Nissan Ester oil...

[edhackett]

There's no PAO in Nissan's ester oil. Looks like group II.

This oil consistently resulted in he worst UOAs of any oil in the 3.7L engine.

http://www.findmymsds.com/nissan/pdfs/999MP-5W30EP-E.pdf

Ed

 

[wemay]

Originally Posted By: edhackett
There's no PAO in Nissan's ester oil. Looks like group II.

This oil consistently resulted in he worst UOAs of any oil in the 3.7L engine.

http://www.findmymsds.com/nissan/pdfs/999MP-5W30EP-E.pdf

Ed


Yes, I have since researched uoa's using this oil in multiple variants of the VQ engine family and they were very ordinary at best.

 

[Gokhan]

Originally Posted By: FetchFar
The key point is that Nissan pao-ester oil from the dealerships is designed specifically to reduce overall engine friction by 10% when used in a Nissan-Infiniti engine that uses diamond-like-carbon coatings on some internal engine parts. Valvetrain friction alone is reduced 50%, according to the 2006 Tribology International research paper I referenced above in this threa.

It is worth noting that some people believe trimer moly oils "might" reduce friction by more than 50%, but thats just a guess, no evidence that trimer moly does as well. Good question though.

The general consensus regarding contact friction is that it doesn't depend on the base-oil type that much, as the friction modifiers saturate it to a very small minimum anyway, no matter what the contact friction of the base oil is.

Besides, as they said, Nissan ester oil is likely Group II, not PAO.

 

[FetchFar]

Wow, that completely blows the revolutionary results out of the water. http://www.sfplayers.com/blog/dlcPapers/Kano_2006_Tribology-International.pdf
Maybe we need independent results to back up Nissan's claims that "superlubricity" was obtained on the cam surfaces. Could be just a huge failure on Nissan's part.

 

[BlitzPuppet]

Yeah, my owner's manual calls for Nissan Ester 5w-30 for my VW35DE. I've been going with Pennzoil Plat 5W-30 since my first change and haven't had any issues as of yet *knocks on wood*.

Waiting for the engine to completely break in before I take a serious look at the ppms in the oil reports.

 

[MolaKule]

Originally Posted By: FetchFar
The key point is that Nissan pao-ester oil from the dealerships is designed specifically to reduce overall engine friction by 10% when used in a Nissan-Infiniti engine that uses diamond-like-carbon coatings on some internal engine parts. Valvetrain friction alone is reduced 50%, according to the 2006 Tribology International research paper I referenced above in this threa.

It is worth noting that some people believe trimer moly oils "might" reduce friction by more than 50%, but thats just a guess, no evidence that trimer moly does as well. Good question though.


The base oil was a blend of PAO and 1% GMO. GMO is or was a common friction modifier.

Most lubrication engineers and formulators would call 1% GMO an additive.

I.E., As I have stated before, I don't think it is correct to call this oil a PAO/ester oil.

As Fetchfar stated, the total friction reduction is a result of BOTH the DLC coating AND the oil additive GMO.

So there is nothing magical about this so-called Nissan ester oil.

 

[Gokhan]

Originally Posted By: MolaKule
So there is nothing magical about this so-called Nissan ester oil.

Very well said.

The oil in the paper is a PAO oil -- not even an ester oil. The friction reduction is coming from the PAO (known to be the base stock with the lowest friction), friction modifier, and DLC coating -- not the ester. In comparison to the oil in the paper, which hardly used any Group V ester (only 1%), Mobil 1 can typically use up to 20% Group V ester in its PAO or Group III formulations.

No one knows exactly what Nissan ester oil is. It could be Group II with some ester in it or a lot of ester in it. In any case, the general consensus is that it's not a good oil at all, even in the engines it's recommended for.

 

[Gokhan]

Originally Posted By: BlitzPuppet
Yeah, my owner's manual calls for Nissan Ester 5w-30 for my VW35DE. I've been going with Pennzoil Plat 5W-30 since my first change and haven't had any issues as of yet *knocks on wood*.

Waiting for the engine to completely break in before I take a serious look at the ppms in the oil reports.

You will be more than OK with any oil that contains trinuclear moly & ZDDP. So, any Mobil 1 or Pennzoil oil, as well as TGMO 0W-20 SN, should be OK.

If you look at the Infineum presentation I linked above, trinuclear moly gave twice the wear protection of dinuclear moly (regular moly), which in turn gave many more times protection than no moly at all. So, in principle, any oil with moly & ZDDP should provide sufficient wear protection for DLC coatings but trinuclear moly is better. Avoid oils that don't contain any kind of moly at all.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: FetchFar
Maybe we need independent results to back up Nissan's claims that "superlubricity" was obtained on the cam surfaces. Could be just a huge failure on Nissan's part.

Maybe, or that results from academic testing might be different from results using the final version of the consumer grade product.

Originally Posted By: MolaKule
So there is nothing magical about this so-called Nissan ester oil.

Except the price, right?

For whatever reason, likely the price, it just never caught on here. We pay enough for oil as it is. Infiniti/Nissan Canada really push the Mobil products as service fill and likely only use the Ester oil on request or suggest it when someone is griping about valvetrain noise, which really isn't related in the first place.

Personally, I can't tell the difference in service between PYB and Delvac 1, but I do know they're not $15+ per litre.

 

[FetchFar]

Yes, according to Nissan & the university research, you need to have a Nissan-Infiniti engine that has the DLC coatings inside to benefit from the special Nissan oil. According to Nissan, you get about a 0.07 coefficient of friction if you do not use their special oil, but can drop that down to about 0.02 if you use their $12 per quart oil.

Maybe a trimer moly can get the 0.07 pushed down to 0.04 or so, but it would be amazing to see trimer moly and/or zddp teck getting down to the 0.02 obtained by Nissan research.

 

[FetchFar]

Key seems to be something in Nissan's low-hydrogen DLC coating combined with the 1% Ester in the oil to produce the synergy.

 

[Garak]

In the end, does it matter? If it didn't get Nissan/Infiniti some CAFE credits, it's a dead end from that respect. If it doesn't simplify owners' maintenance or save a bunch of fuel or make the engines last significantly longer than they already do, again, it's a dead end.

That oil would have to save a LOT of fuel in those engines to make the cost worthwhile. Sure, it's all nice from a BITOG OCD standpoint, but really, we're far more impressed with a good oil at a good price, not a mediocre performer at boutique prices.

 

[wemay]

Originally Posted By: Garak
In the end, does it matter? If it didn't get Nissan/Infiniti some CAFE credits, it's a dead end from that respect. If it doesn't simplify owners' maintenance or save a bunch of fuel or make the engines last significantly longer than they already do, again, it's a dead end.

That oil would have to save a LOT of fuel in those engines to make the cost worthwhile. Sure, it's all nice from a BITOG OCD standpoint, but really, we're far more impressed with a good oil at a good price, not a mediocre performer at boutique prices.


Summed up nicely.

 

[FetchFar]

Certainly marketing has their work cut out for them. Make no mistake, cutting valvetrain friction (and rings, wrist pin) by 45% is not trivial. Saves gas. Engine runs cooler.

BITOG members are usually interested in promising new tech. Value propositions are penny-ante.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: FetchFar
Certainly marketing has their work cut out for them. Make no mistake, cutting valvetrain friction (and rings, wrist pin) by 45% is not trivial. Saves gas. Engine runs cooler.

If it was a big gas saver, they would have been all over it for CAFE credits. Given the amount of time that's passed since the paper was presented, the Nissan Ester Oil was introduced, to now, I'd guess that they've mostly given up on it, especially when we consider that they're moving to 20 grades in some applications. The moral is that one can accomplish great feats in engineering if one throws enough money at the problem, but getting the customer and marketing and accounting onside is another issue.

However, it's pretty interesting technology. The oil will have to do better in UOAs and come down significantly in price before I'd even consider it. They're charging prices in Red Line and Motul range, without offering Red Line or Motul base stocks, much less their performance.

 

[Gokhan]

Originally Posted By: FetchFar
Yes, according to Nissan & the university research, you need to have a Nissan-Infiniti engine that has the DLC coatings inside to benefit from the special Nissan oil. According to Nissan, you get about a 0.07 coefficient of friction if you do not use their special oil, but can drop that down to about 0.02 if you use their $12 per quart oil.

Maybe a trimer moly can get the 0.07 pushed down to 0.04 or so, but it would be amazing to see trimer moly and/or zddp teck getting down to the 0.02 obtained by Nissan research.

Except, the special oil in the paper is a PAO oil, more like German Castrol or some formulations of Mobil 1, not like the Nissan ester oil.

 

[Garak]

And I think that might contribute to the problem, Gokhan. It's one thing to offer a PAO (or even a good Group III) for a fairly high price, but another altogether if it's at best a blend at the price and can't hold its viscosity over a 3750 mile OCI.

 

[Gokhan]

Two things:

(1) The base stock used in the research paper is a PAO base stock (highest quality base stock with the lowest coefficient of friction among all base stocks). The base stock used in Nissan Ester Oil is a Group II base stock (conventional, dino base stock, with the highest coefficient of friction among all common base stocks, excluding now-seldom-used Group I).

(2) The "ester" in the PAO oil in the research paper and in the Nissan "Ester" oil is not a Group V ester base stock. It's a friction modifier used at a low, 1% concentration, such as the following made by Afton:

http://www.aftonchemical.com/Solutions/LubricantComponents/Pages/FrictionModifiers.aspx

 

[FetchFar]

Originally Posted By: Gokhan

(1) The base stock used in the research paper is a PAO base stock (highest quality base stock with the lowest coefficient of friction among all base stocks). The base stock used in Nissan Ester Oil is a Group II base stock (conventional, dino base stock, with the highest coefficient of friction among all common base stocks, excluding now-seldom-used Group I).


Its low friction properties are not dependent on whether its PAO or not. See Figure 2 in http://www.sfplayers.com/blog/dlcPapers/Kano_2006_Tribology-International.pdf If indeed the Nissan oil uses Group II, then Nissan must have capitalized on this. The ester is there to react with the low hydrogen DLC.

 

[MolaKule]

According to one Nissan patent the formulated oil contains:

1) a PAO serving as a base oil for a lubricating oil

2) 1% of GMO (glycerin monooleate);

3) 0.01% of diamond nano-particles having an average particle size of 5 nm;

4) 1% of a nonionic surfactant serving as a dispersant.