Mobil 1 and Corvette Question

[Vette100]

Hi,

I'm new to this board. I have 2005 Corvette with only 25,000 miles. Anyway, I've been putting Mobil 1 since I bought it 2 yrs ago. Mobil 1 is what is on the oil cap and recommended by GM. Anyway, I came across the following article by Valvoline.

http://www.lubritecinc.com/PDF/Q & A Doc 4X Better.pdf

Is it true that Mobil 1 causes more wear? After reading the above article, it seems everyone (Castrol, Quaker State, etc) is saying Mobil 1 can't pass a wear test. What is the story with Mobil 1? I am concerned about putting it in my car. I also read some stories on the Internet about iron issues. Should I drain it? Thanks...

 

[Gary Allan]

Can o'worms, my friend. If Bill doesn't shut this down, you'll see the legions of (for whatever reason I can only imagine - can't really) dedicated M1 lovers/defenders/loyalists/undisclosed shills pass this never ending test to see if they're still there.

 

[SteveSRT8]

Personally I feel it's baloney.

All the name brand synthetics are quite good.

Maybe M1 isn't "The Best" but it's certainly an ok oil!

 

[440Magnum]

M1 is excellent oil, ESPECIALLY the 0w40 your 'vette likely calls for. There are numerous other superb choices as well, notably the Shell products (including Pennzoil). What you use is your call, but don't base your decision on advertizing hype.

 

[Kyk noord en]

In the next day or two (or three, or...) BITOG will be posting the answers to the open Q&A Mobil has done with BITOG members. This question is likely to be addressed in detail.

 

[Vette100]

Cool about the Mobil 1 Q&A. I didn't want to stir things up just wanting to make sure there wasn't any truth to it. Really odd that the other major motor oil brands could say something like this and not get sued by Mobil.

 

[Bill in Utah]

First of all the Corvette recommends 5w-30 (unless it changed which I don't think so) and while true it says Mobil 1 on the cap, its more a marketing cap then the engine REQUIRES it.

Any rated Syn oil meeting the GM spec will have the same performance as Mobil's offering.

Your engine will last the SAME no matter what properly rated oil you use.

Take care, bill

PS:

PPS: Gary's correct, here comes the troops....

 

[Bill in Utah]

Originally Posted By: Vette100
Cool about the Mobil 1 Q&A. I didn't want to stir things up just wanting to make sure there wasn't any truth to it. Really odd that the other major motor oil brands could say something like this and not get sued by Mobil.


You only sue people when you have a good chance of winning or are willing to throw the $$ down the drain to make an statement.

Neither has happened.

 

[Vette100]

Thanks for the answers. I'll stick with Mobil 1 since it is what I am used to.

 

[Hammer]

Originally Posted By: 440Magnum

M1 is excellent oil, ESPECIALLY the 0w40 your 'vette likely calls for. There are numerous other superb choices as well, notably the Shell products (including Pennzoil). What you use is your call, but don't base your decision on advertizing hype.


0w-40 isn't what the Corvette calls for. The viscosity on the oil cap is 5w-30, but 0w-30, and 10w-30 also meet the specific requirement GM has for the Vette. BTW, I am NOT saying 0w-40 wouldnt work. Heck, it might work great. However, it is not what GM suggests.

And for what it's worth, I currently have Pennzoil Platinum 10w-30 in my Z06. I plan on changing to Pennzoil Ultra 10w-30 soon. They both have the proper GM certification for the Vette. My car is a dedicated Autocross car with an occasionally road track day tossed in.

 

[d00df00d]

Wow. With the exception of one reply, this has been a remarkably civil thread. Not bad.

 

[440Magnum]

Originally Posted By: Hammer
Originally Posted By: 440Magnum

M1 is excellent oil, ESPECIALLY the 0w40 your 'vette likely calls for. There are numerous other superb choices as well, notably the Shell products (including Pennzoil). What you use is your call, but don't base your decision on advertizing hype.


0w-40 isn't what the Corvette calls for. The viscosity on the oil cap is 5w-30, but 0w-30, and 10w-30 also meet the specific requirement GM has for the Vette. BTW, I am NOT saying 0w-40 wouldnt work. Heck, it might work great. However, it is not what GM suggests.

And for what it's worth, I currently have Pennzoil Platinum 10w-30 in my Z06. I plan on changing to Pennzoil Ultra 10w-30 soon. They both have the proper GM certification for the Vette. My car is a dedicated Autocross car with an occasionally road track day tossed in.


Thanks for the clarification on the grade GM recommends. I had just sorta assumed that they were on the 0w40 bandwagon, at least in the Z06 or ZR1 since Chrysler is recommending it for the 6.1 in the SRT-8 vehicles. And reading the specs, it is a pretty darned impressive oil and generally should do fine anywhere an Xw30 is called for with only minimal effect on efficiency.

 

[Corvette Owner]

Although I think Mobil 1 is an excellent oil, I changed my 1998 Corvette to Castrol Edge. I was concerned about some increasing wear (ppm lead) that I was showing with Mobil 1, Backstone Labs was also concerned (got up to 20 ppm). It decreased by 3 times after using Castrol Edge, my engine was also quieter. I got a lot of flack over this on here, but to me it was conclusive.

If you want to read my post, here it is:

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1867655&page=1

I have also switched my other cars to Pennzoil Platinum, except for my daughter's car which uses Mobil 1 EP and a 15,000 mile OCI.

As I prefaced this, I think Mobil 1 is an excellent oil, I just think there are better oils for some cars.

 

[Lethal1ty17]

edge 5w30 is on the thin side of a 30wt, its almost a 20wt.

doesnt the corvette have a large sump anyways?

 

[Corvette Owner]

Originally Posted By: Lethal1ty17
edge 5w30 is on the thin side of a 30wt, its almost a 20wt.

doesnt the corvette have a large sump anyways?


The older C5 Corvettes (1997-2004) have a larger oil sump (6.5 quarts verses 5.5 quarts) than most of the new Corvettes (except for ZO6 and ZR1 which are dry sump and 8 to 10.5 quarts, depending on the year). GM re-designed the oil sump to do away with C5 development oil starvation issues which required a larger oil pan with "bat wings".

 

[buster]

Quote:
Unfortunately, oil analysis is not very good at distinguishing wear between different formulations. Emission spectroscopy has a particle size limit of 3 to 5 microns, which means that particles larger will not be detected. Unfortunately, most serious wear issues generate wear particles in the range of 5 - 15 microns. Oil analysis only measures about 15-20% of the particles in the oil, and changing form one formulation to another is likely to change the particle size profile. Usually formulations with more antiwear additive will more aggressively react with the metal surface and when rubbing occurs will produce smaller particles. Generally, more antiwear additives will give greater iron spectrochemical numbers, even though the total iron can be lower. There are other techniques such as ferrography, which looks at the wear particles under a microscope, but now we are talking about analysis many times more expensive than spectrochemical analysis. The oils with the better spectrochemical numbers will be much less chemically active on the metal surface, so they will be less able to handle more severe loads. There is always a trade-off between chemical wear and adhesive wear. Chemical wear is the very small particles and soluble metals which is identified in the spectrochemical analysis, while adhesive wear is many orders of magnitude greater than the chemical wear, but much is not identified in spectrochemical analysis. But if you were using spectrochemical analysis as a maintenance tool and started seeing a deviation over the baseline, then you would know something was wrong.

It is very difficult for an individual to be able to look at numbers which will conclusively determine the best formulation, you simply have to rely on the reputation of the marketer and whether you trust the marketer's technical expertise. With most of our formulations, we rely on major additive manufacturers to do the basic API sequence testing to determine criteria such as antiwear, dispersancy, cleanliness, etc. All the oil companies rely on the additive manufacturers to do the engine test work. We will take their basic package and add additional antiwear, friction modifiers, oxidation inhibitors or whatever can be safely modified to provide superior performance. Some of the bench tests such as 4-Ball can be useful, but a blind adherance to optimize with one single test will result a less-than-optimum performing lubricant. There are always trade-offs in engine oils, and we try to enhance antiwear and friction reduction at higher temperatures and loads, while trying to maintain performance at lower and normal loads and temperatures.

Regards,

Roy

 

[Vette100]

I read somewhere that the all aluminum vette engine has problems with excessive bearing wear. It has to do with the different heat expansion rates of the aluminum block and steel crankshaft. The main bearing caps at each end of the block put stress on the bearings leading to higher bearing wear metals.

 

[M1Accord]

Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
Personally I feel it's baloney.

All the name brand synthetics are quite good.

Maybe M1 isn't "The Best" but it's certainly an ok oil!


It's the best as far as normally distributed oil you find in stores goes.

 

[M1Accord]

Originally Posted By: 440Magnum
Originally Posted By: Hammer
Originally Posted By: 440Magnum

M1 is excellent oil, ESPECIALLY the 0w40 your 'vette likely calls for. There are numerous other superb choices as well, notably the Shell products (including Pennzoil). What you use is your call, but don't base your decision on advertizing hype.


0w-40 isn't what the Corvette calls for. The viscosity on the oil cap is 5w-30, but 0w-30, and 10w-30 also meet the specific requirement GM has for the Vette. BTW, I am NOT saying 0w-40 wouldnt work. Heck, it might work great. However, it is not what GM suggests.

And for what it's worth, I currently have Pennzoil Platinum 10w-30 in my Z06. I plan on changing to Pennzoil Ultra 10w-30 soon. They both have the proper GM certification for the Vette. My car is a dedicated Autocross car with an occasionally road track day tossed in.


Thanks for the clarification on the grade GM recommends. I had just sorta assumed that they were on the 0w40 bandwagon, at least in the Z06 or ZR1 since Chrysler is recommending it for the 6.1 in the SRT-8 vehicles. And reading the specs, it is a pretty darned impressive oil and generally should do fine anywhere an Xw30 is called for with only minimal effect on efficiency.


If anyone is putting 0-5W30 in their Vette then they should be owning a Vette because they probably either drive it like an old lady driving a Camry V6 (never over 2k rpm for more than 2 secs) or destroying it by not providing adequate protection.

 

[440Magnum]

Originally Posted By: M1Accord

If anyone is putting 0-5W30 in their Vette then they should be owning a Vette because they probably either drive it like an old lady driving a Camry V6 (never over 2k rpm for more than 2 secs) or destroying it by not providing adequate protection.


So you're one of those people who thinks that 5w30 is substantially different than 10w30 when the engine's fully warmed up? Or are you one of the ones who think Toyota, Ford, Chrysler, and Honda are nuts for recommending 5w20 oils at all?

And since the GM LSx engine family is rather easy on oil, a Corvette may indeed put less stress on the oil than a Camry v6. Even if it is driven hard.