Amsoil 5W-30 1 year/18,472 miles

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Patman

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It goes to show that Amsoil's claims of 25k or one year are just crazy, you can't apply a blanket statement like that for all driving situations. And from what I've seen, 25k is pretty rare. They really should change their recommendations to 15k to be safe.

Honestly though, other than the TBN being insanely low, and the iron being insanely high and the thickening of the oil, the rest of the numbers aren't all that bad.
 
The Dispersant/detegent package which affects the TBN is 70% shot. Only about 30% of the Calcium and Magnesium is left.

The ZDDP is down about 60% but is still hanging in there. Wear metals are awful. This why I never take Amsoil past 8-12k as I have stated before.
 
Now, I'm really glad I changed mine at 5,200.
crushedcar.gif
 
If the TBN of this oil were really 0,you would be seeing much higher bearing (lead/copper/tin) wear due to corrosion. So I would question the accuracy of that result to some degree. I do think the iron wear is very high, but I haven't seen enough data on this engine to tell. If Blackstones 28 ppm "universal average" is based on a 3000 mile oil change interval, then 131 ppm @ 18k miles (an average of 22 ppm/3000 miles) isn't abnormal. When you look at oil analysis results, you have to look at wear rates (ppm/1000 miles) and not absolute numbers. I'd drop down to a 7500 mile change interval and re-test under the same conditions.

If you are going to extend drains beyond 7500 miles, you should test the oil several times at this interval. Every application is different and the severity of driving conditions makes a huge difference in how the oil holds up. You also want to make sure the the engine is running up to par and you aren't getting any abnormal contamination.
Air filtration is very critical to getting low wear rates with long change intervals.
 
Too Slick,

Does it make sense to continue using this oil, or should the next analysis with the 7.5k interval you suggested be performed on another oil. As I recall, the regular Mobil dino, SL rated did pretty well at 8k. Why not just try that?

And the Mobil is just a Group I, with a strong additive package.
 
TOOSLICK,
I was kind of thinking the same thing. Not sure what’s going on with the TBN.

GROUCHO MARX,
My friend changed the oil out when he took the sample. He's going to run a new batch of Amsoil 5W-30 for 6 months, then sample and see what's up. He is kind of upset with Amsoil. He's considering throwing in the towel and visiting jiffy-lube every 3,000 miles. eeek!

I've been running the old-school (PAO) Amsoil 5W-20 in my 2001 5.4L F150 and have an analysis done at three months/600 miles. I wanted to test the three month portion of the three month/3,000 mile rule of thumb. As you can imagine, not a whole lot was going on at only 600 miles. Blackstone recommended sampling at 3,000 miles. Anyway, I'll have a 3,000 mile analysis of the 5W-20 near the end of the year.

Thanks for all your replies so far!
 
AHC,

Had your friend been running synthetic oil previously in this engine? In a high mileage motor, the first batch of synthetic oil will clean out all kinds of stuff, especially if it has some ester in the basestock. If I had more of a maintenance history on this vehicle it would be easier to tell what was happening here. The solids level of 0.5% is fairly high, which indicates quite a bit of oxidation/nitration. The oil thickening is normal for this many miles of use.
 
TOOSLICK,
He's been running Quaker State full syn (Group III?) for virtually the entire life of the motor. This is the first batch of PAO. That being said, he may have abused the Group III by changing it every 7,000 miles?
 
AHC,

Any oil analysis data on the QS synthetic @ 7000 miles? I'm interested in what a "normal" wear pattern would look like for this particular engine.
Any decent synthetic should be good for 7k miles, so I don't think he was abusing it.
 
I think that anytime a person is going to do extended drain intervals like this, they should
ease into it at first. With whatever oil they choose, the first interval with it should probably
be drained out at 5 or 6k. Then on the second interval, go a few thousand more. By the third
oil change, it can then be safely pushed to it's limit, whatever that might be. This way the oil
isn't mixed with any of the previous oil too.

This is what I plan on doing when I switch to Schaeffers. I am currently running Maxlife,
and will drain and analyze it at 6000km (3.7k) I will then do the same with the first
batch of Schaeffers. On the second interval with Schaeffers, I plan on going about 5 or 6k.
At this point I will decide whether or not I want to go with a 9k interval, or maybe even push
it to 12k.

[ August 23, 2002, 08:35 PM: Message edited by: Patman ]
 
quote:

Originally posted by AHC:

......
He's considering throwing in the towel and visiting jiffy-lube every 3,000 miles. eeek!
.....


Jiffy Lube can do OK if you watch them & don't let them do anything wrong...and bring your own good filter. Their Pennzoil/Quaker St. filters are just relabeled Fram filters. And, every 3000 miles is too frequent.

Ken
 
quote:

I think that anytime a person is going to do extended drain intervals like this, they should
ease into it at first.

Hey Patman.

I bought a oil change pump on e-bay for $22 so I could pull the samples every so often without having to drain it.
 
reguardless of what Amsoil says..I really don't see how any engine/ oil combo can go 25000 mile, without a bypass filter on it, and several changouts of the filter element, so that a quart or so can be added to replenish the additive package.
 
This report was generated by Blackstone for my buddy's 2.0L 4 cylinder 95 Ford Contour. The engine has 114,222 miles on it and the oil has been in service for 18,472 miles and 1 year. He used Amsoil filters changed at 6 months. Make-up oil was about 1.25 quarts. Oil was Amsoil 5W-30 1 year/25,000 mile formula.

Blackstone's Comments: You are apparently buying gas in Canada or some Canadian gas is making it's way into your area as we found manganese in the oil, which is an additive in Canadian gas. The TBN for this oil read at 0.0, which shows no additive left in the oil after 18,472 miles in use. Suggest changing this oil out not only due to TBN, but due to abrasion from the accumulated wear metals. Insolubles limited out at 0.5% of the sample and these tend to be abrasive as well. The oil's viscosity read in the SAE 40W range. The oil is very stressed and easily used up.

Report#'s Univ Averag
Aluminum 8 4
Chromium 2 1
Iron 131 28
Copper 20 8
Lead 2 3
Tin 1 3
Molybdenum 11 4
Nickel 3 1
Manganese 56 0
Silver 0 0
Titanium 0 0
Potassium 0 0
Boron 0 37
Silicon 16 48
Sodium 7 92
Calcium 2554 1013
Magnesium 300 836
Phosphorus 949 785
Zinc 1336 922
Barium 0 3

SUS Visc 71.8 56-63
@210F

Flashpnt F 395 >365
Fuel % Antifrz % 0.0 0
Water % 0.0 Insolubles % 0.5
His doesn't 'hot rod' this car and he drives about 70% highway and 30% city. By the way he lives in Seattle and travels to Canada once and a while which might explain the Manganese?

So much for extended drain intervals with this oil?

[ August 23, 2002, 06:17 PM: Message edited by: AHC ]
 
Wow!
shocked.gif
Those metal numbers are horrible, that's probably the worst Amsoil analysis I have ever seen. TBN of 0?
confused.gif


[ August 23, 2002, 12:53 PM: Message edited by: Brad ]
 
quote:

Originally posted by VaderSS:

quote:

I think that anytime a person is going to do extended drain intervals like this, they should
ease into it at first.

Hey Patman.

I bought a oil change pump on e-bay for $22 so I could pull the samples every so often without having to drain it.


That's good, however it's still a good idea to drain out the oil earlier on the first interval, just
so that it's not mixed in with the previous oil. I think that when you have the 4 or 5oz of the
old brand of oil in there, it doesn't allow the new brand of oil to fully reach it's potential.

For example, when this guy here switched to Amsoil, he still had a tiny bit of leftover QS
synth in there, and that probably contributed to the faster dropping of the TBN. By the third
interval he'd probably have better results since it would be 99.9% Amsoil in there, with no
worries of additive clash.
 
Patman is bringing up some very valid points about extended oil drains.

Many are changing oil at a drop of the hat, some trying to extend the drain and push the limits.

Each time you change brands of oils, you do several things.

Each type of oil reacts differently on how well it will fight acids and oxidation. Many do not hold up very well, therefore leaving residue and when putting a fresh oil, it immediatly has to start off by fighting off the acids left behind from the prior oil. This process, immediatly starts depleting additives on the new oil, therefore can shorten the extended drain capabilities. This also can show a whole different senerio on an oil analysis report as not holding up that well, when in fact it might.

So how do you change over and avoid this? Purge your engine prior to change over or do a short drain with the new oil and allow it to help purge the old oil and contaminents before trying to start extending drains.

In my case for example, I advise my customers to put in some of Schaeffers 131 Neutra for at least 500 miles prior to changeover so that schaeffers oil doesn't have to expend itself trying to neutralize acids and contaminents not handled from the previous one.(Auto-rx may also be an alternative for the neutra) Once the change over, now the oil can start out with a fairly level playing field. If a person opt's not to purge the engine, then we expect they may experience any number of minor problems, which will normally go away after the 2nd or 3rd oil change.

For extending drains, it is advisable to start out with trending your oil. First oil change with the new oil should follow your standard drain interval with oil analysis, next time, at normal drain interval, draw another sample, and see if good for continued use, also note to the lab that you are looking at extending drains and would like their suggestions on how far.

Continue this process until you either reach it's limits or reach your desired drain interval.
 
AHC: If your friend was using Quaker State synthetic for the life of this car, then about 95% of his oil changes were done with a PAO based synthetic. Quaker State switched to the Group III base stock about a year ago.
 
That is EXACTLY where we as comsumers feel DUPED!Change a forumlation to the worse and never tell us? Something about that is just not right

So ,the Pennzoil I am using could be changed to a group 1 and I would never know it.

[ August 24, 2002, 07:06 PM: Message edited by: dragboat ]
 
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