2020 Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT 6.4L HPL Super Car 0W-40 - 9,795km

[RDY4WAR]

Thanks @OVERKILL

Based on what you are saying, their comments and the "critical" flag can scare the average Joe not having your knowledge. Also not fair to the oil company. You would think they should know better!

The techs that are writing those reports usually aren't educated in engine oils and just have a crash course on the reports. They're often going off a sheet of paper. They run hundreds of samples a day, blitzing them through as fast as they can, and cases with high amounts of ester are likely rare for them. It could be that a piece of paper says something like ">30 - red flag" for oxidation and they go off the paper.

When I send in a sample, I usually include a post-it note on the sample with something like "reference baseline sample #12345678BBQRIBS" but they usually still don't anyway. They likely don't know what they're looking at to even reference it, just still going off the instructions the company gave them. It's like taking a snapshot of a single bit of information with no context. Results get misinterpreted fairly often, but for the vast majority of fleet samples from basic API oil, their guidelines tend to work.

Also, sometimes they're not given all of the information by the customer. The customer may dump a quart bottle of MMO in there, not thinking twice of it, and then when the report comes back showing high fuel dilution (MMO contains alcohol and naphtha), flash point in the toilet, and viscosity diluted out of grade, the customer is sent on a wild goose chase looking for a stuck injector or something when nothing is actually wrong.

There are cases of an oil being undeservingly bashed because of UOA commentary that misread the result. You could have a sample go through with 400 ppm iron, a quick flush before the next sample doesn't get it all, and 10-15 ppm carries over to the next sample giving a higher result than should be. Then the tech flags it. "My wear went up on this oil. This is junk." You also get cases (quite often) where they're running the samples through so fast that cross interference of elements occurs where some of the harmless magnesium detergent or boron EP gets picked up as a wear metal that happened to be right next to it on the spectrum, giving a false result that gets flagged. Unfortunately, it's not perfect, but what do you expect from a $30 analysis. That's why it's good to post results in places like here on BITOG where those us who know what we're looking at can break it down further. There are some companies that do have a tribologist or engineer on hand to review results. Speediagnostix is one such example, but you're going to pay more for their expert input.

 

[OVERKILL]

The techs that are writing those reports usually aren't educated in engine oils and just have a crash course on the reports. They're often going off a sheet of paper. They run hundreds of samples a day, blitzing them through as fast as they can, and cases with high amounts of ester are likely rare for them. It could be that a piece of paper says something like ">30 - red flag" for oxidation and they go off the paper.

When I send in a sample, I usually include a post-it note on the sample with something like "reference baseline sample #12345678BBQRIBS" but they usually still don't anyway. They likely don't know what they're looking at to even reference it, just still going off the instructions the company gave them. It's like taking a snapshot of a single bit of information with no context. Results get misinterpreted fairly often, but for the vast majority of fleet samples from basic API oil, their guidelines tend to work.

Also, sometimes they're not given all of the information by the customer. The customer may dump a quart bottle of MMO in there, not thinking twice of it, and then when the report comes back showing high fuel dilution (MMO contains alcohol and naphtha), flash point in the toilet, and viscosity diluted out of grade, the customer is sent on a wild goose chase looking for a stuck injector or something when nothing is actually wrong.

There are cases of an oil being undeservingly bashed because of UOA commentary that misread the result. You could have a sample go through with 400 ppm iron, a quick flush before the next sample doesn't get it all, and 10-15 ppm carries over to the next sample giving a higher result than should be. Then the tech flags it. "My wear went up on this oil. This is junk." You also get cases (quite often) where they're running the samples through so fast that cross interference of elements occurs where some of the harmless magnesium detergent or boron EP gets picked up as a wear metal that happened to be right next to it on the spectrum, giving a false result that gets flagged. Unfortunately, it's not perfect, but what do you expect from a $30 analysis. That's why it's good to post results in places like here on BITOG where those us who know what we're looking at can break it down further. There are some companies that do have a tribologist or engineer on hand to review results. Speediagnostix is one such example, but you're going to pay more for their expert input.

I should note that the OAI tests aren't $30, they are $55 if you are a PC/dealer in Canada, $65 just to buy as a non-member:

I reached out to Polaris about this, we'll see what they say. They encourage you to provide a baseline sample (which I've done, as you can see on the report) in order for the interpretation to be relative and avoid things like this getting flagged, yet here we are, lol.

 

[RDY4WAR]

I should note that the OAI tests aren't $30, they are $55 if you are a PC/dealer in Canada, $65 just to buy as a non-member:
View attachment 160112

I reached out to Polaris about this, we'll see what they say. They encourage you to provide a baseline sample (which I've done, as you can see on the report) in order for the interpretation to be relative and avoid things like this getting flagged, yet here we are, lol.

Yikes! I forget about the cost of shipping to and from Canada. That's insane. This is what it is in the states.

 

[OVERKILL]

Yikes! I forget about the cost of shipping to and from Canada. That's insane. This is what it is in the states.

View attachment 160116

They aren't even being shipped to/from Canada, the lab is in Edmonton and the kits come from the Toronto warehouse, lol.

 

[himemsys]

Yikes! I forget about the cost of shipping to and from Canada. That's insane. This is what it is in the states.

View attachment 160116

Once you factor in tax and shipping (which you don't pay with BS), it comes out to close to $50 per kit on the UPS pre-paid. If you buy two, the shipping doesn't go up, so the net price is right around $45 per kit. I just bought two not too long ago. So, that makes the price right in line with BS if you buy two at a time (assuming adding TBN for $10 with BS). If you buy 1 at a time, it's a few bucks more expensive than BS.

 

[RDY4WAR]

Same price as BS and you get TBN, oxidation, and an accurate dilution actually measured with GC. Why people still use BS is beyond me.

 

[himemsys]

Same price as BS and you get TBN, oxidation, and an accurate dilution actually measured with GC. Why people still use BS is beyond me.

It is a very fair price, I agree. Technically, OA doesn't charge extra for TBN, but the net cost ends up being the same. The BS price is $35 + $10 for TBN, free shipping and no tax. The OA advertised cost is misleading because after tax and shipping, it's suddenly $50 out of pocket (unless you buy more than one, but then your total cost goes up to save a few bucks per). You get oxidation and GC with OA, which is great. BS gives you Universal Averages and arguably better commentary and service. It depends on what extras you're more interested in. I personally like the Universal Averages. I could see using BS once to get those numbers, then switching to OA for future UOAs of the same vehicle.

edit: forgot to add, OA turnaround time the one time I used them was worlds better. Something like 6 days from the time I shipped the sample til I got my results. BS is typically 2-3 weeks.

 

[OVERKILL]

It is a very fair price, I agree. Technically, OA doesn't charge extra for TBN, but the net cost ends up being the same. The BS price is $35 + $10 for TBN, free shipping and no tax. The OA advertised cost is misleading because after tax and shipping, it's suddenly $50 out of pocket (unless you buy more than one, but then your total cost goes up to save a few bucks per). You get oxidation and GC with OA, which is great. BS gives you Universal Averages and arguably better commentary and service. It depends on what extras you're more interested in. I personally like the Universal Averages. I could see using BS once to get those numbers, then switching to OA for future UOAs of the same vehicle.

edit: forgot to add, OA turnaround time the one time I used them was worlds better. Something like 6 days from the time I shipped the sample til I got my results. BS is typically 2-3 weeks.

Yes, OAI is pretty fast on the turnaround. I use them because I find oxidation, TBN and GC fuel to be far more valuable than flashpoint and the universal averages. I don't pay any attention the commentary.

 

[Emperors6]

... Speediagnostix is one such example, but you're going to pay more for their expert input.

They're not that expensive in the US. I get the 6 pack from lnengineering.com (usually costs $250 but on sale they go for $225) and it comes with two prepaid USPS boxes. I usually mail multiple samples at once. If I run out of the boxes, I have to pay shipping myself.