D1 / Gen 2 Rated Oils : Cleaning Ability ?

Originally Posted by Trav
Originally Posted by danez_yoda
Originally Posted by Trav
Originally Posted by danez_yoda
I have not seen a valvatrain picture of folks that run one of the "lesser oils" that showed deposits.

I've seen a few 100K+ mile supertech synthetic valve trains that were squeaky clean though.



I put brand new heads on a GM 3.4, the guy ran VWB 3K OCI and after 2 years it was a mess with varnish and deposits. Franks (demarpaint) Buick had religious 3K OCI by his dad and it looked like crap also on dino, I also saw that with my own eyes.
I have not run dino in anything for over 30 years and never will again.



The OP as talking strictly lower cost synthetics not dino.


So sue me.



lol.gif



Post of the day winner..
 
*Happy New Year to you as well ... I have M1 and PUP in my oil stash ; I also bought some QSUD and Magnatec at low prices to run in my older vehicles ... I was just curious about the hypothetical cleaning ability since all are D1 / Gen 2 oils .
Originally Posted by Triple_Se7en
Originally Posted by ChrisD46
Traditionally , Mobil 1 and Pennzoil Platinum headed the list of synthetics known to keep engines clean while lower tier oils (i.e. Quaker State , Castrol , Havoline , Valvoline , etc.) were not especially noted for keeping engines as clean as M1 and PPPP ... With so many synthetic oils now meeting the D1 / Gen 2 specs , would it be safe to say that the delta difference in engine cleaning ability of oils meeting the D1 / Gen 2 specs has closed considerably ? In other words , a D1 / Gen 2 rated oil with a decent oil filter run at a reasonable OCI in an otherwise good operating condition engine are going to clean about the same ? M1 and Penzoil Platinum may still hold a cleaning edge - but not nearly as great as before ... Your thoughts ?

You pay an extra $5 for that premium filter, but hesitant to pay an additional $5 for that Mobil-1 and Pennzoil Platinum?

C'mon.
Happy New Year BTW..... enjoy reading your replies / threads.
 
What do you mean by cleaning ability? The ability to keep the engine clean or ability to clean up a dirty engine? Most all of them perform about the same in terms of keeping an engine clean. The biggest variable in that is you. None of them are designed to remove deposits from a dirty engine. Can they? Possibly. In order to remove varnish and sludge from a dirty engine, you need solvents. Ester is very good in this regard.
 
Originally Posted by RDY4WAR
What do you mean by cleaning ability? The ability to keep the engine clean or ability to clean up a dirty engine? Most all of them perform about the same in terms of keeping an engine clean. The biggest variable in that is you. None of them are designed to remove deposits from a dirty engine. Can they?


They don't perform cleanliness the same. Some house brands mention nothing about cleanliness on jug labels and at their websites.
..... and yes, oils like Pennzoil Platinum remove carbon deposits, up-to 50%, depending on the buildup already existing and the crust factor. The more buildup - the less that can be dissolved by cleaning oils and intake sprays.

Maybe someday we will get pictures of a house brand oil that's been used for 15-18 years and 200+K inside a Korean 2.4 TGDI engine...... Equinox TDGI engine.......etc.
I would love to see a lifetime TGDI engine of Supertech, Costco, Rural King..... heck even NAPA, which I believe is one of the best housebrand oils available today.

I like to read and digest what I read. I like to look at pics and digest what's visible in those pics AND can I believe the picture-taker is telling us the truth. That why currently I rely heavily on what the oil maker tells us on their jugs and in their website. But someday, I will get to see pics of aged vehicles using housebrands under TGDI circumstances, for it's entire engine lifetime.

If / when I see those pics and believe they can improve a TGDI engine, I will start buying the housebrand products.
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted by Triple_Se7en
Originally Posted by RDY4WAR
What do you mean by cleaning ability? The ability to keep the engine clean or ability to clean up a dirty engine? Most all of them perform about the same in terms of keeping an engine clean. The biggest variable in that is you. None of them are designed to remove deposits from a dirty engine. Can they?


They don't perform cleanliness the same. Some house brands mention nothing about cleanliness on jug labels and at their websites.
..... and yes, oils like Pennzoil Platinum remove carbon deposits, up-to 50%, depending on the buildup already existing and the crust factor. The more buildup - the less that can be dissolved by cleaning oils and intake sprays.

Maybe someday we will get pictures of a house brand oil that's been used for 15-18 years and 200+K inside a Korean 2.4 TGDI engine...... Equinox TDGI engine.......etc.
I would love to see a lifetime TGDI engine of Supertech, Costco, Rural King..... heck even NAPA, which I believe is one of the best housebrand oils available today.

I like to read and digest what I read. I like to look at pics and digest what's visible in those pics AND can I believe the picture-taker is telling us the truth. That why currently I rely heavily on what the oil maker tells us on their jugs and in their website. But someday, I will get to see pics of aged vehicles using housebrands under TGDI circumstances, for it's entire engine lifetime.

If / when I see those pics and believe they can improve a TGDI engine, I will start buying the housebrand products.


There is absolutely nothing in their formula that promotes greater cleaning ability than any other API SN+ oil. Not a single thing. The detergents and dispersants are not that different. What you read on the jug is 100% grade A marketing mumbo jumbo. There's plenty of engines out there running house brands that are nice and clean inside. It's just that most of the people buying those cheap house brands aren't your 0.5% of the population that actually wants to dig deeper into why oils work and therefore, probably aren't on BITOG. The act of changing your oil is FAR more important to keeping an engine clean than whatever brand of the exact same API rating you choose to use.

I couldn't care less for flashy marketing on a bottle. It means absolutely nothing to me. It was most likely put together by some white collar who's never even changed his own oil, much less formulated oil. I care about what's in the bottle. A brand could say they reduce wear 2x as well as the industry standard and be referring to Sequence IVA with a maximum of 90 and they got 45. In reality, 45 sucks, but it makes for a good marketing point.
 
Last edited:
^ right.

What you generally pay for with the top tier oils from almost all the manufacturers/blenders is better deposit control and oxidation stability which will keep an engine more clean in the long run if exposed to higher temperatures and longer drain intervals.

For sludge, that often depends on the detergent types and particular chemistry used by the brand as well as driving conditions. Castrol apparently has their own proprietary anti-sludge additives used in their GTX Clean oil.

If you look at the additive systems being used in most oils, they are extremely similar in composition.
 
How detergents prevent deposits is not by cleaning.,
They bond to metallic surfaces preventing other materials from bonding to the surface. As long as the detergent has better polarity to the metals than the potential depositing material, (oxidized oil, soot etc) then the metal remains clean.

Cleaning deposited material requires material that would dissolve the deposits. And to be honest, chemical cleaning or use of specific chemistry (such as using premium blue for stuck rings) never works as well as manual physical removal.
In that case a ring job would be a more effective solution for stuck rings, although it may not be the most cost effective when considering equipment lifecycle costs.
 
Originally Posted by buster
^ right.

What you generally pay for with the top tier oils from almost all the manufacturers/blenders is better deposit control and oxidation stability which will keep an engine more clean in the long run if exposed to higher temperatures and longer drain intervals.

For sludge, that often depends on the detergent types and particular chemistry used by the brand as well as driving conditions. Castrol apparently has their own proprietary anti-sludge additives used in their GTX Clean oil.

If you look at the additive systems being used in most oils, they are extremely similar in composition.

Castrol doesn't have to disclose proprietary info on a SDS or PDS, like if it's using an ester to help clean. For example Castrol (and others) claim some of their products slowly breakdown existing deposits and hold them in suspension to be filtered out or exited during the next drain. Sounds like to me at least they're using an ester of some sort...

Fwiw..on a related note, Mola' used some high tech equipment once to take a look at Rislone engine treatment and despite Rislone's SDS and PDS making no mention of TMP ester as a slow cleaner, it was in there at a concentration of abt 11% by weight. I suppose lacking access to expensive test equipment all we have to go on is the word of the lube mfg. If they make the claim that their product not only mitigates deposits but also cleans up existing deposits, that I guess means there's some chemistry in place to do this and we are not especially privy to what it is. (the need to know rule ...‚)
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted by Mad_Hatter
Originally Posted by buster
^ right.

What you generally pay for with the top tier oils from almost all the manufacturers/blenders is better deposit control and oxidation stability which will keep an engine more clean in the long run if exposed to higher temperatures and longer drain intervals.

For sludge, that often depends on the detergent types and particular chemistry used by the brand as well as driving conditions. Castrol apparently has their own proprietary anti-sludge additives used in their GTX Clean oil.

If you look at the additive systems being used in most oils, they are extremely similar in composition.

Castrol doesn't have to disclose proprietary info on a SDS or PDS, like if it's using an ester to help clean. For example Castrol (and others) claim some of their products slowly breakdown existing deposits and hold them in suspension to be filtered out or exited during the next drain. Sounds like to me at least they're using an ester of some sort...

Fwiw..on a related note, Mola' used some high tech equipment once to take a look at Rislone engine treatment and despite Rislone's SDS and PDS making no mention of TMP ester as a slow cleaner, it was in there at a concentration of abt 11% by weight. I suppose lacking access to expensive test equipment all we have to go on is the word of the lube mfg. If they make the claim that their product not only mitigates deposits but also cleans up existing deposits, that I guess means there's some chemistry in place to do this and we are not especially privy to what it is. (the need to know rule ...‚)


One of the only oils I recall there being cleaning claims about was M1 0w-40, where Mobil actually posted before/after cleanup pictures.
 
Originally Posted by OVERKILL
Originally Posted by Mad_Hatter
Originally Posted by buster
^ right.

What you generally pay for with the top tier oils from almost all the manufacturers/blenders is better deposit control and oxidation stability which will keep an engine more clean in the long run if exposed to higher temperatures and longer drain intervals.

For sludge, that often depends on the detergent types and particular chemistry used by the brand as well as driving conditions. Castrol apparently has their own proprietary anti-sludge additives used in their GTX Clean oil.

If you look at the additive systems being used in most oils, they are extremely similar in composition.

Castrol doesn't have to disclose proprietary info on a SDS or PDS, like if it's using an ester to help clean. For example Castrol (and others) claim some of their products slowly breakdown existing deposits and hold them in suspension to be filtered out or exited during the next drain. Sounds like to me at least they're using an ester of some sort...

Fwiw..on a related note, Mola' used some high tech equipment once to take a look at Rislone engine treatment and despite Rislone's SDS and PDS making no mention of TMP ester as a slow cleaner, it was in there at a concentration of abt 11% by weight. I suppose lacking access to expensive test equipment all we have to go on is the word of the lube mfg. If they make the claim that their product not only mitigates deposits but also cleans up existing deposits, that I guess means there's some chemistry in place to do this and we are not especially privy to what it is. (the need to know rule ...‚)


One of the only oils I recall there being cleaning claims about was M1 0w-40, where Mobil actually posted before/after cleanup pictures.


Yes, and they even state on the PDS that " Provides exceptional cleaning power for dirty engines" and " It provides exceptional cleaning power".
 
Originally Posted by Trav
Originally Posted by danez_yoda
I have not seen a valvatrain picture of folks that run one of the "lesser oils" that showed deposits.

I've seen a few 100K+ mile supertech synthetic valve trains that were squeaky clean though.



I put brand new heads on a GM 3.4, the guy ran VWB 3K OCI and after 2 years it was a mess with varnish and deposits. Franks (demarpaint) Buick had religious 3K OCI by his dad and it looked like crap also on dino, I also saw that with my own eyes.
I have not run dino in anything for over 30 years and never will again.


I think even short oil change intervals do nothing when the vehicle isn't regularly run an extended period of time for very long. I also think that for the most part that conventional oils have run their course and are outdated and eventually need to be phased out. Basic generic synthetic oils can be had for the same or less as Dino anymore.
 
Originally Posted by Marco620
I also think that for the most part that conventional oils have run their course and are outdated and eventually need to be phased out. Basic generic synthetic oils can be had for the same or less as Dino anymore.


For commuter cars, I agree. Group I and II base oils do have advantages over synthetics when it comes to pressure-viscosity coefficient and miscibility, and therefore are ideal in applications that operate a low oil temperatures (0-80*C) and/or experience high shock loads.
 
Quick question? How important is cleaning vs protection? Supposedly Castrol synthetic was a dirtier oil but I have heard of Magnatec giving some pretty stellar reviews.
 
A good oil should be able to do both. That said, if it could only teeter one way or the other, I would never, ever sacrifice wear protection to get more cleaning ability. Proper balance of detergent to ZDDP is important.

For the most part, sludge that is solidified in parts of the engine that doesn't block oil flow nor inhibit motion (or sealing) of parts isn't a threat to longevity.
 
Last edited:
*Excellent reply Triple_Se7en , spend the extra $5 per 5 qrt. jug and stay with PPPP , M1 , Castrol EDGE and possibly Valvoline Advanced . Over the course of an OCI - the extra $5 cost is minimal versus the unknown cleaning ability of house brand oils and their affect on GDI engines.
Originally Posted by Triple_Se7en
Originally Posted by RDY4WAR
What do you mean by cleaning ability? The ability to keep the engine clean or ability to clean up a dirty engine? Most all of them perform about the same in terms of keeping an engine clean. The biggest variable in that is you. None of them are designed to remove deposits from a dirty engine. Can they?


They don't perform cleanliness the same. Some house brands mention nothing about cleanliness on jug labels and at their websites.
..... and yes, oils like Pennzoil Platinum remove carbon deposits, up-to 50%, depending on the buildup already existing and the crust factor. The more buildup - the less that can be dissolved by cleaning oils and intake sprays.

Maybe someday we will get pictures of a house brand oil that's been used for 15-18 years and 200+K inside a Korean 2.4 TGDI engine...... Equinox TDGI engine.......etc.
I would love to see a lifetime TGDI engine of Supertech, Costco, Rural King..... heck even NAPA, which I believe is one of the best housebrand oils available today.

I like to read and digest what I read. I like to look at pics and digest what's visible in those pics AND can I believe the picture-taker is telling us the truth. That why currently I rely heavily on what the oil maker tells us on their jugs and in their website. But someday, I will get to see pics of aged vehicles using housebrands under TGDI circumstances, for it's entire engine lifetime.

If / when I see those pics and believe they can improve a TGDI engine, I will start buying the housebrand products.
 
Originally Posted by OVERKILL

One of the only oils I recall there being cleaning claims about was M1 0w-40, where Mobil actually posted before/after cleanup pictures.

While i haven't perused every product offering by every blender/major mfg..here are a few off hand i can recall that claim to not only prevent deposits but also clean up/out existing deposits/sludge.

- Pennzoil Gold
- Castrol Ultraclean
- Mobil 1 HiMi
- Valvoline MaxLife
- Chevron Havoline

Valvoline MaxLife:
[Linked Image]


Mobil 1:
[Linked Image]


Pennzoil:
[Linked Image]
 
Originally Posted by Mad_Hatter
Originally Posted by buster
^ right.

What you generally pay for with the top tier oils from almost all the manufacturers/blenders is better deposit control and oxidation stability which will keep an engine more clean in the long run if exposed to higher temperatures and longer drain intervals.

For sludge, that often depends on the detergent types and particular chemistry used by the brand as well as driving conditions. Castrol apparently has their own proprietary anti-sludge additives used in their GTX Clean oil.

If you look at the additive systems being used in most oils, they are extremely similar in composition.

Castrol doesn't have to disclose proprietary info on a SDS or PDS, like if it's using an ester to help clean. For example Castrol (and others) claim some of their products slowly breakdown existing deposits and hold them in suspension to be filtered out or exited during the next drain. Sounds like to me at least they're using an ester of some sort...

Fwiw..on a related note, Mola' used some high tech equipment once to take a look at Rislone engine treatment and despite Rislone's SDS and PDS making no mention of TMP ester as a slow cleaner, it was in there at a concentration of abt 11% by weight. I suppose lacking access to expensive test equipment all we have to go on is the word of the lube mfg. If they make the claim that their product not only mitigates deposits but also cleans up existing deposits, that I guess means there's some chemistry in place to do this and we are not especially privy to what it is. (the need to know rule ...‚)


Interesting post, thank you...
 
Originally Posted by Mad_Hatter
Originally Posted by OVERKILL

One of the only oils I recall there being cleaning claims about was M1 0w-40, where Mobil actually posted before/after cleanup pictures.

While i haven't perused every product offering by every blender/major mfg..here are a few off hand i can recall that claim to not only prevent deposits but also clean up/out existing deposits/sludge.

- Pennzoil Gold
- Castrol Ultraclean
- Mobil 1 HiMi
- Valvoline MaxLife
- Chevron Havoline

Valvoline MaxLife:
[Linked Image]


Mobil 1:
[Linked Image]


Pennzoil:
[Linked Image]




Thanks.

That last one, I see there's a little superscript note, did you happen to capture what that caveat or qualifier was by chance?
 
Originally Posted by OVERKILL

That last one, I see there's a little superscript note, did you happen to capture what that caveat or qualifier was by chance?

Don't know if you can read it, it's so small but it says "Based on severe sludge clean up test using 5w30"

This screenshot is from the Pennz' PDS and doesn't say what test is the "severe sludge clean up" test.

[Linked Image]
 
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