05 Honda Civic DX, 4 speed automatic with 1.7L 4-cylinder SOHC engine

Date of oil change: 01 Nov 2007
Oil usage: 09 Aug 2007 – 01 Nov 2007, 12 weeks, 416.67 miles/week
RLI 0w20 BioSYN, 3.4 qts (RLI oil batch #1048-061807)
Dyson Analysis

Oil: 5,000 miles
Makeup oil: 0
Car: 40,872 miles
NOTE: sample pulled for UOA, oil not changed

Oil Filter: Honda/Filtech OEM 15400-PLM-A01 (new filter in place this OCI)
Air Filter: Fram CA8911 (new filter in place this OCI)
Oil/Fuel Additives: n/a
Gasoline used: 10 fill-ups with Shell brand 85 octane (same station, same pump each fillup)

Honda recommends 5w20 oil at 10k miles or 1 year for normal driving, and 5k miles or 6 months for severe driving for my 1.7L 4-cylinder engine. My commute is primarily highway, 72 mile round trip with minimal traffic. Documented MPG:

0-10K OCI 41.41MPG (Aug05-Feb06) UOA
10-20K OCI 44.13MPG (Feb06-Sep06) UOA
20-30K OCI 42.19MPG (Sep06-Apr07) UOA
30-35K OCI 42.51MPG (Apr07-Jul07) UOA
35-36K OCI 43.76MPG (Jul07-Aug07) oil not tested
36-41K OCI 41.82MPG (Aug07-Nov07) *avg MPG is down, but I drove 10-15MPH faster this OCI.

Car was driven ~70 miles highway prior to oil change (representative of my daily commute); car cooled only long enough round up my sampling equipment; sample pulled via vacuum pump.

I tried to make this as much of an A/B comparison as possible to the previously tested Havoline 5k OCI. The only variable this OCI is the use of RLI 0w20 BioSYN (same commute, same Shell gasoline, no oil/fuel additives, a fresh OEM Filtech oil filter and a fresh FRAM air filter in use).

left column = Havoline 5W20 SM/GF-4 @ 5,000 mile OCI
right column = RLI 0w20 BioSYN @ 5,000 mile OCI

Iron 11-->6
Copper 11-->8
Tin 1-->0
Lead 8-->7
Chromium 1-->1
Nickel 0-->0
Aluminum 3-->2
Titanium 0-->0
Silver 0-->0

Calcium 1569-->1771
Magnesium 23-->13
Zinc 918-->955
Phosphorus 790-->678
Barium 4-->0
Molybdenum 577-->98 (probable residual from prev Havo OCI)
Antimony 0-->208
Silicon 17-->15
Sodium 9-->11
Boron 23-->15
Potassium 0-->0
Vanadium 0-->0

Vis 40C/100C 41.3/7.53-->42.1/7.8
TAN 2.58-->2.29
Flashpoint 330-->335
Oxidation 18-->142
Nitration 10-->11
Water (KF-ppm) 412-->590
TBN 2.2-->4.1
Fuel 1.20%-->1.16%
Soot 0-->0
Glycol/Coolant 0-->0
Viscosity Index 151-->157
Sulfate 22-->101

Other than a higher retained TBN the RLI shows really no improvement over cheapo havoline even in the fuel dilution department where it is posed to be the hot setup.

Bruce

yea, I hoped for more of a drop in fuel dilution

Bye the way that is a nice "accurate" way to compare the oils But a VOA of both might also have been nice to see what/how anything changed but not needed, good job.
bruce

could some of the residual havoline have caused some of the numbers?

I have a VOA showing Fe and Al in the wear metals = 2, Si 7 and Na 11, B 20. The viscosity at 100 C is 7.8 and the flash at 395. (RLI).

aehaas

thank you for sharing AEHaas

Is 7 ppm lead considered normal for this Honda engine?

Is the RLI 0W20 supposed to be as effective with fuel dilution as the 5W40HD and the 10W30HD?

RLI 0w20 should fight fuels as much as the HD variants. Another member went from ~1.7% fuel to ~0.7% with RLI 0w20 in a Prius.

WRT your lead question, Blackstone notes universal average of 6ppm for the 1.7L I-4 Honda in my older reports. The 7ppm in this current OCI is the lowest lead reading thus far for my car.

I agree. And the RLI was probably 4X the price of Havoline. Wear metals are statistically the same. Some engines just don't need expensive oils, period.

Subaru, Toyota and Honda do it right. They build engines that wear low regardless of the oil used.

you're not being accurate here, Bruce.



* 0W-20 RLI was never described as controlling dilution, only surviving it better. It was the 5W-40 that was designed to control dilution

* Iron wear is down by 45%

* Copper wear is down by 25%

* Other elemental wear show negligible change

* By my reading of these UOAs, RLI has managed to significantly control the impact of fuel dilution on wear.

I assume that the Havoline UOA by Dyson Analysis as well but want to make sure.

True Scott, but 45% IMHO is misleading due to lab variation and already being extremely low as it is. RLI is good stuff, no doubt, but we are talking about a difference of 5 ppm. Speak to any well known lab about these differences and they will tell you to seek a psychiatrist. Seriously. Analysts Inc. told me 50 ppm of Fe over 10k mile intervals is low.

I'm not trying to discredit the great results of the RLI oil, but just keep things on a more realistic level. I can't dispute that Fe is lower by 45%, however, no one would probably ever live long enough to see these gains come into fruition. It's this kind of comparison that causes people to end up wasting time and money comparing oils.

In cars that need a high peformance oil in a high performance engine like your's, where fuel dilution is a problem, RLI is the way to go.

*As Ben just pointed out, unless these labs were the same, you can throw this data out the window.

Buster

I'd disagree. 45% reduction in iron and 25% reduction in copper is not statistically insignificant, should it continue over multiple UOAs, and I suspect it will.

Now, whether or not that wear reduction is worth the additional cost of RLI oil, in an engine that already has extremely low wear, is yet another matter. That comparison is an economic one, not tribological.

Point taken. "Agree to disagree" - Ron Burgundy

I just can't see such a small % change in wear metals being significant or an issue over the life of a vehicle. If UOA's were the supreme mechanism of determining engine wear, I think most oil companies would use this more often as a selling tactic. My .02