hi guys, looking for some advice here.
our xterra has always been treated to relatively short synthetic OCI's due to the small oil sump capacity, usually in the range of 4000 miles per change. this past summer was unusually hectic for us with a move to another state and all the driving around that comes with new home projects so i lost track of the miles a bit and ran this change far longer than usual. thankfully it was a lot of easy highway miles though.
i'm actually pretty happy with the wear metals, all things considered....however the potassium and sodium levels that Blackstone points out here do have me a bit worried. i've read that the Valvoline products tend to run high in sodium, so i'm willing to sit on that reading a bit to see what the current change of Castrol Syntec shows in comparison. but i'm not sure at what point potassium becomes a real indicator of a coolant leak instead of just an artifact of a particular oil blend. what do you guys think?
aside from the readings the truck drives great and pulls down gas mileage thats as good as its ever been.
previous change was PP 5W-30. i use Wix and Nissan OEM filters.
our xterra has always been treated to relatively short synthetic OCI's due to the small oil sump capacity, usually in the range of 4000 miles per change. this past summer was unusually hectic for us with a move to another state and all the driving around that comes with new home projects so i lost track of the miles a bit and ran this change far longer than usual. thankfully it was a lot of easy highway miles though.
i'm actually pretty happy with the wear metals, all things considered....however the potassium and sodium levels that Blackstone points out here do have me a bit worried. i've read that the Valvoline products tend to run high in sodium, so i'm willing to sit on that reading a bit to see what the current change of Castrol Syntec shows in comparison. but i'm not sure at what point potassium becomes a real indicator of a coolant leak instead of just an artifact of a particular oil blend. what do you guys think?
aside from the readings the truck drives great and pulls down gas mileage thats as good as its ever been.
previous change was PP 5W-30. i use Wix and Nissan OEM filters.
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