GC 0w30, 4300 miles, 2000 Honda Civic

[Patman]

I got impatient waiting for my wife to hit 5000 miles, so I changed the oil a bit early, and here are the results from my wife's 2000 Civic. UOA is from Wearcheck
Canada.


4300 miles on oil
Oct 16-Apr 18 (6 months)
52,000 miles on engine
German Castrol Syntec 0w30
K&N oil filter
Fram air filter
Mostly city driving
4L oil capacity
No top up oil needed


Iron 11
Lead 2
Aluminum 4
Copper 1
Chromium 1
Nickel 0
Titanium 0
Silver 0
Tin 0
Silicon 5
Sodium 0
Potassium 0
Boron 1
Barium 0
Moly 13
Magnesium 122
Calcium 2611
Phosphorus 683
Zinc 961
Sulfur 3325
Manganese 107
Vanadium 0
Cadmium 0
Oxidation 61%
Nitration 46%
Sulfation 44%
Fuel 1.0%
Water 0
Glycol 0
Viscosity at 40c 56.5
Viscosity at 100c 10.9
VI 188
TBN 5.38 (D4739)


The lead number is what I'm most impressed with, as it's the lowest it's ever been by a large margin. This is my first run with GC in this car too, so I expect the numbers to be even lower next time (especially since this run will be in warm weather only) Viscosity thinned out a lot more than I expected, both at 100c and 40c. I almost wonder if it's lab error. They are both about 10 points lower than I expected (I expected them to be 66.5 and 11.9 respectively)


For comparison, here is the last UOA:

code:

---

RP 4900 mi GC 4300 mi

Iron 8.3 11

Lead 9.8 1.8

Al 3.4 3.7

Copper 5.1 1.2

Chrome 0.9 0.6

---

RP was in the car from April 03 to October 03, GC was in from October 03 to April 04.

edit-I decided to round the numbers off after all, and cleaned up the formatting a bit

[ July 15, 2004, 10:52 AM: Message edited by: Patman ]

 

[cryptokid]

why do you awalys change the oil so early in the cars you service? you run top of the line synthetic oils and change them at basically dino oil intervals.
my only comment besides the good wear numbers, is you should think about running a longer oci in all of youre cars, or just switch to dino oil.

 

[Motorbike]

Still looks good and I suppose the fuel was what thinned it down a bit but did not hurt the TBN that bad though .

What was the beginning and ending viscosity of the Royal Purple ?

[ April 20, 2004, 07:05 PM: Message edited by: Motorbike ]

 

[sbc350gearhead]

Maybe some of the left over RP is skewing the viscosity.

Either way......nice report!

 

[Patman]

quote:

---

Originally posted by cryptokid:
why do you awalys change the oil so early in the cars you service? you run top of the line synthetic oils and change them at basically dino oil intervals.
my only comment besides the good wear numbers, is you should think about running a longer oci in all of youre cars, or just switch to dino oil.

---

I don't think I'd see good numbers with dino oil, not in the cold winter, and not with the lead foot that both I and my wife have. I normally run her oil for 5k intervals, so I am not changing it that early. Considering our cold weather here, I don't think once a year oil changes are ideal, so I think a minimum of every 6 months is best. Her oil was in service for just over 6 months here, so it's not like I'm changing it too often. Twice a year is not bad.

On my own car I'm going to be doing 6000 mile intervals, although the next one will be cut short to 3000 miles due to the starting and misfiring problems I had and because of the extra idling time my car spent when in the service bay.

 

[Patman]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Motorbike:
Still looks good and I suppose the fuel was what thinned it down a bit but did not hurt the TBN that bad though .

What was the beginning and ending viscosity of the Royal Purple ?

---

It started at 11.4 and finished at 9.5 on the last UOA.

 

[Patman]

quote:

---

Originally posted by sbc350gearhead:
Maybe some of the left over RP is skewing the viscosity.

Either way......nice report!

---

There should not have been any leftover RP in the engine, because what I did when I switched this car over was put in about 2.5L of fresh GC, ran the engine for 2min, then drained that and put in 4 more fresh L. Anal? Yes. But I wanted to be sure I had close to 100% of this oil in there for the first run.

 

[HOndaGuy]

quote:

---

Originally posted by cryptokid:
why do you awalys change the oil so early in the cars you service? you run top of the line synthetic oils and change them at basically dino oil intervals.
my only comment besides the good wear numbers, is you should think about running a longer oci in all of youre cars, or just switch to dino oil.

---

You have to remember, that this was from the winter season, and changing oil right before and after is the way to go because of the increased wear caused during the winter. Remember, its not always about the miles, rather the time that the oil stays in there. Honestly, I run my 02 civic with 5-6 month intervals(m1 0w20 and m1 filter),and the oil could still go longer. Patman is smart to stay with the synthetics, especially with the time intervals and mileage wise. Nice wear numbers btw. Maybe one day I will get an analysis on my oil when I decide to fork up some cash

 

[ryansride2017]

Patman:

"I don't think I'd see good numbers with dino oil, not in the cold winter, and not with the lead foot that both I and my wife have."

I challange you to take Pennzoil 5W30 or 10W30 off the shelf and give it a try. You might be surprised. I'm not saying Pennzoil will meet, beat or be the same with your previous two samples, but you've tried synthetic oils its time to try a quality dino to make your investigation complete.

BTW, congrats on your low lead number, I've read many of your posts in the UOA section where you say "I'd die for a lead number that low".

[ April 20, 2004, 08:02 PM: Message edited by: ryansride2017 ]

 

[quadrun1]

Great report!

Some of the thinning is undoubtedly due to the 1.0% fuel dilution, no biggie.

Instead of running dino, I'd go to 10,000 km (6,250 mile) intervals--this will be no problem whatsoever for GC!

 

[Al]

Pretty obvious you could have gone lots longer. Fuel dilution is the only weak spot. Is 50% or 100% acceptable limit here:
Oxidation-61%
Nitration-46%
Sulfation-44%
???

 

[427Z06]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Patman:
There should not have been any leftover RP in the engine, because what I did when I switched this car over was put in about 2.5L of fresh GC, ran the engine for 2min, then drained that and put in 4 more fresh L. Anal? Yes. But I wanted to be sure I had close to 100% of this oil in there for the first run.

---

Patman, here's question for you. Aren't your UOAs always going to be lower than other's, all else being equal, since you "flush out" about a 1/2 L of the old oil that's still carrying much of the previous wear particles?

 

[Patman]

quote:

---

Originally posted by 427Z06:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Patman:
There should not have been any leftover RP in the engine, because what I did when I switched this car over was put in about 2.5L of fresh GC, ran the engine for 2min, then drained that and put in 4 more fresh L. Anal? Yes. But I wanted to be sure I had close to 100% of this oil in there for the first run.

---

Patman, here's question for you. Aren't your UOAs always going to be lower than other's, all else being equal, since you "flush out" about a 1/2 L of the old oil that's still carrying much of the previous wear particles?

---

I don't always do that flush procedure though, only on the first run. So on the first run the wear metals would be ever so slightly lower than usual, however on the second run I've noticed my numbers get even lower, even without a flush cycle.

 

[427Z06]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Patman:
I don't always do that flush procedure though, only on the first run. So on the first run the wear metals would be ever so slightly lower than usual, however on the second run I've noticed my numbers get even lower, even without a flush cycle.

---

Good background info, thanks. I'm about to do a couple of OCIs with GC myself, maybe I should try your flush routine to keep my tests comparable to yours.

 

[Patman]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Al:
Pretty obvious you could have gone lots longer. Fuel dilution is the only weak spot. Is 50% or 100% acceptable limit here:
Oxidation-61%
Nitration-46%
Sulfation-44%
???

---

I'm not sure I trust this lab's numbers for these three values though, even Terry has mentioned to me in the past on other reports that they look 2 or 3 times higher than they should be.

 

[Patman]

quote:

---

Originally posted by ryansride2017:

I challange you to take Pennzoil 5W30 or 10W30 off the shelf and give it a try. You might be surprised. I'm not saying Pennzoil will meet, beat or be the same with your previous two samples, but you've tried synthetic oils its time to try a quality dino to make your investigation complete.

BTW, congrats on your low lead number, I've read many of your posts in the UOA section where you say "I'd die for a lead number that low".

---

That's exactly why I'm not going to switch. I've switched around a lot in my cars, and now that I've found an oil that works well, I'm sticking to it as long as it's available. I'm gonna go out and get more this weekend just to be sure my supply is bigger.

 

[wlkjr1951]

Just curious as to how much longer this oil might make your engine last vs. the other oil your were using.

 

[GregH]

Just have a probable ignorant question. But is the Sulphur level not an issue. Not that it would or would not impact the good wear rates. Just curious.
GregH

 

[Patman]

quote:

---

Originally posted by wlkjr1951:
Just curious as to how much longer this oil might make your engine last vs. the other oil your were using.

---

Nobody knows for sure, but with lead levels being almost five times lower, I sure like my chances better with this oil.

 

[Patman]

quote:

---

Originally posted by GregH:
Just have a probable ignorant question. But is the Sulphur level not an issue. Not that it would or would not impact the good wear rates. Just curious.
GregH

---

Canadian gas still seems to contain a lot of sulfur in it and still has MMT too, which is why the rates for sulfur and manganese are higher than you guys in the US are used to seeing.

I spoke to the guy who heads up the lab at Wearcheck and he originally comes from the South Africa branch of Wearcheck and he says the sulfur levels down there were even higher (some in the 10,000ppm range), and did not seem to impact the wear numbers in a negative way.