Oil study observation

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I am in sales (office equip.) and one of my long term customers is a good size construction company. Last week I was talking with there GM and being an oil nut like so many of you here making small talk I asked what oil do you run in your fleet of construction trucks, dump truck, dozers, loaders, and the many pick up trucks you use? He replied its funny you should ask as we just finished a rather long intense study of oil and engine wear based off of some 50+ Different types of vehicles running a variety of different oils at different lengths. This study took us several years and cost us quite a bit of money in UOA tests and what we found was it did not matter what you ran for oil as long as it met the manufacture specifications. Running Dino oil or synthetic did not seem to show much difference what did seem to make a difference in wear numbers that was clear was we had 12 vehicles of different types that we just used one brand of oil the entire test meaning we would pick an oil for an engine and stick with it for that engine for the test length. What we found was the engines that showed the most or largest wear numbers were the ones we would switch from brand to brand of oil. The lowest wear seemed to be from the engines that stuck with one brand of oil for the life of the vehicle running either Dino or synthetic oil sticking with one brand no matter what brand of oil it was. Anyway the end result we picked an oil distributor that had oil that met all our needs for gas and diesel that met our engine specifications and we get the best price and just buy in bulk and stick with one brand. Right now that happens to be Mobil oil all in conventional.

I thought this was interesting and I just thought I would share.
 
Quite interesting, especially the part about changing brands and dino oil. I'll sit back and have a snack
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this should be good!

Thanks for posting.
 
Interesting.

I'd like to see the charts, p-values, etc.

See if you can get them & post please.
 
The stick with one brand was new.

The other conclusions were confirmed in CR magazine years ago in their oil study. they did 60,000 miles in taxi cabs. Study may be found on web.
 
Originally Posted By: JerryBob
How was engine wear measured?


Was explained in the first paragraph...
 
Originally Posted By: Shannow
Originally Posted By: JerryBob
How was engine wear measured?


Was explained in the first paragraph...



+1
 
I have long thought that running the same oil that meets the spec of your vehicle will yield similar results no matter what brand you choose.

Thanks for posting. I would like to see the study if possible. I can understand if you are not able to get this info.
 
In order for the premise to be completely correct, first the selected oil has to remain a constant...and the packaging appears to be the most constant in most of the products that we see here on BITOG.

How many revisions of M1 have there been, Delo, delvacs etc. etc. No moly, moly DTC, trinuclear...basestocks, Ca, Mg.

If you stick to a bottle, over time, you are markedly changing the composition of the oil anyway.
 
It would appear that their wear data came solely from UOA numbers. That's not an exacting method of determining engine wear over the course of an entire fleet of diverse vehicles.
 
Anecdotal conjecture leading to an inconclusive opinion based on a suspect method for determining true wear. I'm not buying it, sorry. At least CR did engine teardowns many years ago before they published their results.
 
That is what I was always taught. Pick a brand of oil that meets the engine specs and stick with it. I feel that is why we often see, when switching brands, that oil consumption increases for an OC or two as that lets the parts breakin again to the new oil. Ed
 
Originally Posted By: LT4 Vette
Basically....

Use any brand oil, change at necessary intervals and there is nothing to worry about.


this.

I doubt sticking to one brand produces better results, that just doesn't seem logical to me, its like saying you will have a build up of some magical additives over time because the so called chemistry is the same...Oil companies change their formulas regularly enough for that theory to not hold up.
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: Shannow
In order for the premise to be completely correct, first the selected oil has to remain a constant...and the packaging appears to be the most constant in most of the products that we see here on BITOG.

How many revisions of M1 have there been, Delo, delvacs etc. etc. No moly, moly DTC, trinuclear...basestocks, Ca, Mg.

If you stick to a bottle, over time, you are markedly changing the composition of the oil anyway.


You make a very good point.
For example, if you look at an early PQIA VOA of PYB and compare it to the most recent one, it's pretty obvious that the oil has seen a significant change in formulation over a period of only a few years.
As you point out, only the name has remained the same.
 
Originally Posted By: Turk
Interesting.

I'd like to see the charts, p-values, etc.

See if you can get them & post please.



I would like nothing more then to get you all more info on this subject unfortunately last week I was diagnosed with cancer and I will be going under the knife real soon then treatment so I will be quite tied up. I am sorry I could not get you all more info. This forum as well as others will keep me busy while I am recovering.
 
I want to wish you the best of luck.

I would like nothing more then to get you all more info on this subject unfortunately last week I was diagnosed with cancer and I will be going under the knife real soon then treatment so I will be quite tied up. I am sorry I could not get you all more info. This forum as well as others will keep me busy while I am recovering. [/quote]
 
Originally Posted By: Camprunner

unfortunately last week I was diagnosed with cancer and I will be going under the knife real soon


So sorry to hear this! Prayers for a speedy and complete recovery.
 
Originally Posted By: FowVay
It would appear that their wear data came solely from UOA numbers. That's not an exacting method of determining engine wear over the course of an entire fleet of diverse vehicles.


Exactly. The way Consumer Reports did the wear evaluation when they did the oil test with taxis was to disassemble the engine parts (crank and cam??) and accurately weight them. Not something many people do.

And what were that looking for, best UOAs after xx miles or hours. Lowest cost for oil over the usable lifespan of the oil?

I say its interesting but not how I would do it.
 
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