PP 10W30, 11,779 miles, '01 Grand Prix GT 3800 V6

[WishIhadatruck]

This oil was run from 04/19/10 until 10/15/10. It was 10W-30 PP with a Napa Gold oil filter. My last UOA looked good enough that I decided to run the oil longer this time. I went about 4-5000 miles past the point where my dummy light for my OLM went off. It does not show a % for my car.

I drive pretty gentle most of the time.
Wix air filter. Air filter changed at 110k, 120 & 130k miles on the odo. I'm changing it every 10k now.

Blackstone Coments:
This is the longest oil run yet for the 3.8L in your Grand Prix and lead (from bearings) increased quite a bit. Universal averages show typical wear levels for this type of engine after about 4,700 miles on the oil. All other wear looks pretty good, so we're not sure why lead is high. If any leaded fuel or octane booster was used, that might explain it. Or maybe you're racing. The TBN was strong at 4.6, but we can't recommend going more miles on the oil with lead increasing. Watch your oil pressure and check back in 8,000 miles. Hopefully a shorter oil helps lower wear.

Comments welcome. I've got PP 5W/30 in it now with a NapaGold oil filter and plan to run it a shorter amount, maybe 3 changes per year instead of trying for twice a year like this run. Actually I might do a much shorter run of 5k or something just to see if the lead will drop. Lead is up quite a bit which doesn't make me happy. Still no sign of a return of the intake gasket coolant leak that was repaired in the spring of '08. Hopefully it is gone for good. My other car had high lead with PP this last time as well. Maybe PP has changed or the fuels where I live are giving me grief, who knows. Or maybe I should go back to the days of 3k mile oil changes, jk.

Code:


OIL PP 10W30 PP 5W30 PP10W30 PP10W30 PYB10W30 PP5W30 M110W30 M110W30

MILES IN USE 11.8k 9.8k 7.4k 5.0k 3.4k 5.1k 5.7k 4.9k Uni Avg

MILES 139.0 127.2k 117.5k 110k 87.1k 80.5k 70.4k 64.8k

SAMPLE TAKEN 10/15/10 4/19/10 11/11/09 6/20/09 6/10/08 2/28/08 9/2/07 7/3/06



ALUMINUM 4 3 3 2 2 3 3 2 3

CHROMIUM 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

IRON 13 12 9 8 9 24 14 8 13

COPPER 27 24 25 19 21 28 39 30 17

LEAD 38 15 8 5 9 4 21 19 8

TIN 0 3 0 0 2 1 0 0 1

MOLYBDENUM 53 54 49 48 3 52 98 83 65

NICKEL 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0

MANGANESE 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

SILVER 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

TITANIUM 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

POTASSIUM 2 3 0 2 7 11 1 3 7

BORON 29 33 29 36 114 34 47 52 45

SILICON 11 12 15 11 29 13 12 12 11

SODIUM 1 2 2 2 8 10 5 4 24

CALCIUM 3020 3020 2809 2944 2018 2919 2184 2354 2078

MAGNESIUM 13 10 10 10 7 12 11 13 90

PHOSPHORUS 676 725 649 639 646 656 538 589 691

ZINC 776 907 728 832 784 819 675 745 848

BARIUM 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0





INSOLUBLES 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.2 0.3 0.3 0.3

WATER 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

FLASHPOINT ºF 400 390 390 410 400 400 410 420

SUS VIS 210ºF 60.9 57.1 58.2 59.2 56.6 57.9 58.6 60.8

cSt @ 100ºC 10.46 9.40 9.70 9.99 9.24 9.63 9.83 10.44

TBN 4.6 3.1 3.4 n/a n/a 3.9 3.7 n/a

 

[crazyoildude]

wow the lead scares me was there any revving or redlines? those 3800 engines are great engines

 

[gathermewool]

Good flashpoint, viscosity and TBN. What ever caused the Pb to spike, it wasn't the oil's fault.

 

[FZ1]

Try M1 EP. EP seems more durable than PP in my car.

 

[Mokanic]

Perhaps the coolant leak that you had damaged some bearings. It only takes a short amount of time for coolant intrusion on bearings to wipe them out or at least cause some damage.
The oil did fine. It is not the cause of the high lead.

 

[WishIhadatruck]

I also doubt the oil as the culprit, it has worked well in the past and other engines seem to do well on it overall. This car is driven fairly gently and is unlikely to see anything close to redline more than once a week if that. Most days it stays under 3k rpm. After so many miles of low lead #'s since the coolant leak (which was caught and fixed early, see the older uoa's above) I doubt it is from that as well. Maybe it just doesnt' liek the longer intervals. I'll do a shorter run and see how it does with the PP in there now.

FZ1, high lead (although not this high) is what caused me to quit using M1 originally. I'm not very tempted to try a M1 product although I've never tried the EP line of oil.

All my cars, if they have an unexplained problem, seem to have high lead. They seem to be very sensitive to miles and the oil used. It does make me wonder what is in the gas around here.

 

[FZ1]

Saw that. I've run 4 oils in my 02 V6 Accord. DF,M1,PP,M1EP in that order. The EP seemed to last longer than the others. Good luck with it.

 

[webfors]

Listen to the OLM or max 7.5k and you found a sweet spot for your application and engine.

 

[WishIhadatruck]

Originally Posted By: webfors
Listen to the OLM or max 7.5k and you found a sweet spot for your application and engine.


I hope you're right. I plan to do a short run or two and then see if 7.5k or so gives me good results again. Hopefully the lead drops back down on shorter intervals like it was before. I try to avoid middle of the winter oil changes (no heat in the garage) plus I prefer 5W-30 in the winter and 10W-30 the rest of the year since that is what GM recommends for this year of this engine. I was originally going to try twice a year changes and this OCI was the first full attempt at that. I'll probably try to go with 3 changes yearly after seeing this report which will give me about 7.5k or less miles per OCI.

 

[ATS-V]

I would guess the oil is becoming abrasive with miles, something UOA may not show without a particle count. I agree with the 7.5k interval.

 

[Steve S]

There really isn't much difference between the oils and the wear numbers seem to track well with the miles the TBN is fine. The oil is doing a great job.