Red Line 5w30, '94 Civic VTEC, 7100 miles

[wwalter]

Hi all,

Here's the latest, for those curious about Red Line oils.

Interval: 7100 miles, November through mid-April.
Vehicle miles: 287900.

Make-up oil: About 3 quarts (pan gasket leak contributes to loss, but how much?)

Oil filter: PureOne, normal size (I forget the part number)

Lab: Blackstone.

Misc.: Numbers are not wonderful, but this was a hard interval--Several months' worth of slogging through rush-hour traffic around D.C. for about 2 hours/day. My clutch also seems to have suffered and seems on its way south after only 45K or so (usually get c. 100K/clutch). Brake system also recently overhauled. Nasty.

code:

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5.6K OCI / 260K 2.5K OCI/ 268K 7.1K OCI/288K

Red Line 10w30 mystery 5w30 RL 5w30

Aluminum: 3 5 5

Chromium: 1 2 2

Iron: 10 6 14

Copper: 4 2 4

Lead: 4 1 5

Tin: 1 0 0

Molybdenum: 535 85 576

Nickel: 0 0 0

Manganese: 1 0 0

Silver: 0 0 0

Titanium: 0 0 0

Potassium: 11 7 5

Boron: 22 14 18

Silicon: 23 14 16

Sodium: 23 10 31

Calcium: 3171 2244 2786

Magnesium: 10 8 8

Phosphorus: 1154 924 1204

Zinc: 1365 1086 1236

Barium: 0 0 0

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I've used RL most of the car's life, but only have 2 analyses. The short dino interval in between the 2 RL changes was to check if the replacement head gasket was intact. (Actually, there were at least 2 such intervals; I also Auto-RXed in there somewhere.)

Na is kind of high, but the comments from Blackstone say no antifreeze was found. TBN was 3.6, possibly as a result of adding so much oil.
SUS visc. @ 210: 64.8, somewhat thickened
flashpoint: 425
fuel: insolubles: 0.5%

Edited to improve formatting...

Andy

[ May 02, 2004, 06:26 PM: Message edited by: wwalter ]

 

[GSV]

287900 miles ?

And you're still doing UOAs

Fix the pan gasket and change your filter more often and you could probably tell more from this.

How does it drive with that kind of mileage? I've taken 2 trucks and 1 car that far. The trucks (Toyota) handled it a lot better than the car (Saab).

 

[Last_Z]

What does that Civic hold....4-4.5qts? You replaced almost 75% of the oil in the sump....results are skewed. They look good, but most likely inaccurate.

 

[andyfish]

quote:

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Originally posted by Last_Z:
What does that Civic hold....4-4.5qts? You replaced almost 75% of the oil in the sump....results are skewed. They look good, but most likely inaccurate.

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Civics hold 3.7 Qts of this vintage.

 

[Schmoe]

Gadzooks!!!! 3.7 quart capacity and you've added 3 quarts? You GOT PROBLEMS. No wonder the oil analysis looks so good. The sodium probably comes from this past winters salting and sanding from where your at.

 

[Not the Autorx Frank]

yeah thats a lot of consumption! I would auto rx the begeebers out of it and fix the gasket then see if the consumption comes down a bit....

 

[andyfish]

quote:

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Originally posted by Not the Autorx Frank:
yeah thats a lot of consumption! I would auto rx the begeebers out of it and fix the gasket then see if the consumption comes down a bit....

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Realistically that consumption or leakage is not that horrible. That about a quart every 2300 miles. Some new cars do worse and its considered acceptable by manufacturer. The bad part is synthetic is expensive per quart especially as add oil. In my own situation with a newer Civic we add 1QT/1500 miles. Since dino oil is about $1.08/QT its still cheaper to add oil than address especially at 160k miles.

 

[Not the Autorx Frank]

yeah but what about the driveway?

 

[wwalter]

GSV,

Actually, I've really just begun doing UOA, mainly to see if I can get some idea of how long the thing will run. The reason I no longer face the commute from **** is that I was laid off, and since I'm still not working, it looks like I'll be keeping the car a good bit longer now. I haven't really reached any conclusions from analysis so far, and may not continue sampling, at least not regularly.

It still drives OK, really. I think the suspension needs work, but the struts turn out to be insanely expensive to replace so I haven't done it yet.

andyfish, Schmoe, Not-the-Auto-RX,
The oil consumption increased markedly around 265K, from about 1 qt./4000 miles before that. Around the time of the new head gasket, actually, but also about the time I ran Auto-RX (2 bottles) through it. I change my own oil, and I noticed at some point shortly after that time that my oil pan was dented in a bit on the bottom. Then I noticed the leak. I suspect both may be collateral damage from the head gasket work.

Fortunately, the oil just collects and gunkifies on the front vertical face of the pan; I get no stains on the garage floor.

Andy

 

[Schmoe]

If your oil pan has a new fangled dent in it, then it hit something hard and may have loosened the pan itself. Crawl under there and see if some of the pan bolts are loose and tighten the be-jesus out of them. May help. But if your not showing oil in your drive way, then you may be losing it when the engine gets up to pressure. Not good. In any event, torque'em down.

 

[jthorner]

quote:

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I'm still not working, it looks like I'll be keeping the car a good bit longer now

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You might as well use a less costly motor oil, especially considering the consumption rate.

John