UOA for Redline w40 Mix in VW 2.0T

[rhouse181]

Hey, just thought I would share my latest UOA from my VW 2.0T FSI. Motor has 32k total miles and is bone stock. Previous oil changes with high quality vw502 approved oils at ridiculously short intervals...

Last change, I tried a mix of 4qts Redline 5w40 and 1 qt Redline w40 Race for a 5k mile change interval. Wanted a boost in ZDDP and Moly levels to help with flat tappet HPFP wear. Also, ester based oils seem to combat fuel dilution better than any vw502 approved oil. Here is the UOA:

First two fills were Castrol Syntec 5w40, then Motul VW Specific, then Motul 8100 Xcess 5w40

 

[BobFout]

Redline is good stuff!

 

[buster]

RL's viscosity is solid.

 

[azsynthetic]

You are doing what I have been doing in my VW TDI for the last 90K miles. I mix Red Line Race oil with pretty much non-VW approved oils and the results are stellar. You should go down one grade of viscosity for better fuel mileage. Next stop for me is Lucas 5W20 plus Red Line 5W20. Only 3K miles to go for the current 20K UOA of Liqui Moly and Red Line.

 

[rhouse181]

Originally Posted By: azsynthetic
You should go down one grade of viscosity for better fuel mileage.


I'm actually moving up a grade instead... mixing in a qt of w50 Race to try to eliminate my .5 qt consumption between changes. The minimal amount of mileage gains from switching to thinner oils in these 2.0T is not worth the extra volatilize oil caking the intake valves...

 

[buster]

Amsoil DEO would be another good choice.

 

[bluesubie]

Nice uoa!

I wonder if switching to RL 10W-40 would help with consumption?

-Dennis

 

[saaber1]

Originally Posted By: rhouse181
I'm actually moving up a grade instead... mixing in a qt of w50 Race to try to eliminate my .5 qt consumption between changes. The minimal amount of mileage gains from switching to thinner oils in these 2.0T is not worth the extra volatilize oil caking the intake valves...

That's a good move IMO. I ran mostly RL 5w30 + some 10w40 and my oil consumption doubled from the previously used 5w40.

Some of the comments from other posters for this engine speculated that a straight 50 weight diesel oil is needed to combat the fuel dilution. I believe that erring on the thick side rather than thin for this engine is smart because only RL 5w40, the RL mix shown in this UOA, and perhaps Biosyn have stayed in grade.

I didn't notice any difference in MPG between the 5w30 and 5w40. Perhaps the thinner would give some very minor MPG gains when cold, but they would be tiny IMO and not even measurable when counting highway and/or miles after fully warmed up. At least that was my experience based on the one 5w30 run anyway. Not trying to imply that the no-mpg-change necessarily applies to other engines, just what I observed on the 2.0 FSI.

 

[Zedhed]

You can always tell a RL UOA from the Moly numbers.

 

[JimKo]

I though RL had eliminated the Moly from the 5W-40 in the last year or so. Is this old stock or did they re-formulate again?

 

[Ben99GT]

RL 5W-40 contains almost no moly, the race oils do though hence the 250 ppm detected here. Far less than most of their oils, but not 0-10 ppm like their 5W-40 and 15W-40 CJ-4 oils.

 

[Mark77]

How big of a deal is the lack of Moly in the 5W-40? Just bought some for my FSI.