Red Line 5w-30/40mix 9000 mi 2003 BMW 330Ci

[shanneba]

Latest UOA from my BMW - one track day at Barber motorsports Park last October, using a Mahle filter this time. Last UOA on the left hand column (you may have to scroll)

I added a half quart of Red Line 5w-40 at Barber, viscosity should have been raised to about 12.0 or so.

Changed oil and used 4 quarts of red Line 0w-30 and 4 quarts of red Line 0w-40. Should have a 100C viscosity of about 12.5 and a HTHS of about 3.6.

The UOAs with lower copper were without track days for the most part. I must get a little more bearing wear on the track ???

Blackstone comments:
You noted the viscosity should have come in around 11.1 Centistokes on the Kinematic scale, and
your guess was close. The viscosity came back a little high at 12.36, which is up in the 5W/40-grade range.
Wear accumulation continued tracking along normally after running the oil out to 9,004 miles and no
contamination was present, so the high viscosity isn't a serious problem. Maybe some excess heat was to
blame? The TBN dropped down to a low 0.3, so you might want to stick with no more than 9,000 miles on
the next sample. No new problems found.

We did have several days of 100+ heat back in July. A long string of 90+ days throughout the month.

Code:


2003 BMW 330 Ci



Miles on oil 5011 5000 4300 5958 4514 5347 5017 3839 7,250 5,100 7786 7400 5643 8119 7858 9004

Total miles 21130 26100 31407 37365 41879 47226 52245 56084 63,334 68,400 71120 78494 84137 92256 100109 109113

Date 05/05 10/05 03/06 06/06 03/07 06/07 03/08 09/08 10/08 06/09 06/09 12/13/09 8/17/10 4/12/11 11/7/11 8/3/12

Make up oil 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.5 0.5

Oil Brand BMW Castrol Castrol BMW Castrol Castrol Castrol Castrol RedLine RedLine RedLine RedLine RedLine RedLine RedLine RedLine

Weight 5w-30 0w-30 0w-30G 5w-30 0w-30Gr 0w-30 0w-30 0w-30 5w-40 5w-40 5w-40 5w-40 5w-40 5w-40 5w-30/40 5w-30/40



Filter BMW Mann BMW BMW Mann Mann Mann Mann Mann Mann Mann Mann Mann Mann Mann Mhale



ALUMINUM 4 2 2 2 2 2 4 2 2 4 2 3 3 5 4 3

CHROMIUM 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

IRON 9 7 6 4 8 6 11 9 7 7 9 8 7 10 13 15

COPPER 28 22 15 18 22 8 15 9 5 17 21 15 17 19 20 20

LEAD 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 4 1 1 0 2

TIN 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 2 0 0

MOLYBDENUM 124 19 4 104 16 4 3 2 3 149 207 33 14 9 584 526

NICKEL 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1

MANGANESE 3 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 3 2 1 1 3 12

SILVER 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

TITANIUM 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

POTASSIUM 9 1 6 1 2 0 8 3 2 3 5 2 4 5 4 7

BORON 38 9 3 21 4 2 3 2 1 4 5 2 3 3 42 33

SILICON 5 3 3 3 3 2 4 3 4 6 7 5 4 4 13 12

SODIUM 2 4 3 5 3 3 4 2 3 9 12 7 5 13 14 19

CALCIUM 3446 2125 1704 2463 2702 2985 1864 1891 2452 2142 2574 2530 2677 2388 2657 2624

MAGNESIUM 18 311 455 83 129 147 448 551 86 30 36 17 16 14 10 12

PHOSPHORUS 853 748 781 662 737 782 872 885 988 1032 1134 1076 1182 985 1189 1181

ZINC 1050 889 964 847 878 1001 1115 1087 1282 1228 1446 1345 1363 1056 1371 1481

BARIUM 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0



SUS @ 210F 65.6 62.5 63.2 64.1 63.8 65.8 64.2 65.5 73.9 78.2 78.4 77.6 75.7 78.6 68.4 67.8

cSt @ 100C 11.76 10.91 11.11 11.35 11.27 11.82 11.38 11.75 13.97 15.08 15.11 14.92 14.43 15.16 12.53 12.36

Flashpoint F 375 375 325 415 360 395 380 400 440 385 410 420 410 390 385 380

Fuel %
Antifreeze % 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Water % 0.0 0.0 tr 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Insolubles % 0.3 0.3 0.2 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.2

TBN 1.8 4.0 4.7 3.2 2.9 2.6 2.9 4.9 4.0 1.7 1.3 2.7 3.2 2.5 1.9 0.3

 

[Artem]

TBN is 0.3 after 9k miles?

 

[shanneba]

Yes 0.3 TBN after 9000 miles.

 

[LeakySeals]

Nice to see a timeline. One could conclude Red Line synthetics are not a good choice for extended intervals past 7k.

 

[A_Harman]

Yeah, I would say 7500-mile OCI's for RL in this application.

 

[Artem]

Originally Posted By: LeakySeals
Nice to see a timeline. One could conclude Red Line synthetics are not a good choice for extended intervals past 7k.


There have been UOA's with longer intervals that showed plenty of life left but I agree, RL is designed as a performance oil not a long drain oil.

 

[buster]

I've always wondered about RL's long drain capability. Starting Tbn for RL is around 8 for most oils. Some are about 9.

If RL's base oils are very highly resistant to oxidation, a low Tbn may not be as big of an issue. Just a thought.

Quote:
This is one reason why higher levels of TBN’s can mislead you into thinking it is better when in fact all it is stating is that it has higher levels of detergents to keep the engine clean but the base oil can oxidize(or breakdown) faster than one with higher levels of antioxidants which prevents the acids by neutralizing the attacking acids as oppose to cleaning up the by products of the oxidized oil.

 

[LeakySeals]

Originally Posted By: buster
I've always wondered about RL's long drain capability. Starting Tbn for RL is around 8 for most oils. Some are about 9.

If RL's base oils are very highly resistant to oxidation, a low Tbn may not be as big of an issue. Just a thought.

Quote:
This is one reason why higher levels of TBN’s can mislead you into thinking it is better when in fact all it is stating is that it has higher levels of detergents to keep the engine clean but the base oil can oxidize(or breakdown) faster than one with higher levels of antioxidants which prevents the acids by neutralizing the attacking acids as oppose to cleaning up the by products of the oxidized oil.


I recently read a response from XOM on here that agrees with this statement. XOM stated the TBN drops and stays there, depending on other ingredients in the oil. (never seen M1 at .3 at any interval) Without knowing this the TBN could be misleading.

On the other hand there is enough historical data to conclude RL is not a 10k oil in addition to the low TBN. (elevated copper, aluminum, Iron, etc)

 

[LeakySeals]

Can I ask what you created the timeline on? Was it a spreadsheet?

 

[buster]

Originally Posted By: LeakySeals
Originally Posted By: buster
I've always wondered about RL's long drain capability. Starting Tbn for RL is around 8 for most oils. Some are about 9.

If RL's base oils are very highly resistant to oxidation, a low Tbn may not be as big of an issue. Just a thought.

Quote:
This is one reason why higher levels of TBN’s can mislead you into thinking it is better when in fact all it is stating is that it has higher levels of detergents to keep the engine clean but the base oil can oxidize(or breakdown) faster than one with higher levels of antioxidants which prevents the acids by neutralizing the attacking acids as oppose to cleaning up the by products of the oxidized oil.


I recently read a response from XOM on here that agrees with this statement. XOM stated the TBN drops and stays there, depending on other ingredients in the oil. (never seen M1 at .3 at any interval) Without knowing this the TBN could be misleading.

On the other hand there is enough historical data to conclude RL is not a 10k oil in addition to the low TBN. (elevated copper, aluminum, Iron, etc)


True, I do believe that.

 

[ltslimjim]

^Yes.

I'd cap this combo at 8,000 miles.

 

[azsynthetic]

The small variation in wear metal per mile driven is meaningless. I would continue to do this at 9K or maybe 10K even. I ran Red Line 5W20 in my Golf TDI for 20K and the TBN was 3.3 at the end with less than 2qt of made up oil.

 

[shanneba]

Originally Posted By: LeakySeals
Can I ask what you created the timeline on? Was it a spreadsheet?


I keep the data in an Excel spread sheet and then save as a unicode text file. I put it in the code text and then preview the results to line everything up.