Impromptu Frankenbrew

[dbias]

Well the oil in my daughters 2016 1.5t Civic got changed yesterday with a frankenbrew that had accumulated over the past year. Now that she has finished college and is back home the civic has been seeing alot less highway miles and alot more city so i went out to check the oil in the brief amount of time that the car was actually sitting still in the driveway lol. (She is constantly on the go, where i dont know but always on the move.) What i found was that for the 1st time in 38k miles i checked the oil and the obvious signs of fuel dilution, oil level had climbed a half inch above the orange plastic tip that indicates low and full. Additionally it smelled like raw gas. if one was blindfolded and asked what the substance they were smelling i bet no one would have said motor oil. It was terrible so i decided to drop the oil immediately and scoured the oil shelf and came up with 1 qt Ravenol 0w-40, almost a full qt of Ravenol 5w-40, (left overs from the Audi) a quart of 0w-20 castrol edge and a quart of 5w-20 Castrol edge. i intentionally left the oil to just below the halfway mark btwn low and full to give me a margin of error to catch it if the fuel dilution starts to rise again.

 

[andyd]

Is fuel dilution a problem for this car? Depending on climate, I would go with 10w30, The Fridge is going onto 5w30 next oil change. It isn't a GDI

 

[dbias]

Yes Honda is having a lot of fuel dilution with the 1.5T engine. There is serious problems with the CRV resulting in a recall of 350k with the same engine

https://forums.edmunds.com/discussi...runs-rich-gas-in-oil-multiple-complaints

 

[oil_film_movies]

Originally Posted by dbias
Yes Honda is having a lot of fuel dilution with the 1.5T engine. There is serious problems with the CRV resulting in a recall of 350k with the same engine https://forums.edmunds.com/discussi...runs-rich-gas-in-oil-multiple-complaints
A recall in China, not here yet. There is a class action lawsuit or two in the U.S. trying to get something done. And not just the CRV, any Honda with that same engine made in the last 2 or 3 years.

Putting in some xw40 is smart. Fight fuel dilution with viscosity to keep it from thinning out too much. (Cool you're using Ravenol, considered one of the best full syn PAO-ester oils around, no GroupIII swill in it.)
And only filling to the halfway mark to leave some room is what I've been telling people to do. Overfill can lead to frothing, bubbles in the oil, from hitting the crankshaft, so best to avoid that.

In the future, you could just put in 0w40 or 0w30 straight for some extra margin, preferably all the same oil of course. With fuel dilution, viscosity will predictably ramp down to a 0w20 or 0w16 over 7k miles, which is fine.

 

[dbias]

Originally Posted by oil_film_movies
Originally Posted by dbias
Yes Honda is having a lot of fuel dilution with the 1.5T engine. There is serious problems with the CRV resulting in a recall of 350k with the same engine https://forums.edmunds.com/discussi...runs-rich-gas-in-oil-multiple-complaints
A recall in China, not here yet. There is a class action lawsuit or two in the U.S. trying to get something done. And not just the CRV, any Honda with that same engine made in the last 2 or 3 years.

Putting in some xw40 is smart. Fight fuel dilution with viscosity to keep it from thinning out too much. (Cool you're using Ravenol, considered one of the best full syn PAO-ester oils around, no GroupIII swill in it.)
And only filling to the halfway mark to leave some room is what I've been telling people to do. Overfill can lead to frothing, bubbles in the oil, from hitting the crankshaft, so best to avoid that.

In the future, you could just put in 0w40 or 0w30 straight for some extra margin, preferably all the same oil of course. With fuel dilution, viscosity will predictably ramp down to a 0w20 or 0w16 over 7k miles, which is fine.


Yeah living in WV it gave a moment's pause about the heavier oil going into winter but as you stated it will probably thin down in no time. The Ravenol RUP 5w40 is one of my favorites. HTHS 3.9 and a 6 NOACK is some pretty stout stuff.
Probably my imagination but it sounds quieter to me and it may well be as the old 0w20 I drained out shot out like water.
I've always been a "right on the full mark" kinda guy so the slightly below half thing goes against the grain of 30+ years of changing my own oil but as you indicated it's for the best until I get a grasp on the fuel dilution. Here in WV we absolutely get all 4 seasons with 100 degree days in the summer and occasionally 20 below in winter so I'll keep a close eye when the temps drop.

 

[Ducked]

Originally Posted by oil_film_movies
[
In the future, you could just put in 0w40 or 0w30 straight for some extra margin, preferably all the same oil of course. With fuel dilution, viscosity will predictably ramp down to a 0w20 or 0w16 over 7k miles, which is fine.


Well, yeh, clearly you could.

BUT you seem to be assuming (since you only refer to the operating temperature number.) that the reduction in initial viscosity (the "0" bit) isn't significant

Is that necessarily the case, bearing in mind that it'll be starting on this skinny, petrol-thinned stuff in the summer too?

There may be circumstances where an oil starting with "0" is a good choice, but I'm unsure that serious fuel dilution is one of them.

(I'm not convinced that 0W16 achieved by petrol dilution is "fine" either, but, since I dunno, I'll leave that aside)

 

[Ducked]

Originally Posted by Ducked
Originally Posted by oil_film_movies
[
In the future, you could just put in 0w40 or 0w30 straight for some extra margin, preferably all the same oil of course. With fuel dilution, viscosity will predictably ramp down to a 0w20 or 0w16 over 7k miles, which is fine.


Well, yeh, clearly you could.

BUT you seem to be assuming (since you only refer to the operating temperature number.) that the reduction in initial viscosity (the "0" bit) isn't significant

Is that necessarily the case, bearing in mind that it'll be starting on this skinny, petrol-thinned stuff in the summer too?

There may be circumstances where an oil starting with "0" is a good choice, but I'm unsure that serious fuel dilution is one of them.

(I'm not convinced that 0W16 achieved by petrol dilution is "fine" either, but, since I dunno, I'll leave that aside)




On second thoughts (and since I should be writing an environmental science course) No I won't.

I don't see above where you get the confidence to state:-

"With fuel dilution, viscosity will predictably ramp down to a 0w20 or 0w16 over 7k miles" even assuming that's OK.

If it can go that low, then it can go lower, and 16 is surely as low as even a skinny oil enthusiast would want to go, especially bearing in mind that this low number was achieved by dilution with blowby rather than by formulation.

I assume that is not how the shiny new 0W16 oils are made. If it were, I'd think they would have been brought to market quite a bit quicker.

 

[dbias]

https://www.lubricants.total.com/fuel-dilution-engine-oil-causes-and-effects

Fuel definitely attacks viscosity and as this article points out when the sump level starts rising not only is this an indication of fuel dilution, but you must also factor in that normally the oil level should have decreased a little bit so the increase on the dipstick may actually be worse than the rise on the stick Indicates.

 

[oil_film_movies]

Ducked, you are really over-thinking this. Fuel dilution thins oil, its a fact. Its not really more complicated than that. .... We've seen lots of UOA's on this website that show it, and how low (visc) these 1.5T Honda, and other makes, of sumps can go with fuel dilution. Simple as this:::::----> Starting out a little thicker in the beginning makes sense, to allow some margin for thinning. ... Maybe you're not considering the many UOAs from others with moderate to severe fuel dilution issues. That might be where you can gain confidence in knowing what happens here.

 

[Ducked]

Originally Posted by oil_film_movies
Ducked, you are really over-thinking this. Fuel dilution thins oil, its a fact. Its not really more complicated than that. .... We've seen lots of UOA's on this website that show it, and how low (visc) these 1.5T Honda, and other makes, of sumps can go with fuel dilution. Simple as this:::::----> Starting out a little thicker in the beginning makes sense, to allow some margin for thinning. ... Maybe you're not considering the many UOAs from others with moderate to severe fuel dilution issues. That might be where you can gain confidence in knowing what happens here.


Obviously fuel dilution reduces viscosity.

My disagreement, again obviously, was with a reduction of a 0W40 to a 0W16 being

(a) entirely predictable over 7000 miles in the absence of UOA

(We don't know the OP is planning to waste money on repeated "monitoring UOA's" which he could more effectively spend on changing his oil.)

(b) "fine"

I'd doubt it'd be "fine" if viscosity reduction was the only effect of dumping loads of blowby in your oil, but it seems very likely that it isn't.

That's not "over-thinking", its just "thinking", unpopular though that seems to be.