3 diff. labs with samples taken frm the same bott

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The chronology:

I sent in a virgin sample to Blackstone for the generally highly regarded Petro Canada Supreme Synthetic (in this case its 0W30 entry). Looking at the numbers I was surprised by the calcium, phosphorus and zinc...all seemed low. Blackstone was kind enough to retest...the new numbers were similar.

I contacted Petro Canada and they requested I submit a sample to them. He did tell me, prior to testing my sample, that he expected, based upon batch analysis that Calcium would be around 2230, Phosphorus 780 and Zinc 870.

I have summarized the information below. (I have a full analysis for only Blackstone and Wearcheck)

All samples were taken from the *same* bottle of new unopened oil.
Code:


Initial Blackstone Retest of same sample (Blackstone) In House Petro Canada Lab Wearcheck Canada



Calcium 1214 1196 2250 2015



Phosphorus 422 430 780 694



Zinc 572 554 940 814
 
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Downright disturbing is what i call it.
People buy oil,switch brands,weights etc based on the numbers coming out of these labs.

I never got into doing UOA because i question the value if a UOA on a single run of a specific brand then doing another on the latest craze trying to compare the two.
Long term trends with the same product i would think may provide better results.

The way this looks it appears that some of these labs may be pulling numbers either from manufacturers spec sheets or out of their behind.
 
Amen. So when you look at these numbers from UOA, remeber that the standard deviations are apparently HUGE when looking at these numbers. It tells me that these numbers are virtually worthless.
 
Originally Posted By: Trav

The way this looks it appears that some of these labs may be pulling numbers either from manufacturers spec sheets


FWIW I purposely did not tell Wearcheck the brand or viscosity of oil.
 
Originally Posted By: Trav
Long term trends with the same product i would think may provide better results.




+1, and now with the caveat that one uses the same lab!
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I wonder if additive fallout(some falling to the bottom) would cause numbers like that. I myself am no chemist and not sure if calcium itself can fall out of suspension in oil.
 
Originally Posted By: Anies
I wonder if additive fallout(some falling to the bottom) would cause numbers like that.


I promise I shook the bottle each time I drew a sample.
 
Quote:
and now with the caveat that one uses the same lab!


It would sure seem that way.

Did you inform Petro what the sample was beforehand?
The numbers seem real close to what he told you they would be,
Do you get the feeling they just tweaked the numbers and actually tested nothing?
 
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Wearcheck's numbers look spot-on. I'd believe them the most.

B/S is a a good lab, but when they shouldn't have stood by their numbers - they should have known something was off with their numbers, and investigated thoroughly.
 
Originally Posted By: Trav


Did you inform Petro what the sample was beforehand?
The numbers seem real close to what he told you they would be,
Do you get the feeling they just tweaked the numbers and actually tested nothing?



For sure I told them as I only made contact with them because the Blackstone numbers didnt seem right...two tests in a row! So the company knew I was sending in another sample of their 0W30 from the same bottle. Of course I have no idea what was actually done with my sample but given my correspondence with their rep. I take it at face value that it was tested.
 
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The closeness of wearcheck to petrocan would make me suspect blackstone got the test/sample mixed up on first instance and fudged the numbers the second time. Just guessing though.
 
Originally Posted By: addyguy
Wearcheck's numbers look spot-on. I'd believe them the most.

B/S is a a good lab, but when they shouldn't have stood by their numbers - they should have known something was off with their numbers, and investigated thoroughly.



+1

21Rouge, do you have the other VOA figures from Wearcheck including TBN?
 
This is why I only send my samples to accredited laboratories. If the OA lab doesn't know what A2LA is or thinks that ISO 17025 is a camera specification you don't want to use them. I send blind samples in quite a bit to measure their accuracy and precision too. I deal with large #'s of samples though so it's not a one-off thing. In general though I've found the performance of accredited labs to be much more reliable than their counterparts.
 
Unfortunately, that type of result is not uncommon. I think there is a lot more art than science involved, or incredible amounts of human error, or machinery that is way out of calibration.
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Example #1 - I had a recent Blackstone UOA that showed a higher TBN than a VOA from the same bottle...

Example #2 - VOA's on Kubota 15-40 from two different labs, with what appeared to be significantly different results - see the next last post in the thread.
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Originally Posted By: elwaylite
I think Ill spend my $99 with Dyson.

Higher price is no guarantee of better lab accuracy. After all, Dyson's higher price comes from Terry's results interpretation, not the lab test itself.

And how do we determine which one of these labs was actually the closest to the truth?
 
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