I met this guy who uses Amsoil and said he was going 20k miles on oil with oil filter changes every 5k. Apparently he was told by an Amsoil dealer that this was the best oil for his car and that it was ok to go this long on Amsoil. After hearing this, I suggested that he at least sample the oil to see how it is holding up under these conditions. He just emailed me these results today nearly a year later. I had told him that I would put his results up here on BITOG and hope to get some comments/advice from those that are more familiar with the numbers and his engine. In the mean time he has switched to Amsoil's Euro 5W-40 and 10k intervals.
It seems like these little diesel engines do have some high iron numbers, but it's hard for me to correlate that with the high mileage on the oil. For example, if he has iron of 102ppm, does that mean he would see approx. 25ppm in a 5000 mile run in the same engine? OK here goes my first attempt to post these results:
miles on oil 20,750
miles on unit 150,750
iron 102
chromium 6
lead 33
copper 21
tin 0
aluminum 18
nickel 5
silver 0
silicon 13
boron 2
sodium 0
magnesium 225
calcium 3569
barium 2
phosphorus 1195
zinc 1659
moly 1
fuel visc @ 100 deg C 14.23 cSt
water 0
coolant NO
soot, solids 1.0
TBN 2.73 (flagged as abonormal)
oxidation 35
nitration 41
"TBN is low. Recommend change lube oil and lube oil filter if not already done."
I have already told him that if he wants to continue with these really long oil changes, he should consider using a bypass filter of some sort. I also recommended that he use a 40 weight oil and cut his oil change interval in half.
It seems like these little diesel engines do have some high iron numbers, but it's hard for me to correlate that with the high mileage on the oil. For example, if he has iron of 102ppm, does that mean he would see approx. 25ppm in a 5000 mile run in the same engine? OK here goes my first attempt to post these results:
miles on oil 20,750
miles on unit 150,750
iron 102
chromium 6
lead 33
copper 21
tin 0
aluminum 18
nickel 5
silver 0
silicon 13
boron 2
sodium 0
magnesium 225
calcium 3569
barium 2
phosphorus 1195
zinc 1659
moly 1
fuel visc @ 100 deg C 14.23 cSt
water 0
coolant NO
soot, solids 1.0
TBN 2.73 (flagged as abonormal)
oxidation 35
nitration 41
"TBN is low. Recommend change lube oil and lube oil filter if not already done."
I have already told him that if he wants to continue with these really long oil changes, he should consider using a bypass filter of some sort. I also recommended that he use a 40 weight oil and cut his oil change interval in half.