Originally Posted By: aigochamaloh
Dropped this OCI a bit because I have been driving ~1.5 miles between home and school since the last oil change. The engine almost never gets warm so I changed a bit early.
I used Mobil Super 5000 5W30 SN again, and looks like things stayed very consistent. Good thing, because I think I bought over 100 quarts of the stuff from Autozone/O'Reilly for their $10 oil/filter deal. Returned the STP/Microgard filters for store credit and bought more oil.
Anyone see anything wrong with extending back out to 8k+ (maybe 10k) with a quart make up and maybe a filter change in the middle? My powertrain warranty is up now.
Great report.
Vis shears; who cares? I don't. Did the shearing result in significant statistical wear changes? No. Why people freak out about a minor grade shift has always befuddled me. Sure, a huge drop or rise in vis would be of concern, but we see vis drop a grade in both PCMO and HDEO oils all the time, but that shift never manifests into wear problems. And after all, is the oil there to provide benefit to itself, or to the engine? The oil's job is to protect the engine from wear. If the wear is good, regardless of the vis, then all is well. If the vis continued to drop even more, it would become a problem at some point. But often, vis will drop, and then stabilize.
You could probably go 8k miles no problem. But TBN is getting a bit low. I see the TBN topic either relevant or irrelevant depending upon operation; for you, it's relevant because short trips will have moisture issues. TBN is not as big an issue if the trips boil out moisture. You're not there, so watch your TBN.
As for the limit of the OCI, you're not really using the UOA in its correct application. To know how long to use oil, you'll have to set condemnation limits; you are so close to universal averages that you're not nearly near the end yet. You could probably do a filter change, top off the oil from the filter loss, and easily surpass 10k miles. Most people would freak out about this, but it's true. Your UOA shows you're no where near any reasonable condemnation limits for wear metals, FP, etc. Only TBN might be an issue, and with a top-off, it will be extended.
