Pennzoil Ultra & UOA's

[Bill in Utah]

Originally Posted By: Art_Vandelay
Originally Posted By: Bill in Utah


But UOAs do show something IMO. Most the people saying that they don't is becuase their oil does not do well with them. (and when it does the UOA is valid)


Bill, I know that you are a big proponent of conventional oil. Believe it or not If I didn't get so many killer deals on Synthetic I would probably just go buy the new GF-5 Pennzoil or Motorcraft.

How often do you run a UOA on one of your own? I mean they are more expensive than a conventional oil change so I'm curious what your take on it is? I've never done one myself.

I've run MANY. Run Syn oil and conventional in the same engine over the same conditions.

I've spent more in UOAs than oil over a few years. One UOA did get my engine repaired by a MFG when its head gaskets failed.

But I had never run a UOA on my passenger vehicles until I signed up at BITOG. I had run them on a Airplane for a long time before.

Now I run them here and there (maybe 1-2 a year) I don't post the results anymore due to the problems here.

Take care, bill

 

[Bill in Utah]

Originally Posted By: c3po
How are we going to judge Pennzoil Ultra, because it sure sounds like a UOA is not going to give us all of the answers.

Are we going to judge how smooth the engine runs or maybe look at how dirty the PU comes out when an oil change is done.

I can remember changing my oil and noticed that the PP came out darker versus the other oil's that I have drained out.




Color does not matter.

Your engine is not going to know the difference between PP or PU or PYB if you follow the recommended OCI in the manual. If your engine REQUIRES a syn then good to go with EITHER.

Bill

PS: Color does not matter

 

[Art_Vandelay]

Originally Posted By: Bill in Utah
Originally Posted By: Art_Vandelay
Originally Posted By: Bill in Utah


But UOAs do show something IMO. Most the people saying that they don't is becuase their oil does not do well with them. (and when it does the UOA is valid)


Bill, I know that you are a big proponent of conventional oil. Believe it or not If I didn't get so many killer deals on Synthetic I would probably just go buy the new GF-5 Pennzoil or Motorcraft.

How often do you run a UOA on one of your own? I mean they are more expensive than a conventional oil change so I'm curious what your take on it is? I've never done one myself.

I've run MANY. Run Syn oil and conventional in the same engine over the same conditions.

I've spent more in UOAs than oil over a few years. One UOA did get my engine repaired by a MFG when its head gaskets failed.

But I had never run a UOA on my passenger vehicles until I signed up at BITOG. I had run them on a Airplane for a long time before.

Now I run them here and there (maybe 1-2 a year) I don't post the results anymore due to the problems here.

Take care, bill


Thanks Bill, I guess I will eventually break down and get one done. It's the possible air filter leakage or catching a coolant related issue that seem to be what interest me most. If I ever get the full out courage to do a 1 year 10K interval on the Mobil 1 EP or EDGE I have stashed, that will be the time I likely get one. I'm a stop and go strong city driver with maybe 35% highway so I'm not really sure I'm a Long Life candidate.

I appreciate the feedback. Thank you.

 

[BuickGN]

Originally Posted By: Bill in Utah
Originally Posted By: BuickGN

That was exactly my point. Somehow it always gets turned around into people putting words into my mouth and assuming I think they're worthless.


Okay, so they are have no "value"? Most people quoting Doug have the mindset that they are useless. Some oil companies (again when their product does not do well in a UOA state they have no value) Of course a $40 UOA has more value than a $20 one. (its twice as accurate)

The bottom line is they do have a purpose and Doug and whoever wants to agree with him have my respect, but I disagree with them.

Of course, I disagree with a lot of what is posted here so nothing new.

Take care, bill




I have no idea what you meant in that first post.

Let me say it for the 1,000,000th time around here and I expect by tomorrow I will be misquoted yet again.'

UOAS ARE VALUABLE FOR MANY THINGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

COMPARING ONE OIL TO ANOTHER BY A FEW PPM OF WEAR METALS IS NOT ONE OF THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


I HAVE TORN DOWN SEVERAL VERY WORN ENGINES THAT SHOWED NO ELEVATED METALS IN THE UOAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THIS IS BECAUSE AS BEN MENTIONED THEY ONLY PICK UP A VERY LIMITED RANGE OF PARTICLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Whatever makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside I guess. If you sleep better at night because one oil sheds 2ppm less iron than another, I guess it's worth it to you.

 

[BuickGN]

Originally Posted By: Bill in Utah
Originally Posted By: c3po
How are we going to judge Pennzoil Ultra, because it sure sounds like a UOA is not going to give us all of the answers.

Are we going to judge how smooth the engine runs or maybe look at how dirty the PU comes out when an oil change is done.

I can remember changing my oil and noticed that the PP came out darker versus the other oil's that I have drained out.




Color does not matter.

Your engine is not going to know the difference between PP or PU or PYB if you follow the recommended OCI in the manual. If your engine REQUIRES a syn then good to go with EITHER.

Bill

PS: Color does not matter


That's kind of a blanket statement.

Most of the time color does not matter, I agree.

However, my Redline got dark very quickly the first two OCIs yet the third OCI stayed new looking all the way to 5,000 and so far the fourth batch looks brand new at 3,500 miles.

Think some cleaning was going on?

 

[Bill in Utah]

Originally Posted By: BuickGN
Think some cleaning was going on?


Nope

JMO.

 

[c3po]

Originally Posted By: BuickGN
Originally Posted By: Bill in Utah
Originally Posted By: c3po
How are we going to judge Pennzoil Ultra, because it sure sounds like a UOA is not going to give us all of the answers.

Are we going to judge how smooth the engine runs or maybe look at how dirty the PU comes out when an oil change is done.

I can remember changing my oil and noticed that the PP came out darker versus the other oil's that I have drained out.




Color does not matter.

Your engine is not going to know the difference between PP or PU or PYB if you follow the recommended OCI in the manual. If your engine REQUIRES a syn then good to go with EITHER.

Bill

PS: Color does not matter


That's kind of a blanket statement.

Most of the time color does not matter, I agree.

However, my Redline got dark very quickly the first two OCIs yet the third OCI stayed new looking all the way to 5,000 and so far the fourth batch looks brand new at 3,500 miles.

Think some cleaning was going on?



I would agree that some cleaning has been going on.

 

[Ben99GT]

Originally Posted By: BuickGN
Think some cleaning was going on?


Hmm, gets dark quick initially, then stays cleaner looking progressively longer? I'd say yes.

 

[DieselTech]

 

[sangyup81]

It's going to become another Castrol EDGE or M1 EP which we only buy when it's on Oil Change Special for $29.99 for 5 Quarts including an oil filter

 

[Bill in Utah]

Then we all better find out what oil he was running before and stay away from it since it left his engine so dirty...

 

[c3po]

Originally Posted By: Bill in Utah
Then we all better find out what oil he was running before and stay away from it since it left his engine so dirty...

 

[DieselTech]

Guess I'll have another

 

[ottotheclown]

I do not care what anyone says: all of this has to do with too early toilet training and the weather getting better.

 

[jstutz]

Originally Posted By: Ben99GT
Originally Posted By: Bill in Utah
Originally Posted By: Ben99GT

Nobody is arguing that UOAs aren't useful. They are extremely useful, just not for comparing oils based on wear metals.


So we can tell when a engine is having a problem with a UOA when the metals start to increase but if the UOA metals increase with one oil but not the other the data is not valid?


Do you realize oils with higher levels of ZDDP often show increases in wear metals? You realize highly polar oils will often show a spike in wear metals on the initial changeover due to stripping existing oxidation layers? Do you realize in both cases no more actual wear is occurring?

Do you realize emission spectroscopy used in $20 UOAs only measures wear particles in a narrow micron range? Do you realize significant part failures can often show little to no elevated wear metals because of this limited range of particle detection?

We aren't talking about a sudden 300 ppm spike out of the blue with regular trending here, we are talking about one oil producing 20 ppm of Fe over 7500 miles and another producing 10 ppm over 7500 miles here and proclaiming the 10 ppm oil to be "better". UOAs aren't meant to be used that way, and can't be with any semblance of legitimacy.


Ben, I find this statement very interesting. I have some questions though. Why do higher levels of ZDDP cause a spike in wear metals? When you talk about highly polar oils, are you talking oil that have esters? Could this be why many have reported higher levels of Fe in runs of M1 0w40, is this a highly polar oil. Sorry for the questions, but i would really like to understand why the ZDDP would cause an increase in wear metals and what exactly is a highly polar motor oil. You can PM me if you feel it is getting off topic here. Thanks very much.

 

[jstutz]

Originally Posted By: jstutz
Originally Posted By: Ben99GT
Originally Posted By: Bill in Utah
Originally Posted By: Ben99GT

Nobody is arguing that UOAs aren't useful. They are extremely useful, just not for comparing oils based on wear metals.


So we can tell when a engine is having a problem with a UOA when the metals start to increase but if the UOA metals increase with one oil but not the other the data is not valid?


Do you realize oils with higher levels of ZDDP often show increases in wear metals? You realize highly polar oils will often show a spike in wear metals on the initial changeover due to stripping existing oxidation layers? Do you realize in both cases no more actual wear is occurring?

Do you realize emission spectroscopy used in $20 UOAs only measures wear particles in a narrow micron range? Do you realize significant part failures can often show little to no elevated wear metals because of this limited range of particle detection?

We aren't talking about a sudden 300 ppm spike out of the blue with regular trending here, we are talking about one oil producing 20 ppm of Fe over 7500 miles and another producing 10 ppm over 7500 miles here and proclaiming the 10 ppm oil to be "better". UOAs aren't meant to be used that way, and can't be with any semblance of legitimacy.


Ben, I find this statement very interesting. I have some questions though. Why do higher levels of ZDDP cause a spike in wear metals? When you talk about highly polar oils, are you talking oil that have esters? Could this be why many have reported higher levels of Fe in runs of M1 0w40, is this a highly polar oil. Sorry for the questions, but i would really like to understand why the ZDDP would cause an increase in wear metals and what exactly is a highly polar motor oil. You can PM me if you feel it is getting off topic here. Thanks very much.


well i may have found an answer to one of my questions linked here http://www.zddplus.com/TechBrief10 - Oil Base Stocks.pdf

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: Bill in Utah
Originally Posted By: BuickGN
Originally Posted By: Ben99GT


Wear metal comparison?

They will never learn. You can write post after post, real world experience in teardowns vs UOAs, and a guy with 50 years experience with fleets and the typical bitoger is still going to compare oils based on wear metals of a $20 UOA.


On the other hand I would say a few things;

1. Oils have improved over the last 50 years.

2. Fleet service is VERY different over passenger service.

3. If a vehicle is running fine and produces good UOAs who/why teardown?

UOAs DO have a purpose. They DO give data that is useful. PLENTY of possible life ENDING situations have been PREVENTED using UOAs so saying that teardowns is the only way to tell if something is working is a little false.

bill


Bill:

I think the issue comes when people fret over single digit PPM variances and use these as ABSOLUTE points of comparison, while these differences are well inside the variability of the test itself!

That was one (of the many) mis-uses of UOA's that Doug had talked about. Not that they were not useful; of course they are! But not quite in the way many on here perceive and base their opinions on.

If we make a statement qualified with the assumption that the engine is HEALTHY and we are not seeing a PROBLEM, the wear metals otherwise gleaned from an inexpensive UOA are not very useful (as per Doug's experience) for determining how an engine is "wearing" relative to a particular oil.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: Bill in Utah
Originally Posted By: Ben99GT

Nobody is arguing that UOAs aren't useful. They are extremely useful, just not for comparing oils based on wear metals.


So we can tell when a engine is having a problem with a UOA when the metals start to increase but if the UOA metals increase with one oil but not the other the data is not valid?


You need to qualify this. If my wear metals all of a sudden take an up-tick by 50-100ppm out of the blue, should I be concerned? I would say yes! Irrespective of the oil I'm using.

However, if my Fe went up by 10ppm one OCI, I would not be. And if one oil yielded 10ppm higher Fe than another, I would not use that as information to conclude that one oil is better than another!

Do you think if my 0w40 run comes back with 10ppm higher Fe than my Delvac 1 5w40 runs I'm going to conclude that the M1 0w40 is inferior? Of course not! And that's what we are getting at here.

Quote:
What would cause a UOA to show higher metals with one oil but not another?


This has been covered by Tom NJ, Doug, Mola and a few others in the past. Ben has done a good job of covering it in this thread.

Quote:
To me it does not matter since the only time I've had to tear apart a motor is when a UOA showed coolant leaks. (twice). All the other engines I've taken well past 200k I never ran a UOA.


But then you were using them for their intended purpose! To identify issues like the ones you experienced.

Quote:
But UOAs do show something IMO. Most the people saying that they don't is becuase their oil does not do well with them. (and when it does the UOA is valid)

Just my 3 cents.

Bill


By BITOG standards, my D1 UOA's have been "excellent". I still have no stock in the value of the small variances in wear metals however. TAN, TBN, fuel....etc. Do I have a coolant leak (sound familiar

)? That kind of stuff is what I'm looking for. Things the tool was designed to show us. I think it is THAT information, when used in conjunction with significant variances in wear metals (50ppm Fe spike, fuel present or a 20ppm Pb spike, no TBN left) that can tell us how "good" an oil is at handling certain conditions, and whether our maintenance regiment is acceptable or needs revision. So far, I seem to have been constantly erring on the side of caution, as per my own data.

 

[Ben99GT]

Originally Posted By: jstutz
Originally Posted By: Ben99GT
Originally Posted By: Bill in Utah
Originally Posted By: Ben99GT

Nobody is arguing that UOAs aren't useful. They are extremely useful, just not for comparing oils based on wear metals.


So we can tell when a engine is having a problem with a UOA when the metals start to increase but if the UOA metals increase with one oil but not the other the data is not valid?


Do you realize oils with higher levels of ZDDP often show increases in wear metals? You realize highly polar oils will often show a spike in wear metals on the initial changeover due to stripping existing oxidation layers? Do you realize in both cases no more actual wear is occurring?

Do you realize emission spectroscopy used in $20 UOAs only measures wear particles in a narrow micron range? Do you realize significant part failures can often show little to no elevated wear metals because of this limited range of particle detection?

We aren't talking about a sudden 300 ppm spike out of the blue with regular trending here, we are talking about one oil producing 20 ppm of Fe over 7500 miles and another producing 10 ppm over 7500 miles here and proclaiming the 10 ppm oil to be "better". UOAs aren't meant to be used that way, and can't be with any semblance of legitimacy.


Ben, I find this statement very interesting. I have some questions though. Why do higher levels of ZDDP cause a spike in wear metals? When you talk about highly polar oils, are you talking oil that have esters? Could this be why many have reported higher levels of Fe in runs of M1 0w40, is this a highly polar oil. Sorry for the questions, but i would really like to understand why the ZDDP would cause an increase in wear metals and what exactly is a highly polar motor oil. You can PM me if you feel it is getting off topic here. Thanks very much.


Here's what Roy Howell says:

"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 from one formulation to another is likely to change the particle size profile. Usually formulations with more anti-wear additive will more aggressively react with metal surfaces so when rubbing occurs it will produce smaller particles. Generally, more anti-wear additives will give greater iron spectrochemical numbers, even though the total iron can be lower."

There are other fluids used in motor oils besides esters that are highly polar in nature, such as alkylated naphthalenes like that used by Mobil 1, among others.

 

[c3po]

Originally Posted By: Ben99GT
Originally Posted By: jstutz
Originally Posted By: Ben99GT
Originally Posted By: Bill in Utah

Nobody is arguing that UOAs aren't useful. They are extremely useful, just not for comparing oils based on wear metals.


So we can tell when a engine is having a problem with a UOA when the metals start to increase but if the UOA metals increase with one oil but not the other the data is not valid?


Do you realize oils with higher levels of ZDDP often show increases in wear metals? You realize highly polar oils will often show a spike in wear metals on the initial changeover due to stripping existing oxidation layers? Do you realize in both cases no more actual wear is occurring?

Do you realize emission spectroscopy used in $20 UOAs only measures wear particles in a narrow micron range? Do you realize significant part failures can often show little to no elevated wear metals because of this limited range of particle detection?

We aren't talking about a sudden 300 ppm spike out of the blue with regular trending here, we are talking about one oil producing 20 ppm of Fe over 7500 miles and another producing 10 ppm over 7500 miles here and proclaiming the 10 ppm oil to be "better". UOAs aren't meant to be used that way, and can't be with any semblance of legitimacy.




Here's what Roy Howell says:

"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 from one formulation to another is likely to change the particle size profile. Usually formulations with more anti-wear additive will more aggressively react with metal surfaces so when rubbing occurs it will produce smaller particles. Generally, more anti-wear additives will give greater iron spectrochemical numbers, even though the total iron can be lower."

There are other fluids used in motor oils besides esters that are highly polar in nature, such as alkylated naphthalenes like that used by Mobil 1, among others.


So, does this mean when the PU UOA's come out that we really cannot say much, will these PU UOA's tell us if this is a better oil than what others may be using.