Interesting video..... increased fuel economy and OCI

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Yes, it is an ad, but no surprise that you can get a bit better fuel economy with a 5w-40 over a 15w-40, having usually slightly lower HTHS and better fuel economy during the warm up phase. Discerning it from the background noise is another matter, though.
 
Originally Posted by clinebarger
I've never noticed any significant difference between conventional & synthetic lubricants as fuel economy is concerned.


Same here.... at least nothing measurable after variables are counted in
 
Originally Posted by Garak
Yes, it is an ad, but no surprise that you can get a bit better fuel economy with a 5w-40 over a 15w-40, having usually slightly lower HTHS and better fuel economy during the warm up phase. Discerning it from the background noise is another matter, though.

They were running 5w-30 from 15w-40 though.....
 
It's still the same principle. It's been claimed with 5w-40 over a 15w-40. You have a higher viscosity index and a lower HTHS, your fuel economy will increase, at least enough to be measured in laboratory conditions. Mobil did a very similar commercial with the Delvac 1 LE 5w-30 some years back when they were still sponsoring McLaren, with the story being about the McLaren truck fleet.
 
What is important is the viscosity at operating temperature. And if the spec is right both 5W-40 and 15W-40 should be what 40 weight is at the same temp.
The W is for the cold condition not the hot. So technically there should be no operating temperature difference between the two oils, thus no MPG improvement.
If there is then the - number is not at spec.
 
Doug Hillary used to run a fleet of OTR rigs.

Synthetics bumper to bumper, over a big enough test pool, he identified worthwhile fuel savings over millions of miles. Centrifugal oil filters also.

The longer OCIs were verified by a fleet and compartment used oil analysis programme.

Doing it that way was cheaper across the fleet.

As a single vehicle user, YMMV, and you probably won't be able to measure it.
 
Originally Posted by Exhaustgases
What is important is the viscosity at operating temperature. And if the spec is right both 5W-40 and 15W-40 should be what 40 weight is at the same temp.
The W is for the cold condition not the hot. So technically there should be no operating temperature difference between the two oils, thus no MPG improvement.
If there is then the - number is not at spec.


No, not true at all...

Economy is linked more to the HTHS than the KV100...and for the 40s, the HTHS spec is a minimum.

So 40s WILL have different economies de[ending on their HTHS primarily and W rating (where this can potentially indicate viscosity index and operation in the warmup phase.

e.g. below, the comparison in bench engine tests of different viscosities versus a 15W40...note that the 3 grades that are ALL "40" at operating temperature have different fuel economy savings.

FEViscosity (1).JPG
 
To add to Shannow's info, I'll say this ...
Vis grades are ranges, not static single point magnitudes. Hence, it's not always easy to say this is a direct vis comparison. Even at full temp (say 100C) a 40 grade syn may have a slightly different vis than a 40 grade dino. Or maybe not. The only way to know is to actually test any two or more specific lubes you're considering. We can't bench race our way to a credible answer here.

Companies that operate large fleets, consuming thousands of gallons of fuel annually, are likely to see some economy increase moving from conventional 15w-40 to syn 5w-30 HDEO.
Guys like me whom operate one vehicle for perhaps 5k miles annually on my Dmax won't notice it at all.

I don't know that the increase in efficiency is so much due to a syn lube base, but the vis change. However, I've run thinner HDEO conventional lube for more than a decade now (Rotella), and I can attest that the protection offered in terms of wear control is no better or worse than the former 15w-40 I used.

I also note that in the video, they went from 20k to 80k mile OCIs. THAT is a BIG savings in lubes and downtime.
 
dnewton...that last line I suggested, but flubbed the delivery.

That's the big saving...Decade and a bit ago Mitsubishi offered their diesel utes in Oz with 15,000km service intervals while Toyota were at 5,000km.

My brother's company doubled down on buying Mitsubishi, as the downtime saving was worth another vehicle in the fleet. Two to three services per annum versus 6+...coupled with a 5 year warranty when following the 15,000km service interval...on dino (my Colorado does 16,000 on Dex 2 per the OLM and my useage pattern)

Your tests show that what Mitsubishi were offering is well within the bell curve for acceptable life and wear.

Fleet users can go nearly forever if they have the actual knowledge under their belt.
 
There is one thing I take exception to, seen in the video, and often practiced nearly everywhere ...
Bias in the testing conditional assumptions. Let me explain ...

In the video, that company went from 20k mile OCIs to 80k mile OCIs. OK - I can accept that. But based on what criteria???
They don't elaborate. Did they do this at the suggestion of the lube rep? UOAs most certainly should be a part of that kind of OCI extension, along with some PCs and such.

But that 4x factor of OCI extension is based upon what?

To accurately understand that ROI payback, you have to know the actual conditions of your starting point.
They started at 20k miles. But why? What makes 20k miles the starting point? Was that the OEM spec'd limit?
My point is this ... What made 20k miles the base value? Did they run many UOAs at those 20k miles, and determine that the wear rates were at a max permissible limit? Did they end up deciding that 20k miles equaled some data-drive codemnation limit? Was the Fe at a top magnitude limit (100ppm?) or did that Fe wear rate max out at 5ppm/1k miles? Or what?
Get the point? WHY was 20k miles the starting basis for the OCI consideration?

For that matter, why was 80k miles the end point? Again, what criteria did they find that led them to that 80k mile limit?

This is the crux of my complaints on nearly every UOA I see here.

If we were to imagine ourselves as young, youthful athelets, and we wanted to run or swim "better", would we first not need to know our baseline at the beginning of the season? If I take the summer off, and start running on day one of the season, I can run "X" miles in "Y" minutes. I hope to improve that. Or, I swim "X" meters in "Y" seconds. Then, after much work, I can trim off time and reassess my performance. My point is that we don't really know how well I'm improving if we don't accurately measure the baseline of my starting point.

In this video, we see an increase of the OCI duration. And we assign some measure of improvement; here it's a factor of 4x. But we really don't KNOW the TRUE benefit, because we are only assuming what they tell us. And to be frank, I seriously doubt they really know the truth either.

Most all of the time, OCI limits are arbitrary. They are set by some moderately educated guess. But to really KNOW, you have to test the baseline conditions.

In this video, I'd be more impressed if they said something to this effect ...
We ran our normal lube to a point where we had to condemn it at 23,500 miles as a fleet average. This was due to the wear metal of Fe/Al/Cu/Pb being at a max limit as determined by guidelines of the OEM. And, we saw an uptick of the wear-rates indicating that the lube had reached a point where it is being usurped by the contamination loading, and while not horribly detrimental to the engine, it was a prudent move to change the oil as the uptick in wear is likely to predicate actual damage. This info from our fleet averages indicates that 23,500 miles is the safe practical limit for our base lube choice. We then did the same thing using the Delvac 1 lube. Using the same condemnation limits, we were able to achieve 81,500 miles of use. Therefore, we were able to gain a ROI of 3.4x more OCI. Given that the Delvac 1 costs 2.8x more money, it is a prudent move to use the more expensive choice; this is because a 3.4x extension on a 2.8x invesment gives a positive ROI.

See my point?

I SERIOUSLY doubt that any baseline was actually determined other than some OEM arbitrary limit. I don't know this for sure, but I've been around the maintenance industry my entire adult life and often the "baseline" is just someone's guestimate.

For example, how many times have we seen "severe" service limits published in OEM manuals; those limits are often far less than the "normal" use factors. Take any typical car or light-duty truck, and you'll see something akin to normal use of 5,000 miles, but only 3,000 if sever factors. My wife's old Villager van had those limits. But my UOA data (and that of hundreds of others) showed that the VG30E Nissan engine really didn't exhibit any shift in wear trends whatsoever, despite the OCI duration or severity factor. In fact, our van was used about as "severe" as you could ever imagine; total soccer-mom type use of start/shut-down, short trips, cold and heat, etc. And yet when I ran my UOAs to track the wear rates, even when we went out to 15k miles, the wear data didn't budge. All on dino oil and a MC filter. And so, despite the fact that we went 5x (five times) longer than the "severe" service factor, the wear data showed that the combination of longer OCI and "severe" use didn't matter at all; not one bit. Simply put, the OEM limits really were not limits at all; not as a measure of the engine/lube combination. Therefore, unless I were to test the dino oil and MC filter to an OCI duration that actually showed an uptick in wear, then I really don't know what my "baseline" is, should I have opted to contrast that lube/filter combo to some syn. All I know is that the OEM limits are GROSSLY conservative; the lube is not anywhere near taxed at those limits and in fact can go MUCH further without any undue stress.

So, to my point, it's only impressive in this video that they decided to go 4x longer with the Devlac 1 if you accept the fact that it's quite likely that both the 20k and 80k mile limits were probably arbitrary in the first place. Are we supposed to believe that it's exactly a 4x factor on the OCI? And there's zero mention of the costs involved. It certainly isn't the same for the base oil as the Delvac 1, so it's not a true "4x" ROI. What if the Delvac 1 was able to provide a 4x factor in the OCI, but the cost was 3x? The true ROI would really be 1.333x; not that this is a bad value, but it's nowhere near as impressive as 4x that the video implies. We'll never know because it's really not well defined, (and probably not even known), what the "real" baseline OCI limit actually is. And therefore we cannot presume that the ROI is 4x; it's unknown. What we do know is that their ARBITRAY limits are 4x, and the ROI is something well less than that because surely the syn costs more than the base lube.

Just my two pennies here.
 
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Originally Posted by Driz
Looks like an ad to me.......

Marketing works well.
 
Originally Posted by dnewton3
In the video, that company went from 20k mile OCIs to 80k mile OCIs. OK - I can accept that. But based on what criteria???
They don't elaborate. Did they do this at the suggestion of the lube rep? UOAs most certainly should be a part of that kind of OCI extension, along with some PCs and such.

But that 4x factor of OCI extension is based upon what?

I wouldn't doubt that there are UOA programs in the background of these little anecdotes the oil companies tell us about. However, the oil companies know the same thing that you do - the average lube is ridiculously underutilized and finding someone doing that, grabbing a synthetic, and extending the OCI by an enormous amount and publicising it isn't terribly difficult.
 
Agree, ...oil change and its intervals practices is basically related to fear mongering.Period.
 
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