Can I delay this oil change up to say, 8500 miles?
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Zeng asked me to comment on this thread so here's my twopenneth worth...
I've used the blotter test in the past to track how engine tests are progressing. Typically this would be done on a PCMO sludge test like the Sequence VG.
TBH, I never much cared for it. The test is something of a blunt instrument for assessing the quality of a used oil. The problem lies not in the test itself but how quickly an oil can go from being good to bad and how by the time you know things are too bad, you've probably gone too far and wished you'ld stopped the test five hours earlier!
With regard to the blotter test itself, it pretty common to use glass fibre 'millipore' filter papers that you find in most labs. You can use paper but glass fibre doesn't swell as much.
I would rate Zeng's spot photo as very good. The oil spot is more or less uniform so my guess is this oil has not massively oxidised which after just 6500 miles is sort of what I'd expect. There are no signs of the infamous inner 'black spot' which says your oil is beyond simply oxidising and is now actively condensing/polymerisating and dumping out insolube sludge.
Regarding the Calcium Alkaryl Sulphonate in Quartz 7000, this is just another chemical descriptor for bog standard overbased Calcium Sulphonate which you get in most engine oils. It reminds me a bit of the labels on the back my wife's various face creams which contain 'Aqua' because this sounds less common than 'Water'.
Hope this helps
I've used the blotter test in the past to track how engine tests are progressing. Typically this would be done on a PCMO sludge test like the Sequence VG.
TBH, I never much cared for it. The test is something of a blunt instrument for assessing the quality of a used oil. The problem lies not in the test itself but how quickly an oil can go from being good to bad and how by the time you know things are too bad, you've probably gone too far and wished you'ld stopped the test five hours earlier!
With regard to the blotter test itself, it pretty common to use glass fibre 'millipore' filter papers that you find in most labs. You can use paper but glass fibre doesn't swell as much.
I would rate Zeng's spot photo as very good. The oil spot is more or less uniform so my guess is this oil has not massively oxidised which after just 6500 miles is sort of what I'd expect. There are no signs of the infamous inner 'black spot' which says your oil is beyond simply oxidising and is now actively condensing/polymerisating and dumping out insolube sludge.
Regarding the Calcium Alkaryl Sulphonate in Quartz 7000, this is just another chemical descriptor for bog standard overbased Calcium Sulphonate which you get in most engine oils. It reminds me a bit of the labels on the back my wife's various face creams which contain 'Aqua' because this sounds less common than 'Water'.
Hope this helps
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Joe,in your view what kind of abnormalcy one can interpret from the irregular jagged boundary edge present as earlier pointed out by Ducked ?
Glad to hear about 'favourable,as yet' condition of the used oil from you...
and yes I'm awaiting the arrival of 'black spot' within the centre zone....
Heaps of thanks, btw.
Glad to hear about 'favourable,as yet' condition of the used oil from you...
and yes I'm awaiting the arrival of 'black spot' within the centre zone....
Heaps of thanks, btw.
Originally Posted By: zeng
Joe,in your view what kind of abnormalcy one can interpret from the irregular jagged boundary edge present as earlier pointed out by Ducked ?
Glad to hear about 'favourable,as yet' condition of the used oil from you...
and yes I'm awaiting the arrival of 'black spot' within the centre zone....
Heaps of thanks, btw.
Not sure I would ascribe anything particular to the jagged edge. Interpreting blotter tests is on the same scientific level as reading tea leaves; you can end up convincing yourself of things that aren't really there.
Do be aware that you might need to wait a long time for a proper 'black spot' and if you do get to that point, you will wish that you hadn't. Oil oxidation, especially 'in-engine' oxidation is very chemically complex. I don't profess to understand it and I would be very wary of anyone from the industry that said they did. However there are certain phases that you can point to..
1) the additive depletion phase. In this phase the oxidation is inhibited. TBN is depleted and the other AOs in the oil are mopping up free-radicals. The oil will darken but not all of this darkening is due to oxidation. The oil is picking up wear metals and black gunk from partially burnt fuel (and any oil that's gone through the PCV system and has been burnt). During this phase, the oil's viscosity will be relatively unchanged.
2) the uncontrolled TAN rise phase. Although not strictly correct, you can imagine this phase starting when most of the detergent related TBN has gone. Base oils are oxidising into carboxylic acids. You might also see more take up of wear metals into the oil during this phase. In this phase the rate of oxidation is still essentially being held back by the supplementary AO's in the oil. The viscosity of the oil in starting very slowly to increase as these supplementary AO's deplete but is still reasonable.
3) the horrible phase! This is the phase where everything very quickly goes to cock. TBN is virtually zero, TAN is heading past 10. The oil is now getting very black. Viscosity is increasing exponentially as various bits of the oil start polymerising and taking part in condensation reactions to make very big molecules. Once these hit the solubility limits of the oil, they start plopping out of solution as sludge. This is when you get 'black spot' on the blotter test. Oh and you'll start seeing very bad metal attack.
My guess is that your Quartz oil is in Phase 1. As often as not, oil is thrown away in Phase 1. The oil can be very happy in Phase 2 and the phase can last a long time especially if you're driving gently for long trips. The big problem is Phase 3 is very difficult to predict and it can all go from okay-ish to dire very quickly which is why it's best to err on the side of caution for OCI's.
Joe,in your view what kind of abnormalcy one can interpret from the irregular jagged boundary edge present as earlier pointed out by Ducked ?
Glad to hear about 'favourable,as yet' condition of the used oil from you...
and yes I'm awaiting the arrival of 'black spot' within the centre zone....
Heaps of thanks, btw.
Not sure I would ascribe anything particular to the jagged edge. Interpreting blotter tests is on the same scientific level as reading tea leaves; you can end up convincing yourself of things that aren't really there.
Do be aware that you might need to wait a long time for a proper 'black spot' and if you do get to that point, you will wish that you hadn't. Oil oxidation, especially 'in-engine' oxidation is very chemically complex. I don't profess to understand it and I would be very wary of anyone from the industry that said they did. However there are certain phases that you can point to..
1) the additive depletion phase. In this phase the oxidation is inhibited. TBN is depleted and the other AOs in the oil are mopping up free-radicals. The oil will darken but not all of this darkening is due to oxidation. The oil is picking up wear metals and black gunk from partially burnt fuel (and any oil that's gone through the PCV system and has been burnt). During this phase, the oil's viscosity will be relatively unchanged.
2) the uncontrolled TAN rise phase. Although not strictly correct, you can imagine this phase starting when most of the detergent related TBN has gone. Base oils are oxidising into carboxylic acids. You might also see more take up of wear metals into the oil during this phase. In this phase the rate of oxidation is still essentially being held back by the supplementary AO's in the oil. The viscosity of the oil in starting very slowly to increase as these supplementary AO's deplete but is still reasonable.
3) the horrible phase! This is the phase where everything very quickly goes to cock. TBN is virtually zero, TAN is heading past 10. The oil is now getting very black. Viscosity is increasing exponentially as various bits of the oil start polymerising and taking part in condensation reactions to make very big molecules. Once these hit the solubility limits of the oil, they start plopping out of solution as sludge. This is when you get 'black spot' on the blotter test. Oh and you'll start seeing very bad metal attack.
My guess is that your Quartz oil is in Phase 1. As often as not, oil is thrown away in Phase 1. The oil can be very happy in Phase 2 and the phase can last a long time especially if you're driving gently for long trips. The big problem is Phase 3 is very difficult to predict and it can all go from okay-ish to dire very quickly which is why it's best to err on the side of caution for OCI's.
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Oil from a 1930's Delage with a head gasket problem (not mine or my test), for comparison
This is from some rather rambling discussion/half-arsed messing about (that was partly me) here:-
http://bangernomics.editboard.com/t583-lubricheck-oil-condition-monitoring-gizmo
but I think you'd need to have a login ID to see the pictures.
I know where there a couple of decommissioned 1940's Stuart Tanks which have probably got rather old oil in them...
This is from some rather rambling discussion/half-arsed messing about (that was partly me) here:-
http://bangernomics.editboard.com/t583-lubricheck-oil-condition-monitoring-gizmo
but I think you'd need to have a login ID to see the pictures.
I know where there a couple of decommissioned 1940's Stuart Tanks which have probably got rather old oil in them...
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Here is a site that explains the one drop oil test. Since I do 10K OCIs, I do this test at about 7K.
http://www.gwrauto.com/One Drop.htm
http://www.gwrauto.com/One Drop.htm
Originally Posted By: Ducked
Dunno. You don't have much structure and it isn't very dark, which is good as far as it goes, but I don't much like the peripheral line irregular edge, though that could be the medium.
Originally Posted By: zeng
The idea of coarse/fine medium sounds interesting and pertinent in quality of Blotter Spots .....
and would give it a try to assess its difference in Blotter Spot test results in times to come.
Manage to go through some other blot samples of differing paper mediums of coarseness ...
The blot spots of similar oil in similar engine in another slightly thicker and coarser medium (type C for coarse) shows similar phenomenon as thinner,less coarse medium (type F for fine), i.e:
a )at mileage exceeding 5000 miles, both mediums of paper shows very similar darkened jagged irregular edge; and
b )at mileage south of 5000 miles, no jagged irregular edge are observed on both mediums.
I had Full synthetic (4800 miles) and mineral oil (4000) blotter spots on type C mediums showing no edges , sort of.
Will update when 6000 miles sample on fully synthetic is available in due time .
Dunno. You don't have much structure and it isn't very dark, which is good as far as it goes, but I don't much like the peripheral line irregular edge, though that could be the medium.
Originally Posted By: zeng
The idea of coarse/fine medium sounds interesting and pertinent in quality of Blotter Spots .....
and would give it a try to assess its difference in Blotter Spot test results in times to come.
Manage to go through some other blot samples of differing paper mediums of coarseness ...
The blot spots of similar oil in similar engine in another slightly thicker and coarser medium (type C for coarse) shows similar phenomenon as thinner,less coarse medium (type F for fine), i.e:
a )at mileage exceeding 5000 miles, both mediums of paper shows very similar darkened jagged irregular edge; and
b )at mileage south of 5000 miles, no jagged irregular edge are observed on both mediums.
I had Full synthetic (4800 miles) and mineral oil (4000) blotter spots on type C mediums showing no edges , sort of.
Will update when 6000 miles sample on fully synthetic is available in due time .
This is what 8500 mile oil changes does to your engine.
Originally Posted By: tig1
Here is a site that explains the one drop oil test. Since I do 10K OCIs, I do this test at about 7K.
http://www.gwrauto.com/One Drop.htm
Thanks Tig1 for this valuable resource that provides pictures most relevant to gasoline engine oils ..
as opposed to most others that are mainly on diesel engine oils.
Here is a site that explains the one drop oil test. Since I do 10K OCIs, I do this test at about 7K.
http://www.gwrauto.com/One Drop.htm
Thanks Tig1 for this valuable resource that provides pictures most relevant to gasoline engine oils ..
as opposed to most others that are mainly on diesel engine oils.
Originally Posted By: Ducked
Oil from a 1930's Delage with a head gasket problem (not mine or my test), for comparison
SonOfJoe,
as part of my learning process can you evaluate/examine on my assessment of above picture provided by Ducked as follows:
a) Despite known head gasket problem, the outside diffusion zone of mild gray areas indicates dispersancy (and probably detergency) properties of the oil is still functioning well as it is designed, Anti Oxidants are still on top of situations;
b) The (translucent) centre zone of darker gray (not opaque and black yet) indicates rather high amount of insolubles (guessing 0.2%) from combinations of oxidation byproducts, wear particles and possibly from known HG problem byproducts issues which is not yet of serious nature;
c) As perimeter of dark gray centre zone has not shown a darkened and clear perimeter circular line yet, there is still capacity to hold additional quantity of insolubles and it has no indications of glycol contamination (not of serious nature) ?
d) I would speculate this oil is still fit for use for another 10-20% additional mileage/hours thus far,without raising metal wear rates at higher rate of increase (if UOA is done).
Inputs really appreciated.
Oil from a 1930's Delage with a head gasket problem (not mine or my test), for comparison
SonOfJoe,
as part of my learning process can you evaluate/examine on my assessment of above picture provided by Ducked as follows:
a) Despite known head gasket problem, the outside diffusion zone of mild gray areas indicates dispersancy (and probably detergency) properties of the oil is still functioning well as it is designed, Anti Oxidants are still on top of situations;
b) The (translucent) centre zone of darker gray (not opaque and black yet) indicates rather high amount of insolubles (guessing 0.2%) from combinations of oxidation byproducts, wear particles and possibly from known HG problem byproducts issues which is not yet of serious nature;
c) As perimeter of dark gray centre zone has not shown a darkened and clear perimeter circular line yet, there is still capacity to hold additional quantity of insolubles and it has no indications of glycol contamination (not of serious nature) ?
d) I would speculate this oil is still fit for use for another 10-20% additional mileage/hours thus far,without raising metal wear rates at higher rate of increase (if UOA is done).
Inputs really appreciated.
Got your PM zeng, sorry i cant give any opinions regarding the blot test but from my UOA, i would say 12000km is already at its limits with the fuel quality we have. Best change the oil ASAP.
Originally Posted By: alcyon
Got your PM zeng, sorry i cant give any opinions regarding the blot test but from my UOA, i would say 12000km is already at its limits with the fuel quality we have. Best change the oil ASAP.
Yep, our 500 ppm sulfur Euro II RON 95 should affects oil life here as indicated in your UOA's.
Previous (same type) oil was replaced at 6900 miles with Blotter Spot showing dark gray inner ring circular shaped lines at centre zone.
However , current oil at 7600 miles showed no such similar 'ring' yet, thus appears to be in better shape (i.e assuming every other things being equal, for now ) ...
hence my attempts to push current OCI further till its appearance of dark gray inner circular ring in Blotter Spot , and then move from there ..
Got your PM zeng, sorry i cant give any opinions regarding the blot test but from my UOA, i would say 12000km is already at its limits with the fuel quality we have. Best change the oil ASAP.
Yep, our 500 ppm sulfur Euro II RON 95 should affects oil life here as indicated in your UOA's.
Previous (same type) oil was replaced at 6900 miles with Blotter Spot showing dark gray inner ring circular shaped lines at centre zone.
However , current oil at 7600 miles showed no such similar 'ring' yet, thus appears to be in better shape (i.e assuming every other things being equal, for now ) ...
hence my attempts to push current OCI further till its appearance of dark gray inner circular ring in Blotter Spot , and then move from there ..
Originally Posted By: zeng
Originally Posted By: tig1
Here is a site that explains the one drop oil test. Since I do 10K OCIs, I do this test at about 7K.
http://www.gwrauto.com/One Drop.htm
Thanks Tig1 for this valuable resource that provides pictures most relevant to gasoline engine oils ..
as opposed to most others that are mainly on diesel engine oils.
Glad to help. I do the one drop test at about 3/4 through my normal OCI, and for the life of both engines the drop hasn't seemed to change appearance.
Originally Posted By: tig1
Here is a site that explains the one drop oil test. Since I do 10K OCIs, I do this test at about 7K.
http://www.gwrauto.com/One Drop.htm
Thanks Tig1 for this valuable resource that provides pictures most relevant to gasoline engine oils ..
as opposed to most others that are mainly on diesel engine oils.
Glad to help. I do the one drop test at about 3/4 through my normal OCI, and for the life of both engines the drop hasn't seemed to change appearance.
Hi,
zeng - your summary is pretty good IMO
The Blotter Test is a good "in-field" indicator of lubricant dispersancy and soot loading in diesel operations. I have used it "in-field" for many years. It should not be confused with a comprehensive UOA
zeng - You've done well - don't be put off by some negative postings here!
zeng - your summary is pretty good IMO
The Blotter Test is a good "in-field" indicator of lubricant dispersancy and soot loading in diesel operations. I have used it "in-field" for many years. It should not be confused with a comprehensive UOA
zeng - You've done well - don't be put off by some negative postings here!
Thank you Doug, for your valuable input ....... which I consider yours as authoritative .
My understanding of most (if not all) commercial UOA labs (that typically provides quantative oil analysis) do carry out Blotter Spot Tests (that typically provides qualitative analysis ) as a matter of laboratory standard operating procedure ...
leading me to believe these two tests are mutually inclusive and complementary to each other.
From the perspective of my local community in this semisyn OCI exceeding 12,000 km (7200 miles), I'm venturing into 'uncharted waters' so to speak, bearing in mind of our 500 ppm sulfur in gasoline fuels in Malaysia.
However numerous UOA's in Bitog suggests that it's not an issue in NA , granted sulfur ppm is lowish at typically 30 or so (2016 and before) ........
hence my current attempts to step into and test the 'uncharted waters' .... with guidance from the Bitog community.
One thing that borders me here is the irregular jagged edge of darker shades in my sample as brought up by Ducked earlier on ..... and still pondering ..
My understanding of most (if not all) commercial UOA labs (that typically provides quantative oil analysis) do carry out Blotter Spot Tests (that typically provides qualitative analysis ) as a matter of laboratory standard operating procedure ...
leading me to believe these two tests are mutually inclusive and complementary to each other.
From the perspective of my local community in this semisyn OCI exceeding 12,000 km (7200 miles), I'm venturing into 'uncharted waters' so to speak, bearing in mind of our 500 ppm sulfur in gasoline fuels in Malaysia.
However numerous UOA's in Bitog suggests that it's not an issue in NA , granted sulfur ppm is lowish at typically 30 or so (2016 and before) ........
hence my current attempts to step into and test the 'uncharted waters' .... with guidance from the Bitog community.
One thing that borders me here is the irregular jagged edge of darker shades in my sample as brought up by Ducked earlier on ..... and still pondering ..
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Originally Posted By: zeng
8000 miles in 07 Toyota/Daihatsu K3VE 1.3L EFI gasoline engine with euro II 500 ppm sulfur RON 95 fuel.
Keep going on ..... towards 8500 miles OCI, is it ok?
Comments most welcome ...
The dispersancy is still very good (lack of colored multi targets), but the irregular edges means water or antifreeze content in oil. I'd change for that water or glycol possibility. This Total Quartz semi uses amines as dispersants, the overbased calcium sulfonate mentioned, is just the detergent. You have a low fuel dilution here, since the light and clear outer ring (beyond the irregular edge) is very narrow. Fuel is the clear outer layer, almost indetectable in this sample (it is below average, witch is good, also). You need to check head gasket, or other water source, IMO .
8000 miles in 07 Toyota/Daihatsu K3VE 1.3L EFI gasoline engine with euro II 500 ppm sulfur RON 95 fuel.
Keep going on ..... towards 8500 miles OCI, is it ok?
Comments most welcome ...
The dispersancy is still very good (lack of colored multi targets), but the irregular edges means water or antifreeze content in oil. I'd change for that water or glycol possibility. This Total Quartz semi uses amines as dispersants, the overbased calcium sulfonate mentioned, is just the detergent. You have a low fuel dilution here, since the light and clear outer ring (beyond the irregular edge) is very narrow. Fuel is the clear outer layer, almost indetectable in this sample (it is below average, witch is good, also). You need to check head gasket, or other water source, IMO .
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