M1 0W-40, '99 Saab 9³, 2.0L turbo, 14 months/8,800 miles

[Eiron]

code:

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Vehicle 1999 Saab 9³, 2.0L I4, light pressure turbo

Air filter K&N drop-in, installed at 20,000 miles, not yet cleaned

Miles on engine 48,050

Miles on oil 8,838

Time on oil 14 months (mid-Dec.02 – mid-Feb.04)

Oil filter Saab OE (made by ACDelco, same as PF53) changed at previous UOA

Oil capacity 4 liters

Oil added approx. 24oz, after previous UOA & filter change

Driving Use 95%+ short trips (less than 10 miles)

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4,700 mile UOA 8,800 mile UOA 3,000 mile avg

Copper 7 11 4

Iron 26 64 21

Chrome 0 2 1

Lead 31 51 17

Aluminum 3 7 2

Silicon 8 8 3

Molybdenum 59 55 -

Sodium 12 14 5

Calcium 1737 2803 -

Tin 0 0 0

Potassium 4 0 1

Magnesium 26 68 23

Zinc 1021 1426 -

Water Neg Neg -

Glycol Neg Neg -

Viscosity 11.7 12.5 -

Oxidation 49 32 -

Nitration 32 16 -

Sulfur Prod 57 0 -

TBN - 10.1 (ASTM D5984-96) -

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Lab S.O.S. Fluid Analysis, H.O. Penn Machinery

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** Remember, the goal here was to get a general idea of how well the 0W-40 would hold up over 10,000 miles. From this "baseline," I was going to try mixing different amounts of 0W-40 & 15W-50 until I reached a level I was comfortable with (determined by UOA) for my duration, engine & climate. Of course, Mobil recently introduced their 5W-40 to the general public, so I've decided to use this instead.

Weirdness factors:
1) Whew, where do I begin? I guess the first things to consider are all the factors affecting this oil at the first UOA sample at 4,700 miles. Included in all of this was a can of BG 44K & an induction/injection "system" cleaning prior to ...

2) ... being diagnosed with an externally-weeping head gasket! When it was time for the repair appointment, I collected the 4,700 mile sample, then drained the remaining oil into a 1-gallon milk jug (cleaned 3X with hot, clear water), & covered it up. (**)

3) I left the oil filter in place & then refilled the engine with whatever mystery bulk oil the dealer gave me last time (one of the mechanics thought it might be 5W-30 Valvoline, & another thought it might be a syn blend, but nobody really knew what they were using; because of this ignorance, when I got home I immediately drained the oil into empty M1 containers & put in fresh 0W-40). This dealer-oil was originally installed/drained in Dec '02, & then replaced into the engine in Aug '03. (**)

4) The car was then taken to the dealer & the head gasket work was done. They told me the oil, filter & coolant were all changed after the work was completed. When I got the car back, I again removed whatever the new mystery dealer-oil was, removed & drained & replaced the new filter, replaced the 4,700 mile old 0W-40, & topped up with approximately 24 oz of fresh 0W-40. (**)

5) Also keep in mind that this oil has been thru two winters, so if you have any theories about winter causing certain elements to show certain ways …

6) The first week of January '04 I replaced the stock 2" diameter air intake snorkel with a 3" diameter snorkel. (This was an OE change made the following model year.) I have no idea if "easier breathing" affects UOA numbers in any way (lowered dirt ingestion due to slower at-air-filter velocities?), but I thought I should mention it.

That was it, until this sample was taken at 8,800 miles. After I took this sample, I replaced the Saab OE filter with a new one, added 10 oz of Auto-Rx & topped up with a few ounces of Delvac 1300 Super 15W-40. I'll run this for another 2,000 miles (about 1,500 left to go) & then dump everything & replace it with M1 5W-40 for my next 10,000 mile interval.

 

[Bobert]

I guess the short trips + 2 winters are the cause for elevated lead. You did have a lot going on during this interval, so things should settle down next time. I think the 5w-40 SUV (D1) should do a great job for your next interval.

[ March 26, 2004, 05:27 PM: Message edited by: Bobert ]

 

[buster]

This is a case where I don't blame the oil. Sounds like it was put through a lot. The oil is at 12.5 cSt, and if you would have gone over 10k miles, it would start to thicken. Very shear stable 0w-40. In fact, it's more shear stable then some 10w-40 synthetics.

 

[VeeDubb]

Buster,
Why do you say this oil is shear stable based on this report? The 4700 mile report clearly shows that it is a 30 weight and by 8,800 miles, I'm sure this oil has already thickened somewhat. So the 12.5 visc. in the 8800 report is an illusion. This is consistent with all the VW/Audi 1.8t reports I've seen with this oil; i.e. shears to 30wt by 5k and thicken back to a 40wt by 10k. I'm sure M1 0w-40 is a shear stable oil, but not in turbos.

 

[quadrun1]

14 months... I think it's time to dump this oil? Iron and lead are high...

I'm very suspicious of the TBN reading, isn't 10.1 a bit too close to new?

On my 9-5's last M1 0W-40 run, the TBN was 2.7 after ~5,000 miles, and that run had a lot of highway miles.

 

[Darryl]

Why not change the oil & filter at 5,000 miles? Why push your motor and the oil to the extreme?

I bet that a UOA at 5K would show outstanding results.


Darryl

 

[Motorbike]

This is not a true representation of the Mobil 0w-40 .

It's been dilluted twice by dino , now a third time after the 10k sample is ran amd 1300s is added . It's been removed, motor opened up , additive ran through the fuel system that could have brought the lead up , K-N known for increased iron and all this through two full winters .

Eiron

Thanks for the post but these numbers to include the 3k average are about as skewed as it can get .
Well actually no , I could purposely set out to make a engine oil look even worse through anaylisis if I chose to do so

 

[Darryl]

Well said Motorbike

Darryl

 

[Eiron]

Hey guys, thanks for the input. Since I only presented the info & didn't try to make any judgements, let's see if we can make some sense out of all of this.

Bobert,
I agree. I think the biggest factor in the lead count is the huge percentage of short-trip & constant start/stop service this turbo sees. Like you said, the 5W-40 should do a better job during the next interval.

buster,
Thanks for the vote of confidence. I agree, this is one tough oil for what it's been thru.

VeeDubb,
I think buster said it right, "Very shear stable 0w-40." Remember, we're looking at a wide-range oil in a known oil-thrashing engine. And like I've said time & again, "weights" don't mean squat; only percentages do. I have to agree, if you run a turbo & shear-stability is your goal, then this may not be the best choice. Of course, it's still offering more protection at 11.7 cSt than ay of the xW-30 wt M1 oils.

quadrun1,
Yeah, it's time. But the oil still had additives & good viscosity, so I'm not worrying while the Auto-Rx does its thang. As for the TBN reading, who knows? There's been tons of discussion about how other labs don't appear to have a handle on TBN reporting, so maybe it's a moot data point to include. I know Brian said he was going to write a whole report on the fallible nature of TBN reporting, but I don't see it over on his site yet.

Darryl,
Uh ... I did do a UOA at 4,700 miles. See it up there?? The reason to push the oil is to find out what it's capable of. Are you saying 3MP shouldn't be doing his oil-life study? That there's no value in pushing the limits? With a premium oil such as this, I have absolutely no concern that this engine is being mistreated. In fact, I think most Saab turbo owners running dino oil for 3k mi OCIs are doing more harm than I'll ever do here. Do you replace your brakes & tires every 10,000 miles? These are items which can cost you your life, but most of us use them until they're at the far limits of their abilities to do their jobs safely. Ah, but we know when they're used up, because we have visual indicators, right? Well, we should know the same for our oil. If you'll use oil for only 1/4 of its usefulness, I expect you to blindly do the same with other wear items.

Motorbike,
Dude, slow down a little there! Do I think the mystery oil had an effect on the results? Maybe a little bit. But not very much. It might've altered the additive numbers a touch, but I don't believe it had any effect on the viscosity or wear numbers. Will I be running another UOA when I dump the Auto-Rx? No. So the top-up of Delvac makes no difference here. I didn't want to open a new bottle of 0W-40 when I had an open container of 15W-40, so I used it simply out of convenience.

BG fuel cleaners increasing lead count? K&N filters increasing iron? That'd be nice (since it would account for the numbers & be an easy "fix"), but I've never heard either of these. Can you provide some supporting data?

What's the point of this site? Information! I'm not presenting this info to win any high school popularity contests. And the UOA forum is not a "my numbers are lower than yours!" section. I could've omitted all the background & just presented the numbers, like 99% of the rest of the posts here. But would that help? No.

Just for you, I've done a little research into other Saab turbo reports on this site. (Don't expect me to help you out again in the future, though.)
'02 9-5, 2.9k mi, GC 0W-30 Fe=11, Pb=8
'02 9-5, 4.4k mi, M1 0W-40 Fe=19, Pb=20 (yeah, it's the same car; see the previous UOA columns?)
'94 9000, 10k mi, M1 10W-30 Fe=50, Pb=37
'01 9-3, 4.3k mi, GC 0W-30 Fe=27, Pb=4
? 9000, 6.3k mi, M1 15W-50 Fe=15, Pb=16 (no winter driving)
'99 9-3, 5.5k mi, M1 10W-30 Fe=19, Pb=9
'00 9-5, 6.5k mi, M1 10W-30 Fe=18, Pb=1 (50% larger motor on this one, don't know the total oil capacity (refill is 4.5 qts))
As you can see, the numbers aren't a whole lot different than mine. (I left out the ones with less than 14k miles on the engine.) And none of these reports have the duration mine did. "As skewed as it can get"?? I think not. This site has a very useful search feature. I suggest you learn how to use it before implying someone has "purposely set out" to misrepresent their results.

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Motorbike does bring up an interesting point, & I guess the question I have for folks on this site is, "Do you care?" If the info I gather is pointless, I'll not clutter up the site with it. (Lord knows I've got plenty of other things to do!) This isn't any kind of slam or rhetorical question. It's a serious question. Should I go do other things?

[ March 27, 2004, 06:18 PM: Message edited by: Eiron ]

 

[Motorbike]

Eiron .

In the first post you wrote

** Remember, the goal here was to get a general idea of how well the 0W-40 would hold up over 10,000 miles

Later you wrote

Just for you, I've done a little research into other Saab turbo reports on this site. (Don't expect me to help you out again in the future, though.)

Oil analysis is all about trending and or how an oil does in your engine and how you drive .

I did not set out to intentionaly tick you off but fact is fact and your analysis is not representitive of how this oil would have acted , held up , protected or any other term close to those had the motor not been opened up and the engine had been run on all Mobil oil and how it's formulated for optimum results without interference from the addition /residual of an unknown oil . Hence the analysis is skewed period compared to if the engine oil was put in the motor and ran out those miles/time on it's own and thats all I said in my post and included a sincere thank you for the post at that .

Also you wrote

I suggest you learn how to use it before implying someone has "purposely set out" to misrepresent their results.

Believe me I know how to use the search feature , some think I know it all too well

but I never said you purposely set out to misrepresent your results . Where you got that I don't know but I do know I said

I could purposely set out to make a engine oil look even worse through anaylisis if I chose to do so

and that I certainly could do as could anyone but I did not mean it to imply you purposely tried to make the oil look bad .

I think you took my post wrong and possibly a post that followed helped fuel the fire however I'm not going to search and find the posts where too much fuel additive and or certain fuel additives can effect UOA's outcomes and that fact is quantified by an expert here and that also does not mean fuel cleaners cause engine damage which is not what I said either , nor will I post exactly what Mobil says about mixing different oils with their SS will reduce the performance of their oil nor will I take the time to search the same for some analysis's here when the engine owners who have replaced their lifetime filters with paper types and reduced the levels of Fe in their analysis's immediatley after doing so . Some have great success with the lifetimes .

You don't even know what the bulk oil was , how or if it was contaminated with Fe or other elements . The effects of engine cylinders exposed to open air come into play and more .

I stand by my post , these results are skewed over what the outcome would have been if the engine oil and it's unique formulation was allowed to operate on it's own and the motor was not opened up ..... ya know , a normal oil change interval in which this one was far from normal IMO .


Geeze , please take time to think about all this ..... no harm was mean't by posting some facts as have heard and seen them to be along with my observations and opinions on normal oil change intervals without motor tear down during the interval and introduction of unknown oils even for short periods then drained before continuing the interval to try to see how the original oil holds up .

Peace

[ March 27, 2004, 08:04 PM: Message edited by: Motorbike ]

 

[quadrun1]

Hi Eiron,

Looking at your numbers again, I think you should focus on getting the lead down.

At 4,700 miles, your lead is 6.6 ppm/1,000 miles.
At 8,800 miles, lead improved to 5.8 ppm/1,000 miles.

Other 9-3 turbo reports I see here (Blackstone Labs though) have lead at 1.7 ppm/1,000 miles and 0.5 to 0.9 ppm/1,000 miles.

Maybe the thicker Delvac 1 you're planning to use will help here? Then again, as you wrote, there was a lot going on during these oil use intervals so who knows!

I guess what's a bit curious is, the reports referenced above are on thinner oil--the first report is on M1 10W-30, and the second is on GC 0W-30.

[ March 28, 2004, 03:04 AM: Message edited by: quadrun1 ]

 

[buster]

I'd stick with the 0w-40. It's a very good oil and as Veedub said, it's % changes. For a 0w-40, this oil is extremely shear stable.

 

[quadrun1]

I think Eiron already traded in all his 0W-40 for 5W-40! Heheh...

 

[Darryl]

Eiron, I did see the 4,700 mile UOA but I did not assume it was Mobil 0w-40, if that info is infact in your post then I appologize. (If it's not I don't

)

Please tell me you are not comparing motor oil to brakes or tires, please.

I sit on the side of the fence that loves all the info on this site, but I will never do a UOA, ever.

Not because I'm cheap or I don't take care of my stuff,(nothing could be further from the truth) but becuase even the most expensive oil & filter changed @ 4,000-5,000 miles in MY opinion is still very cheap maintenance.

To those here that live and breath UOA's and like to see just how far you can push it, more power to you, do what makes you happy.


Darryl

 

[zoomzoom]

did they start selling MOBIL1 SUV 5W-40 in autozone/advance auto parts/wal mart?

 

[Eiron]

OK, I'm back again (sorry for the delay in responding).

Motorbike,
Sorry I misinterpreted your post. We're cool.

Obviously, this report is only valid for my application; I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I wanted to give "full disclosure" about what was going on in this situation, & I agree that it's not transferrable to what others may experience.

quadrun1,
I agree, lower Pb is the goal. Unfortunately, I fear the "soccer mom" driving style of this car dooms it to high part-per-mile readings regardless of how often I change the oil. One of the UOAs you referenced has a 4 month interval, while the other's unknown. If I could put 10k miles on it in 6 or 7 months, I'm sure the readings would be much different.

buster,
quadrun1's right; I no longer own any 0W-40. I thought about splitting my stock 50/50 with 0W-40 (for the two N/A engines) & 5W-40 (for the one turbo), but in the end I chose all 5W-40 & opted for simplicity. Life was easier when all I knew was Castrol GTX 10W-30 & only drove N/A vehicles.

Darryl,
Sorry for adding to the confusion. And yes, I am comparing all these items. But we're probably better off discussing it over in wulimaster's thread than we are here. I sort of agree with you on UOAs. I'll do enough simply to find out how long I can use my oil, but I don't plan on doing them indefinitely. Where we differ is in our opinions of what's "cheap maintenance." If I can learn that my oil's protecting my engine for 3X what I previously believed, then the money's a non-issue & I've gained a bunch of my all-too-short life back.

zoomzoom,
It's been spotted in California, but I don't know about anywhere else.

__________


As I mentioned to quadrun1, I think this car's destined to be a "high reader" for as long as we own it. It probably gets driven an average of four trips a day, & it still takes us about a year & 1/2 to accumulate 10k miles. I could artificially reduce my counts by changing the oil more frequently, but I'd rather find an oil that handles our abuse as well as can be expected under the circumstances. My neighbor recently switched to Amsoil 20W-50 year-round in his Mitsubishi GT-3000, & he seems to be happy with the sub-0°F performance of it (his car's not garaged). If the 5W-40 doesn't show any better than the 0W-40, I may have to do something different.

 

[quadrun1]

Yeah, maybe one of those M1 'tweaks' I always read about on here, like LC...

 

[Motorbike]

quote:

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Originally posted by Eiron:
OK, I'm back again (sorry for the delay in responding).

Motorbike,
Sorry I misinterpreted your post. We're cool.

Obviously, this report is only valid for my application; I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I wanted to give "full disclosure" about what was going on in this situation, & I agree that it's not transferrable to what others may experience.

[

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Thanks for the posts you make and the time you spend doing so

I look forward to your newest test although it will be a long time coming .

 

[Finklejag]

Why don't you use the SAAB turbo oil. It has a higher additive content then the 0W-40. It has proven to last the 15,000 OCI that SAAB has now?

 

[Primus]

I don't imagine how to compare results and make a conclusion. If Calcium, Magnesium and Zinc are going up with miles, but Oxidation and Nitration - down, then other data may be "wrong" too. Just another proval how it's important to get samples in the same way and and use one lab.

Miles .......... 4700 .... 8800
Calcium....... 1737..... 2803
Magnesium ..... 26 ....... 68
Zinc .......... 1021 .... 1426
Oxidation ....... 49 ....... 32
Nitration ........ 32 ........16

Apparently