Awhile back I emailed someone, who wishes to remain anonymous but is a very close source and has knowledge, pertaining the results of tests like these. Here are some questions I asked.
Q) On the topic of meeting and exceeding grades..... What is the definition of 'exceeding' on the Sequence IVA if the numbers didn't really matter? Because like you said, the test is just a pass/fail grade, so wouldn't all oils be considered 'meeting'?
A) Correction: all PASSING oils would be considered meeting or exceeding. The definition of meeting or exceeding is dependent on whether the oil is able to prevent the average cam wear from exceeding 90 um of wear after 100 hours of running in the test engine. The oil can exceed the Sequence IVA performance criteria if it can keep the wear below 90 um.
Q) Quaker State issued a challenge to any oil companiess to come compare oils against them in the Sequence IVA and no company stepped up. Do you believe that if the challenged took place, the results in this benchmark could have declared which oil definitely declared who was best in wear protection? If you believe you have the best product, why would you be afraid of this challenge? (unless you really believed that you didn't have a chance)
By defining a “best” oil, you are essentially defining ONE oil. No one oil company will be willing to let just one oil company to dominate the market, even if there is a possibility that they are the one. The performance of motor oils on the Sequence IVA are indeed different, but they are comparable. Suppose the results of the challenge are Oil A: 15um, Oil B: 20um, Oil C: 25um. According to the results, all of these oils passed the Sequence IVA with flying colors, but Oil A apparently gives the “best wear protection.” But does a 10 um difference really matter? You can’t visibly see or physically feel that difference. But the winning company would more than likely advertise this victory as “Oil A gives the beats all other motor oils in wear protection,” because now it is perfectly legal to make that claim; you will never see the actual wear numbers and how insignificant the differences are.
Also regarding your point that “numbers don’t lie,” the fact is that the numbers are merely measurements, and all measurements have a possibility for error. That’s why you see on some measurements something like 20cm +/- 5cm. This is dependent on the resolution of the measurement device. Since our measurement device is really an engine, which is inherently chaotic and difficult to control, the measurements that the test yields will not have as tight a resolution as measurements by a ruler. So when an oil yields a wear of 20um on one test run, it can very easily yield 35um on the next test run. Although these numbers are 15um apart, it is still considered repeatable results because of the large resolution of the measurement.
There are more questions but that is all of the email that I am going to share.
