The problem with higher Cu and PB, especially if it's coming from chelation, is that can mask the onset of true bearing wear.
Pablo and I have had this disagreement for years about Amsoil in Dmax engines (and other brands as well).
If you get high Cu and Pb readings that persist due to chemistry, then you'll not see the subtle but important trending when a true bearing issue is developing. By the time it would usurp the higher readings from chelation, you'd be well into the problem.
The whole point of doing UOAs is to find the onset of abnormal wear so that you can make solid decisions early on, not discover it after it's well rooted in it's evil.
And I'm not the only one who sees this as an issue:
http://www.machinerylubrication.com/Read/646/copper-diesel-engine-oil
Read the whole article, but I'll pull this quote out:
"
As such, higher concentrations of copper from cooler core leaching and coolant leaks may mask more serious sources of copper associated with wear."
What is important to note is also the particle size and concentration. Also from that article; same paragraph:
"
Copper from wear debris will rarely produce concentrations greater than 50 ppm, in fact, 10 ppm to 20 ppm would be more typical."
You see, the onset of wear does not immediately jump into hundreds of ppm; it often manifests at much smaller concentrations. Also, as the article notes, the UOAs only see a fraction of the total wear; they see perhaps 5-10% of wear particles, as an estimate. So, if your lube choice skews the data by 20 or 30ppm, you have lost all sense of the ability to detect shifts that would otherwise be attributed to wear. IOW - you cannot hear the bells tolling in the symphony when standing in the cacophony of the roar of the cannons. That is why we need wear data as steady and low as possible; we are looking for small changes, before they become big problems!
Are you staring to see the relevance of the problem?
Now, it is common for this problem to subside over time. After the normalization of the new chemistry package with the engine, the numbers will settle down. And you have two choices to make this happen. One way or another, you have to run a few OCIs (anywhere from two to five) to get this condition to subside. So ...
1) you endure the chelation as it settles naturally. This will take time; often tens of thousands of miles, because you are not going to OCI until other condtions would dictate (soot, Fe, etc). This makes for a LONG exposure for the blindness in Cu and Pb; the risk is high that you'd experience an issue over that long, multiple OCI "normalization" period.
2) you do a few OCI flushes with your lube choice, perhaps 2-3k miles each, about three times. The advantage to this is that you'll be through that normaliation quickly; perhaps 7-10k miles and it will pass. But those are a lot of EXPENSIVE OCIs, dumping premium lubes every 2-3k miles! All to force the quick normalization pathway whilst throwing out perfectly good lubes.
That's quite a conundrum, isn't it? Endure tens-of-thousands of miles of potential blindness to wear, or dump perfectly good oil for successive OCIs?
I am NOT saying that Schaeffers is a bad lube. I never said that about Amsoil either. Or RL or RP, or any other lube that creates this condition. And while it is predominant in reaction to some synthetics, it has occasionally happend even with dino lubes, at least in Dmax engines. But the preponderance is by far a reaction to certain chemistries in premium syns. I'm not a chemist; I cannot tell you the specific reason as to why it happens. I'm a statistical quality process engineer; I can most assuredly speak to wear results and how they are skewed by this phenomenon. Go back and read my article about UOA normalcy ... you'll start to understand why this is such a problem as I see it.
It is also fair to note that this chelation issue is not to be construed to be real wear or anything that would hurt the engine. In itself it is not damaging. It can certianly mask damage, but it does not create it.
You see - in simple terms - this isn't a matter of the lube harming the engine; that is not the case at all. It's a matter of the skewed data masking the onset of wear from other issues; true problems won't be seen until they are well into fruition, if you endure these abnormally elevated Cu and Pb readings from chelation.
Rather, what I state is that there is risk in using a lube when it creates a condition such as this, as you are risking the action of covering up the very problems you're trying to detect. So you get to choose: endure the problem, or waste good fluid.
You have one other alternative as well:
Use a lube that does not create this condition in the first place.
Sdan27, it's up to you; you're no novice to the world of UOAs. You can make an educated choice and decide which is your path to take. If this were a pristine engine that showed no former signs of wear, I'd just chalk this up to chelation and perhaps endure the risk. But you have an engine you just swapped in, and did some minor work to. You really have no idea if this is abnormal wear, abnormal chemistry, or a combination of the two in some yet-to-be-determined ratio.
