed engine oil into something of a fetish item, instead of the slippery industrial fluid it once was.

This could be the quote of the year.

Ha! Love it.

 

[Joe90_guy]

I was trying to think of a way to explain this test cheating thing without including the words 'procedure' or 'ISO 9000'.
So I devised a test to illustrate things. Here goes...

Several academic surveys have shown that roughly one third of women, at some stage in their lives, have...(ahem)...allowed unfettered access to Area B. That's 'b' for banal if you catch my drift squire.

Now I want BobbyD, in the next few days to go out into the world and ask his mum, his sisters, his gran, his aunties, all his female colleagues, the rather attractive girl on reception and every women he chances to bump into on the street or in the supermarket, the 'have you ever...?' question and correlate all the data.

Now if BD's view of the world is right, he should get a 'yes' result 33% of the time plus or minus a standard deviation (no pun intended!). This is the scientific process at work is it not?

However I predict that the result of this survey will be that not one single women answers yes! If you repeated the same survey, but this time you could hold a loaded gun to their head, the result would still be exactly same. No respectable women would do such a thing!

This is how cheating works in the industry. You may think your colleagues aren't indulging in unsavoury activity, and if asked directly, they will almost certainly say absolutely not, but you don't actually know 100% for sure do you? Just as with the other example, the only two people that know for sure are the 'asker' and the 'provider' and once the deed is done, they're going to keep their mouths shut.

 

[weasley]

Originally Posted By: Shannow
Not a big fan of ISO 9000 on a box as a proof of anything.

I could write an internal standard that I take a piece of poo, spray paint it gold, place it in a box of xyz specification, and wrap it in a pink ribbon.

And provided I did that every time, I'm compliant with 9000.
I could be audited, and found compliant to 9000...but it's still poo in a box.

Quality standards only mean anything when they (ultimately) link to a tangible.


All true, but if you described it as "a 100% genuine box of unicorn eggs", the audit would find this out.

All I'm saying is that this is a level of independent policing as well as any policies or ethical standards that might exists within an organisation. Perhaps I have a greater faith in humanity, but I don't believe it would be easy to align all the people necessary to collude with a deceptive program. I hesitate to say it can't happen, because VW.

 

[lubricatosaurus]

Great discussion here. Thanks to all for insights.

bobbydavro, I'm glad you didn't take my question to be accusatory in any way. Of course ethics is a concern, and from your explanation, it's possible but risky for any organization or individual to cheat.

Yet I think we all can see Joe90_guy's points made about denials and those who might try to game the system.

OK, now that I've interviewed you guys about the seedy underworld of oil testing, I'm off to interview el chapo..... (((Wait, you say Sean Penn beat me to it?!?))) Dadgum, oh well, at least there r still industry business types to interview. sarcasm ...

Maybe there needs to be more oversight. It does sound like cheaters won't get away with it, although having accredited certification facilities in-house sounds like a bad recipe. Similar to EPA fuel economy tests done in-house. hmmmm.....

 

[bobbydavro]

Originally Posted By: Joe90_guy

This is how cheating works in the industry. You may think your colleagues aren't indulging in unsavoury activity, and if asked directly, they will almost certainly say absolutely not, but you don't actually know 100% for sure do you? Just as with the other example, the only two people that know for sure are the 'asker' and the 'provider' and once the deed is done, they're going to keep their mouths shut.



I understand how cheating works. Maybe its just something to do with the company you used to work for.

What if the asker and the provider was the same person and was typing right now, with full oversight of everything.

For whatever reason you seem to want to discredit what the reputable companies do

 

[Joe90_guy]

Originally Posted By: bobbydavro
Originally Posted By: Joe90_guy

This is how cheating works in the industry. You may think your colleagues aren't indulging in unsavoury activity, and if asked directly, they will almost certainly say absolutely not, but you don't actually know 100% for sure do you? Just as with the other example, the only two people that know for sure are the 'asker' and the 'provider' and once the deed is done, they're going to keep their mouths shut.



I understand how cheating works. Maybe its just something to do with the company you used to work for.

What if the asker and the provider was the same person and was typing right now, with full oversight of everything.

For whatever reason you seem to want to discredit what the reputable companies do



Okay, let me answer your question by extending my analogy...

I'll bet those 33% of women who said yes to Mr Kinsey & Co, didn't just wake up one morning and say 'hoorah, today's the day I'm going to indulge in some back door fun!'. Rather I suspect that each one of them knew there was a right way to do these things and were repelled by the stories they had heard of 'other ways of doing it'.

So girl meets boy, and things get serious, and this one feels special; maybe 'The One'. Your mum likes him and his parents like you. So things get intimate and the results are spectacular. Almost perfect. Almost but not quite. There's just this one little thing. And that's when the question gets asked. Would you? The question only comes when you're in deep and if you say no, you know you're going to disappoint an awful lot of people...

The sad truth BD is you obviously DON'T understand how cheating works other than as a theoretical concept. Clearly no-one's ever asked you to cheat and hey, if cost is no object, why would they? But saying 'I would never cheat' is a bit vacuous don't you think? Take an unrealistic extreme and say your children's lives depended on it...you'ld fiddle a test then surely? What if your company's future depended on it? What then? It's easy to make judgements when you've never been tested.

And please, reputable companies, like VAG for example? In my experience, it's the reputable companies that are the worst!

Maybe if you got out more, you'ld understand these things...

 

[kschachn]

Originally Posted By: Joe90_guy
And please, reputable companies, like VAG for example? In my experience, it's the reputable companies that are the worst!

Maybe if you got out more, you'ld understand these things...


I'm glad I never worked for a company like you described. In my 38 years with three very large corporations and several smaller ones, I have never seen institutional cheating or even a desire to do so like you describe.

Perhaps your cynicism rules in the world you come from.

 

[Jetronic]

Originally Posted By: Joe90_guy
Originally Posted By: bobbydavro
Originally Posted By: Joe90_guy

This is how cheating works in the industry. You may think your colleagues aren't indulging in unsavoury activity, and if asked directly, they will almost certainly say absolutely not, but you don't actually know 100% for sure do you? Just as with the other example, the only two people that know for sure are the 'asker' and the 'provider' and once the deed is done, they're going to keep their mouths shut.



I understand how cheating works. Maybe its just something to do with the company you used to work for.

What if the asker and the provider was the same person and was typing right now, with full oversight of everything.

For whatever reason you seem to want to discredit what the reputable companies do



Okay, let me answer your question by extending my analogy...

I'll bet those 33% of women who said yes to Mr Kinsey & Co, didn't just wake up one morning and say 'hoorah, today's the day I'm going to indulge in some back door fun!'. Rather I suspect that each one of them knew there was a right way to do these things and were repelled by the stories they had heard of 'other ways of doing it'.

So girl meets boy, and things get serious, and this one feels special; maybe 'The One'. Your mum likes him and his parents like you. So things get intimate and the results are spectacular. Almost perfect. Almost but not quite. There's just this one little thing. And that's when the question gets asked. Would you? The question only comes when you're in deep and if you say no, you know you're going to disappoint an awful lot of people...

The sad truth BD is you obviously DON'T understand how cheating works other than as a theoretical concept. Clearly no-one's ever asked you to cheat and hey, if cost is no object, why would they? But saying 'I would never cheat' is a bit vacuous don't you think? Take an unrealistic extreme and say your children's lives depended on it...you'ld fiddle a test then surely? What if your company's future depended on it? What then? It's easy to make judgements when you've never been tested.

And please, reputable companies, like VAG for example? In my experience, it's the reputable companies that are the worst!

Maybe if you got out more, you'ld understand these things...





I know how this happens... it stats with small, meaningless stuff (without a victim), say just to speed up proceedings. Cutting a corner, then another... and by that time, you're a downright cheat even if you'renot happy about it....

 

[Joe90_guy]

Originally Posted By: Jetronic
Originally Posted By: Joe90_guy
Originally Posted By: bobbydavro
Originally Posted By: Joe90_guy

This is how cheating works in the industry. You may think your colleagues aren't indulging in unsavoury activity, and if asked directly, they will almost certainly say absolutely not, but you don't actually know 100% for sure do you? Just as with the other example, the only two people that know for sure are the 'asker' and the 'provider' and once the deed is done, they're going to keep their mouths shut.



I understand how cheating works. Maybe its just something to do with the company you used to work for.

What if the asker and the provider was the same person and was typing right now, with full oversight of everything.

For whatever reason you seem to want to discredit what the reputable companies do



Okay, let me answer your question by extending my analogy...

I'll bet those 33% of women who said yes to Mr Kinsey & Co, didn't just wake up one morning and say 'hoorah, today's the day I'm going to indulge in some back door fun!'. Rather I suspect that each one of them knew there was a right way to do these things and were repelled by the stories they had heard of 'other ways of doing it'.

So girl meets boy, and things get serious, and this one feels special; maybe 'The One'. Your mum likes him and his parents like you. So things get intimate and the results are spectacular. Almost perfect. Almost but not quite. There's just this one little thing. And that's when the question gets asked. Would you? The question only comes when you're in deep and if you say no, you know you're going to disappoint an awful lot of people...

The sad truth BD is you obviously DON'T understand how cheating works other than as a theoretical concept. Clearly no-one's ever asked you to cheat and hey, if cost is no object, why would they? But saying 'I would never cheat' is a bit vacuous don't you think? Take an unrealistic extreme and say your children's lives depended on it...you'ld fiddle a test then surely? What if your company's future depended on it? What then? It's easy to make judgements when you've never been tested.

And please, reputable companies, like VAG for example? In my experience, it's the reputable companies that are the worst!

Maybe if you got out more, you'ld understand these things...





I know how this happens... it stats with small, meaningless stuff (without a victim), say just to speed up proceedings. Cutting a corner, then another... and by that time, you're a downright cheat even if you'renot happy about it....



Does that 3.44 cP HTHS round up to 3.5 (and a pass) or 3.4 (a fail)?

Does that 45.5 mg TEOST round down to 45 (a pass) or round up to 46 (a fail)?

This test has failed three times. So and so lab has an easy test stand, can we run there?

Can you dilute the VII in this specific base oil (yeah we know it's different but it's okay)

We need a complete set of seals for this OEM meeting by the end of the month and they have to pass.

It starts off small and grows...everyone's happy except you.

Stand up and say so and so is a cheat and should be sacked. Prepare to stand alone in the face of the biggest sh1tstorm of your career.

Just sayin'...