2002 Ford Crown Victoria 189k, 7.5 on Maxlife 5W20

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Previous UOA

I wanna say the first 3k was all highway, as part of my Awesome 6k mile trip I took covering all of the western states. After that, its been sitting for periods of time with some city driving and occasional runs to Seattle.

Length of time in service was 3 months to the day, 7500 miles. Total miles was 189,500.

Top up was one quart, at the 5k mile mark.

I did not replace my Fram Ultra this time, though it was new at the beginning of this run.

Continuing my use of the Lubeguard Biotech. Really happy with it.

Code:


Iron 24

Chromium 1

Nickel 1

Aluminium 19

Copper 5

Lead 1

Tin 0

Silicon 21

Sodium 366

Potassium 7

Titanium 0

Molybdenum 162

Boron 10

Magnesium 9

Calcium 2319

Phosphorous 868

Zinc 851

Fuel
Soot
Water
Visc 9.0cSt@100C

TBN 2.74

Oxid 22

Nitr 10

Lab is OAI/Polaris
 
#'s are fine considering a high mileage 14 yr old vehicle. With the oil usage and miles, I'd consider moving up to MaxLife 5W-30.
 
Iron and aluminum are high for a 7,500 mile run. Not dangerously so, but well above what a healthy engine should have.

I notice that the silicon is high, too, which leads me to believe that you've got either a lousy air filter or a leak in your induction system that is allowing in grit/sand which would result in increased wear...which would explain the high Fe and Al...
 
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Originally Posted By: bigt61
#'s are fine considering a high mileage 14 yr old vehicle. With the oil usage and miles, I'd consider moving up to MaxLife 5W-30.


I'd have probably concurred with that except the viscosity of the Max Life 5w-20 at 9.0 is holding up very well....unless that started to come back the other way due to thickening.
 
The silicon is trending downwards. It was 51 ppm two UOAs ago, and the Fe was 84. This was due to it running with unfiltered air through a spark plug hole.

The Al is trending up while everything else is calming down. Not sure why that is but Im hoping it will calm down and stabilize sometime soon.

Right now, Im transitioning to the Maxlife full syn. The current load only has about 2 quarts of the blend, the rest is from a syn bottle.
 
Colton: can't go wrong with MaxLife or full syn MaxLife. I'm using some MaxLife blend 5w30/VWB 5w30 in the focus
 
Originally Posted By: Colt45ws
The silicon is trending downwards. It was 51 ppm two UOAs ago, and the Fe was 84. This was due to it running with unfiltered air through a spark plug hole.

The Al is trending up while everything else is calming down. Not sure why that is but Im hoping it will calm down and stabilize sometime soon.

Right now, Im transitioning to the Maxlife full syn. The current load only has about 2 quarts of the blend, the rest is from a syn bottle.


Oh, well, I didn't know about the downward trending numbers...that's good news then and makes my comment inaccurate. In light of that, I would say the report is good.

Cheers,
Astro
 
Not to be an alarmist. But has the timing chain and tensioner/guides been replaced? The plastic guide wears off the arm and then the chain starts rubbing on the aluminum arm. Any noises from the timing chain area?
 
No. No sewing machine noise from the timing chain area. This car idles quieter than my friends 2011 with half the miles.
 
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For this engine, Al is very high - lots of bearing wear here.

I'm surprised with how much you seem to 'like' these vehicles, you are taking such poor care of this one - for a while you have been showing excess wear, and you are still doing 7.5k runs, which is clearly killing the engine.

You need to back off to 3-4k runs, and probably up to a 30-weight to protect the bearings. Unless of course this is just a cheap beater and you don't care if it grenades soon.
 
I haven't been too concerned with the excess wear because of the circumstances surrounding why that got started. I drove it 160 miles with a dead cylinder, sucking in dirty air through a open spark plug hole. You could tell that was what it was from because the chromium was 5 from sanding the rings. Then right after I did that, the intake manifold failed so I had to change that, introducing more dirt...

Al went 15 to 14 and now 19. I figured it was calming down with everything else and would normalize soon.
 
Originally Posted By: addyguy
For this engine, Al is very high - lots of bearing wear here.

I'm surprised with how much you seem to 'like' these vehicles, you are taking such poor care of this one - for a while you have been showing excess wear, and you are still doing 7.5k runs, which is clearly killing the engine.

You need to back off to 3-4k runs, and probably up to a 30-weight to protect the bearings. Unless of course this is just a cheap beater and you don't care if it grenades soon.


I did 10K OCIs with my 4.6 and it performed very well with no sign of engine wear. 218K when sold. However, I used M1 10-30 for the life of the engine. Also the acceptable levels for Aluminum is up to 30PPM, 19 PPM is well below that limit. Certainly no alarm should be given.
 
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Ditch the 5w20. It works fine for the first 100-120k but by then these engines need more viscosity IMO and by that point Ford could care less. God only knows how long they would run if they had a decent 30 grade their whole life.
 
Compared to mine, yours is wearing very well.

I think some just wear better than others no matter what you do.

As a side thought, what good does it do me to have an engine that will last 500,000 miles? Judging by the current state of the rest of the vehicle, if the engine does last that long, it will be in a different chassis when it does it.

I think its all relative. I'd probably just keep doing what you are doing.
 
I am not too worried about the engine. Even if it does turn out to be a timing chain issue, it would cost several hundred for everything to do the timing chains. But I have a OEM 2004 longblock with 90k miles on it that would cost me about $100 in gaskets to install..so why save the almost 200k mile motor. I'd just swap in the other one.
 
Originally Posted By: meborder
As a side thought, what good does it do me to have an engine that will last 500,000 miles?

....... and API/SAE/oil industries/Universities should relocate resources accordingly and restrategising R&D (away from automotive lubricants) for the benefit of mankind i.e the deprived and down-troddened on the planet earth across the oceans.
 
Originally Posted By: addyguy
For this engine, Al is very high - lots of bearing wear here.

I'm surprised with how much you seem to 'like' these vehicles, you are taking such poor care of this one - for a while you have been showing excess wear, and you are still doing 7.5k runs, which is clearly killing the engine.

You need to back off to 3-4k runs, and probably up to a 30-weight to protect the bearings. Unless of course this is just a cheap beater and you don't care if it grenades soon.


The Aluminium is probably from the cylinder block, if the main bearings were wearing it would show more Lead.
I agree about moving up to an Xw30 and would reduce the OCI to 5000 miles.

With all high time engines it's essential to make sure the oil flow around the block is good, as it does not take much sludge or varnish to cause an increase in the wear metals, so if the OP has been doing fairly long OCI's or the car has an unknown service history, it would be a good idea to use a major brand flush additive that is designed for use at idle just before an oil & filter change.
One word of caution, using oil flush additives can make any oil leaks worse (Due to the false oil seal effect where sludge is helping a worn or split oil seal or gasket to function). If that happens you might need to use a stop leak additive or switch to an HM oil.
 
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Originally Posted By: Ojustracing
Not to be an alarmist. But has the timing chain and tensioner/guides been replaced? The plastic guide wears off the arm and then the chain starts rubbing on the aluminum arm. Any noises from the timing chain area?


This is an issue with those engines... I would also use Maxlife 5W30.
 
Originally Posted By: Colt45ws
Main bearings are not Lead, they are Al/Si as are most modern engines.


^^^^this^^^^

I wish people who don't know what they are talking about would refrain from talking.

That being said, there was a comment above about the limit of Aluminum in a UOA being 30ppm and this sample is fine because it is under that limit. I wonder if that 30ppm limit accounts for the bearing composition of this particular engine, or if it is a generic limit developed across the board without regard to the design of individual engines.
 
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