Looks like M1 EP 5w30 formulation has possibly changed.

[OVERKILL]

Their marketing is poo. They aren't making the argument for oil that doesn't oxidize and controls sludge extremely well. IMO that has been the real magic of M1 Full Synthetic (the old school poa/poe). So many more engines fail because of sludge and deposits clogging something or freezing the piston control rings.

If a gp-III has a theoretically better wear package or can uses better wear modifiers or whatever i think its irrelevant. All motor oil can prevent enough wear to last an engine to extremely high mileage. The deposits and sludge will kill it way sooner if you let your motor oil turn to sludge, varnish or deposits.

Group III is more than capable of handling extended drains, its oxidation resistance isn't much worse than PAO, where PAO has a significant advantage is cold temperature performance.

When Mobil reformulated M1 0W-40 with VISOM (their proprietary Group III product) there was only a slight hit to one of the tests, and the results were still MASSIVELY better than your market general synthetic. The reason being is that there's significantly more to an oil's performance than just the base oil blend.

Oils are a balancing act, and, for most doing that act, making the most money is a big component. The API limits don't set the bar all that high and so you aren't going to see products targeting Joe Average being formulated for the best possible performance, cost be ****ed. This is also why the majors have tiers of products that are all approved, but clearly ratchet up the level of performance offered and the price commensurately.

 

[aquariuscsm]

As I study the most current uoas here, M1 is no longer producing high iron wear metals and no longer making engines noisier per forum posters. Whatever it is they've done to polish there product is definitely working. M1 uoas are producing the lowest wear metals and people are reporting quiet running engines. I was going to grab a jug of EP 5W30 yesterday for my next oil change, but it was all sold out. Plenty of regular M1 5W30, so I may grab a jug of that.

 

[buster]

I will say this with confidence, XOM is a master blender/formulator. One thing I've noticed over the years from everyone I've talked to or interacted with when it comes to oil is that XOM's Mobil 1 has always been a very well formulated product, usually ahead of the curve. Even the Russians on the OilClub noticed this.

I've seen oxidation testing between M1 and PP from a few years ago and M1 was significantly better. That was using a blend of III/IV/ANs.

I was told XOM is also using BASF AO's now.

 

[OVERKILL]

As I study the most current uoas here, M1 is no longer producing high iron wear metals and no longer making engines noisier per forum posters. Whatever it is they've done to polish there product is definitely working. M1 uoas are producing the lowest wear metals and people are reporting quiet running engines. I was going to grab a jug of EP 5W30 yesterday for my next oil change, but it was all sold out. Plenty of regular M1 5W30, so I may grab a jug of that.

As you know, that's not the purpose of UOA's, despite the desire to use them in that manner. There is an overwhelming tendency to read far too much into what we can glean from cheap UOA's (particularly Blackstone ones without proper fuel dilution measurements) and draw spurious conclusions, let alone the fact that nobody appears to have the discipline to properly trend them, nor, really, would that be practical for the price. It's also unreasonable to expect people to be able to perform the requisite tear-down testing to actually validate performance.

Not trying to single you out, but these sorts of statements have been all too common over the years, using minute variances in PPM to condone or condemn, depending on which way the wind is blowing, certain oils and it truly is an abuse/misuse of the tool.

 

[Revving2Redline]

As I study the most current uoas here, M1 is no longer producing high iron wear metals and no longer making engines noisier per forum posters. Whatever it is they've done to polish there product is definitely working. M1 uoas are producing the lowest wear metals and people are reporting quiet running engines. I was going to grab a jug of EP 5W30 yesterday for my next oil change, but it was all sold out. Plenty of regular M1 5W30, so I may grab a jug of that.

You'll get what Walmart or the parts stores give you LOL. Some people report that their stores are packed with oil and others are having a hard time finding what they are looking for

 

[aquariuscsm]

As you know, that's not the purpose of UOA's, despite the desire to use them in that manner. There is an overwhelming tendency to read far too much into what we can glean from cheap UOA's (particularly Blackstone ones without proper fuel dilution measurements) and draw spurious conclusions, let alone the fact that nobody appears to have the discipline to properly trend them, nor, really, would that be practical for the price. It's also unreasonable to expect people to be able to perform the requisite tear-down testing to actually validate performance.

Not trying to single you out, but these sorts of statements have been all too common over the years, using minute variances in PPM to condone or condemn, depending on which way the wind is blowing, certain oils and it truly is an abuse/misuse of the tool.

The way I've always interpreted and read used oil analyses was that if there's a large presence of wear metals in the oil, something's got to be causing that phenomena. Whether it's the oil, condition of the engine, driving habits, etc. I know no tests are 100% accurate. I study analyses from different various companies (Blackstone, Polaris, etc). I've never come to the conclusion that "engine noise", "high iron", etc are the end all be all of engine wear, but me being a layman in this regard, it's the best information I have available to me .

 

[Revving2Redline]

I will say this with confidence, XOM is a master blender/formulator. One thing I've noticed over the years from everyone I've talked to or interacted with when it comes to oil is that XOM's Mobil 1 has always been a very well formulated product, usually ahead of the curve. Even the Russians on the OilClub noticed this.

I've seen oxidation testing between M1 and PP from a few years ago and M1 was significantly better. That was using a blend of III/IV/ANs.

I was told XOM is also using BASF AO's now.

So the ruskies are telling the truth? Apparently over here they get blamed for everything they didn't do with disinformation.

 

[aquariuscsm]

You'll get what Walmart or the parts stores give you LOL. Some people report that their stores are packed with oil and others are having a hard time finding what they are looking for

Haha heck yeah, no doubt!

 

[OVERKILL]

The way I've always interpreted and read used oil analyses was that if there's a large presence of wear metals in the oil, something's got to be causing that phenomena. Whether it's the oil, condition of the engine, driving habits, etc. I know no tests are 100% accurate. I study analyses from different various companies (Blackstone, Polaris, etc). I've never come to the conclusion that "engine noise", "high iron", etc are the end all be all of engine wear, but me being a layman in this regard, it's the best information I have available to me .

Remember, spectrographic analysis samples only a very narrow window of particle sizes, which means it won't catch large wear particles. On top of that, chemical chelation, which esters cause, will also artificially increase numbers for certain metals.

"Large presence" needs to be qualified, I don't think I've ever seen a "large presence" with any of the "normal" UOA's on this site. The difference between 8 and 20ppm of iron for example, is not statistically significant but that's exactly the kind of minutiae that gets leveraged to condemn/condone.

What's valuable is trends over time. So, say for example you have an engine that, typically, trends 2ppm Fe per 1,000 miles and all of a sudden it is 10ppm per 1,000 miles, that might be a prompt to go looking for what is causing that. If silicon has also come up, you may have an air intake tract leak for example.

And you always have to distill it down to PPM per 1,000 miles too. If you recall Doug Hillary's trending of Delvac 1 5W-40, his condemnation limit for iron was 150ppm, but these were typically 90,000km (56,000 mile) OCI's, so you have to use that context; you have to always view it through the lens of ppm per 1,000 miles, and that's what you track when you trend UOA's, to spot statistically significant variation.

Reading too much into the only information we have available doesn't make it the "best" information This leads to the drawing of spurious conclusions, false hopes and irrational decision making. Understanding the limitations of the tool is essential in knowing how to properly use the information it provides, which is why I always point fresh arrivals inquiring about UOA's to Doug's article, as he had millions of miles of fleet testing data that was paired with tear-down analysis that supported the regimen he was following for ExxonMobil.

@kschachn can probably elaborate further, as he has some significant lab time with this equipment and understands its limitations quite well.

 

[buster]

So the ruskies are telling the truth? Apparently over here they get blamed for everything they didn't do with disinformation.

hahaha not necessarily but one of the main guys over there who has the oils tested seems fairly knowledgeable and impartial to brand.

 

[PWMDMD]

...if there's a large presence of wear metals in the oil, something's got to be causing that phenomena. Whether it's the oil, condition of the engine, driving habits, etc.

Within the required minimum grade and certs required by the manufacturer and the required OCI, when have you EVER seen evidence that ANY appropriate oil was the cause of "a large presence of wear metals in the oil"? Serious question. I have never seen any evidence that with oil A wear metals are high but with oil B they are low when two appropriate oils are compared in the same engine. Never.

 

[dihi22]

As I study the most current uoas here, M1 is no longer producing high iron wear metals and no longer making engines noisier per forum posters. Whatever it is they've done to polish there product is definitely working. M1 uoas are producing the lowest wear metals and people are reporting quiet running engines. I was going to grab a jug of EP 5W30 yesterday for my next oil change, but it was all sold out. Plenty of regular M1 5W30, so I may grab a jug of that.

I supposed since they are UOA that whatever is on the shelf right now is this new goodness. I ran out and bought 2 from my local wally world, just because the word is out on bobistheyoilguy that Mobil 1 5w-30 EP is the new favorite (move over 0w-40 Euro). I wanted to beat the rush...

Its the old bottle (non triple action) But its IS SP grade. It was just put out today at the WallyWorld, the shelf has been bare. I bet these were just sitting in some dam box in the back...

 

[travis8352]

I will say this with confidence, XOM is a master blender/formulator. One thing I've noticed over the years from everyone I've talked to or interacted with when it comes to oil is that XOM's Mobil 1 has always been a very well formulated product, usually ahead of the curve. Even the Russians on the OilClub noticed this.

I've seen oxidation testing between M1 and PP from a few years ago and M1 was significantly better. That was using a blend of III/IV/ANs.

I was told XOM is also using BASF AO's now.

What are BASF AO's?

 

[aquariuscsm]

Within the required minimum grade and certs required by the manufacturer and the required OCI, when have you EVER seen evidence that ANY appropriate oil was the cause of "a large presence of wear metals in the oil"? Serious question. I have never seen any evidence that with oil A wear metals are high but with oil B they are low when two appropriate oils are compared in the same engine. Never.

Search through the uoas from maybe the SM days till present.

 

[PWMDMD]

Search through the uoas from maybe the SM days till present.

I'm not going to waste my time. I have never seen a situation where all things else being equal someone ran oil A and Fe+2 was 350ppm and then they switched to oil B and it was 8ppm. We have people here making wild claims because Fe+2 was 12ppm last run and it's now 9ppm so that's a better oil. This idea that oil can have this kind of profound effect and that a UOA can be used to determine oil B is clearly better than oil A is what is most often abused on BITOG.

 

[OVERKILL]

I'm not going to waste my time. I have never seen a situation where all things else being equal someone ran oil A and Fe+2 was 350ppm and then they switched to oil B and it was 8ppm. We have people here making wild claims because Fe+2 was 12ppm last run and it's now 9ppm so that's a better oil. This idea that oil can have this kind of profound effect and that a UOA can be used to determine oil B is clearly better than oil A is what is most often abused on BITOG.

Bingo.

 

[CarfriendXX]

I think bitog is still very humane here, there is much more really technical information here than elsewhere where it goes about engine oil. If you read some self-proclaimed experts in German forums, they sometimes take 1ppm of iron better than the better oil. This justifies, for example, that Ravenol oils are worth their price. One must also not forget that many come from a long interval to the oil forum and accordingly have a high wear in an analysis with hard long oil use. Now they suddenly make short intervals and clean the engine and pull analyses which are better. They already think they have found the better oil. It is very amusing to follow some smarters, especially in Germany, one thinks that the large oil companies have to do their lessons again.

 

[MolaKule]

...Anyhow, just trying to see what opinions people have about this recent revision...

As an illustration, go check your Peanut Butter's ingredients. Peanuts, salt, sugar, vegetable oils (one of more of the following): cottonseed, rapeseed, soybean.

What they are telling you is that the vegetable oil is or maybe one or more of the oils listed (could be a mix). Much of this is driven by the supply of which vegetable oil type is available at the time of manufacture.

The PB manufacturer is not asking your opinion of the mix of oils nor does it care what you think of the one or more mix of oils.

 

[wemay]

As an illustration, go check your Peanut Butter's ingredients. Peanuts, salt, sugar, vegetable oils (one of more of the following): cottonseed, rapeseed, soybean.

What they are telling you is that the vegetable oil is or maybe one or more of the oils listed.

The PB manufacturer is not asking nor does it care what you think of the one or more mix of oils.

Excellent analogy.

 

[tyman]

As an illustration, go check your Peanut Butter's ingredients. Peanuts, salt, sugar, vegetable oils (one of more of the following): cottonseed, rapeseed, soybean.

What they are telling you is that the vegetable oil is or maybe one or more of the oils listed (could be a mix). Much of this is driven by the supply of which vegetable oil type is available at the time of manufacture.

The PB manufacturer is not asking your opinion of the mix of oils nor does it care what you think of the one or more mix of oils.

Ingredients:​

Peanuts, Contains 1% Or Less Of Salt.

/scratches chin