2010 Honda Civic 1.8L 4900 Miles 0W20 Mobil1 EP

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What % was left on the OLM? How long was the oil in the car for? What was the typical driving pattern, city/hwy?

All crucial info. If it was frequently short tripped over a year of service with 5% left on the OLM then this viscosity makes perfect sense. If it was mostly hwy miles over a short time frame with 50% left on OLM, then this viscosity is abnormal.
 
Originally Posted By: HKPolice
What % was left on the OLM? How long was the oil in the car for? What was the typical driving pattern, city/hwy?

All crucial info. If it was frequently short tripped over a year of service with 5% left on the OLM then this viscosity makes perfect sense. If it was mostly hwy miles over a short time frame with 50% left on OLM, then this viscosity is abnormal.


I believe that the OLM was reading 40%. Normally it reaches 30% at about 5000 miles. This vehicle had seen a mix of driving conditions with very little short tripping. It took 27 weeks to accumulate those 4900 miles, but that was more a function of car pooling than short tripping.

As stated earlier, this was the first time either 0W20 or Mobil1 EP had been used in this vehicle. The goal was to stick to the "normal" 5000 mile OCI, get a baseline UOA, and then extend the next OCI. That low viscosity reading seems way out of line with other UOAs posted here on BITOG, and thus far the only plausible explanation has been a bad test result from Blackstone. Can anyone offer an alternative explanation?
 
Originally Posted By: Astro_Guy
Here is my first UOA for this vehicle. After comparing it with other reports on the same oil I find the Viscosity to be way out of line. Is this just a fluke or could something else be going on?

BTW - where does one enable HTML so that the image may be posted inline?



You don't enable anything, you just paste the link between
. Like this...

UOA.jpg
 
Originally Posted By: Astro_Guy
Originally Posted By: HKPolice
What % was left on the OLM? How long was the oil in the car for? What was the typical driving pattern, city/hwy?

All crucial info. If it was frequently short tripped over a year of service with 5% left on the OLM then this viscosity makes perfect sense. If it was mostly hwy miles over a short time frame with 50% left on OLM, then this viscosity is abnormal.


I believe that the OLM was reading 40%. Normally it reaches 30% at about 5000 miles. This vehicle had seen a mix of driving conditions with very little short tripping. It took 27 weeks to accumulate those 4900 miles, but that was more a function of car pooling than short tripping.

As stated earlier, this was the first time either 0W20 or Mobil1 EP had been used in this vehicle. The goal was to stick to the "normal" 5000 mile OCI, get a baseline UOA, and then extend the next OCI. That low viscosity reading seems way out of line with other UOAs posted here on BITOG, and thus far the only plausible explanation has been a bad test result from Blackstone. Can anyone offer an alternative explanation?


Well since it was the first fill of M1 0w20 then the only explanation IMO is due to residual oil from the last change.

I've read many reports of people switching to M1 and complaining about oil consumption or above normal engine noise. The second interval always seems to cure those problems. It could be due to M1's Magnesium additive package which is rare as 90% of other brands stick with a mainly Calcium additive pack.

Also, the Honda R18 engine shears oil more than most people expect. Not all Honda/toyota engines are "easy on oil", not since they switched to timing chains which chew up oil in most engine designs.
 
Originally Posted By: HKPolice
Well since it was the first fill of M1 0w20 then the only explanation IMO is due to residual oil from the last change.


Okay, that's certainly a valid theory. The prior oil was the basic Mobil1 5W20 with a 5000 mile OCI.
 
Possibilities:

1. More fuel than blackstone is reporting. However flash looks good so....
2. Misprint. Have them rerun the visc test.
3. EP does this normally early in the OCI, but is rarely noticed because dumping it at 5k and performing a UOA to boot is overkill.

If the manual calls for 5w20 find on sale conventional and change it at your "normal" 5k OCI. Honda engines have run many millions of miles doing exactly that.

I'm running $10 VWB jugs for 10k in the van. I bet you the engine will outlive the rest of the car.
 
Here are my results running the same car 2010 Honda Civic with M1 5w 20 synthetic at 10,000 miles shown at the right column. The left is Royal Purple HPS at 15,000. I didn't care for how the M1 displayed shearing and the RP held up.

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/3790400/Re:_Royal_Purple_HPS_15K_Miles#Post3790400
 
Originally Posted By: Rex
Here are my results running the same car 2010 Honda Civic with M1 5w 20 synthetic at 10,000 miles shown at the right column. The left is Royal Purple HPS at 15,000. I didn't care for how the M1 displayed shearing and the RP held up.

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/3790400/Re:_Royal_Purple_HPS_15K_Miles#Post3790400


While it may seem like RP held up, it's more likely that you ran it for too long. It's actually oxidizing and starting to sludge up hence the near virgin viscosity.

It's impossible for an oil to not shear during a normal OCI. All oils will shear and then start to thicken up again as it oxidizes past its recommended interval. More proof of this can be seen in the wear numbers, where RP Iron & Alum counts are double that of the M1 yet it was only ran for 50% longer distance. TBN count of 2.1 is also an indicator that the oil is past its useful life.

Clearly, the lower viscosity of M1 didn't have any impact on wear rates. So I wouldn't worry too much about it shearing below 7cST until wear numbers look bad.
 
Originally Posted By: Rex
Here are my results running the same car 2010 Honda Civic with M1 5w 20 synthetic at 10,000 miles...

Thanks. I had run a site search and reviewed at least six UOAs for the 0W20 EP, but had not searched for results on 5W20. Perhaps that viscosity reading was not as much of an outlier as I had originally thought. We'll see what comes back the next time after 7500 miles or 0% on the OLM, whichever comes first.
 
Originally Posted By: Astro_Guy
Originally Posted By: Rex
Here are my results running the same car 2010 Honda Civic with M1 5w 20 synthetic at 10,000 miles...

Thanks. I had run a site search and reviewed at least six UOAs for the 0W20 EP, but had not searched for results on 5W20. Perhaps that viscosity reading was not as much of an outlier as I had originally thought. We'll see what comes back the next time after 7500 miles or 0% on the OLM, whichever comes first.


Your 0w 20 UOA was very informative to me as I was considering going to the 0W 20 on my Civic for its next OC..

Also thanks to HKPolice for his informative review on my UOA!
 
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