Citgo Synthetic 5w30 (SL), 7117 miles, '99 Ford F150 4.6L V8

[MNgopher]

The details:

Truck: 1999 Ford F150 Supercab Flareside 4x4
Engine: 4.6L 16V SOHC V8
Tranny: 4 Speed Automatic
Oil Filter: Purolator Pure One
Air Filter: Fram (in use for 19000+ miles). Not happy with the "new and improved" design of this filter in terms of fit in the air box, but see the UOA results below. This filter looks trashed at this point, but again, see the results below.

Driving: 60/40 Highway/City. No towing this period. 750+ miles of gravel road gravel Road driving.

Weather: From October '05 through March '06 in Minnesota, a bit warmer than usual. Still a good number of below zero mornings and days to test the oil a bit.

Analysis: Blackstone
Cit=Citgo Synthetic 5w30
Rot= Shell Rotella T Synthetic

code:

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Oil: Cit Cit Rot Rot Univ.

Avg.

Grade: 5w30 5w30 5w40 5w40

Date: 3/06 10/05 6/05 1/05

Mi on Oil: 7117 6267 6117 6132 4400

Mi on Unit:134195 127078 120811 114694

Make Up qt:1.5 1.0 1.0 0.5

Aluminum 6 4 5 4 3

Chromium 1 1 1 1 1

Iron 22 14 22 18 14

Copper 3 7 4 5 6

Lead 0 0 0 0 1

Tin 0 0 0 0 0

Moly 33 23 10 6 54

Nickel 2 1 2 1 1

Managnese 0 0 0 0 1

Silver 0 0 0 0 0

Titanium 0 0 0 0 0

Potassium 0 5 0 0 1

Boron 0 1 0 1 51

Silicon 9 9 12 10 16

Sodium 4 4 6 4 7

Calcium 2471 2196 3460 3322 2169

Magnesium 9 8 14 10 161

Phosphorous831 756 1117 808 745

Zinc 997 938 1267 1022 898

Barium 0 0 0 1 1

Vis 10.8 10.8 13.5 13.7 TBN 2.4 2.5 3.0 3.1 Flash 425 400 410 400 Fuel 0 0 0 0 Glycol 0 0 0 0

Water 0 0 0 0

Insolubles 0.4 0.3 0.4 0.5

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So, I went 1000 miles further than I intended. With the extra mileage and winter weather, I've got no complaints on this UOA. For the $3.00 a quart oil (last time I bought it on sale anyways), looks pretty good for what is assumed to be a group III synthetic oil.

No problems with cold starts either. Worked fine on my 6.5 year old OEM Motorcraft battery.

Make up is higher running the 5w30 versus the 5w40, but still below 1 qt per 3000 miles, which is where this engine has historically been in its life.

The Fram air filter looks absolutely trashed at this point. Likely one of the dirtiest filters I can ever remember pulling of this truck! You couldn't tell from the UOA!

I'll be replacing the filter with something besides a Fram soon due to my percieved feeling of a poor fit in the airbox. Again, the UOA may not bear that out, but what can I say?

I put in Citgo Syntheic 5w30 for the next run. This batch is also the SL variety. The new SM variety had arrived at the store the last time I purchased it, so this will be my last run on the SL flavor.

 

[lobo11]

Looks really strong to me, I like Citgo oils for the money and wish they had a better distribution in my area.

 

[MNgopher]

Mods: Any Chance you can correct my formatting goof? Makes it kind of tough to read!

 

[lobo11]

I don't think Citgo is sexy enough to get many responses, but I think that may be their own fault for thier poor distribution in many parts of the country. Valvoline AC is another oil that gets few responses in this forum-- especially when the report looks good. If this report showed poor numbers with the Citgo you would see the same thing--the haters would be out proclaiming that Citgo uses crappy basestocks and loads up on VIIs to get PP, etc. Oh and what do you expect with a grp III synthetic, you know grp III's can't run with the big boys. Keep posting I enjoy seeing the lesser used oils.

 

[427Z06]

MNgopher, why not include your 5w20 data too? Once the mods fix the formating here, there looks to be plenty of room for it.

Thanks for sharing.