HIGH COPPER in my 2008 Elantra UOA

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pbm

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I just received my UOA via e-mail that I mailed on 11/22 (and I thought the USPS had lost)....I was alarmed that the copper is so elevated.
The left column is from a 7750 mile run on older SH Pennzoil Performax done in Aug 2015 with 60K on the car. The right column is at the current 86K and a 6875 mile run on older SJ Proline 5w30 dino (which Hyundai allows according to the OM).

I had put this SJ rated oil in at the end of August when my daughter was heading back to school assuming she would only put about 3K by Thanksgiving but...NO...she put almost 7K (sports and nursing clinicals I guess)....that's why I had a UOA done. I only put the readings which changed...if there is nothing listed it's the same as the left column.

I had the timing belt, water pump and serpentine belts changed right before the August oil change.

What are your thoughts on the big jump in COPPER? I don't believe there is an oil cooler on the Hyundai Beta engine which would leech copper...


Thanks



Aluminum: 4 2
Chromium: 2 1
Iron: 6 8
Copper: 1 100
Lead: Tin: Moly: 142 20
Nickel Silver: Titanium: Boron: 45 13
Silicon: 14 7
Sodium: 12 8
Calcium: 2055 211
Magnesium:17 802
Phosphorus: 777 809
Zinc: 973 1080
Barium:
cSt Viscosity
@ 100°C: 11.6 9.9


Coolant: No

Water:(%)
TBN: 2.0 2.4
 
Originally Posted By: old1
Sealer or something from the work done??


That's a possibility....I'll casually ask my mechanic the next time I have work done.....don't want him to get defensive.

I'm wondering if changing oil brands often has anything to do with it.... or maybe the high magnesium formula.......if it were bearing wear I think the lead reading would be higher.

What else would cause only copper to spike?
 
Timing belt change would have nothing to do with the elevated wear metals. Go back to using Pennzoil.
 
Did you change the oil? Or s shop?

I have seen some people use rtv on the flange of oil pan drain bolts. If any ultra copper rtv got on the bolt it might show up. Just a thought.
 
Originally Posted By: spasm3
Did you change the oil? Or s shop?

I have seen some people use rtv on the flange of oil pan drain bolts. If any ultra copper rtv got on the bolt it might show up. Just a thought.


I did the oil change....the only variable is whether or not the mechanic who did the timing belt used a copper type sealer...I'll ask eventually.
 
Weird, cos if the engine does not have an oil cooler with Copper parts, or a turbo with Cu in the bearings, I can't think where it's coming from.
Wild guess but it might be that the oil was incorrectly stored in a drum that was contaminated.
 
Originally Posted By: old1
Sealer or something from the work done??


One of the brake system greases has a lot of Copper in it, so perhaps it got into the oil somehow.

Ahh, I've just remembered that some HG sealants have a lot of Copper in them, so if the coolant has that type of additive it can show up in the UOA if the HG has a pin hole.

PS: The oil in use has no Moly or Boron and I don't use oils that only use Zinc for an AW layer.
 
Can't think of anything that is done during a timing belt change that involves the oil system.

It can't be from direct wear, as the Fe will always jump up when that occurs. The other figures are good, so this is a contamination only issue, BUT that means it could be from the coolant or oil storage issues.The RTV sealant might cause it if it was used on a threaded bolt, but more normal sealants show up as Silicon, not Copper.
 
I would ask them to retest it because of the drastic change in copper. Assume it's a valid number for copper not much you can do other than to retest the next OCI. Certainly ask the mechanic who did the work if they used any grease or antiseize or sealant that might contain copper as the UOA showed elevated copper.

If future UOA show elevated copper and/or lead, you probably have a bearing going south. Not much you can do until it gets a lot worse.
 
Ask the Elantra forum folks if the main crank bearings have Copper in them, because I just remembered that some Greenpeace folks were trying to get the Lead that is used in main bearing alloys banned and one option was to use an alloy that does use Copper (Just like turbo bearings) although it's very rare and they cost more, so is unlikely unless a Greenpeace fan rebuilt the engine.

The OP did not mention any work on the engine that would involve any type of grease or thread locker and I've never heard of anything used on an engine that would cause such a jump anyway. Perhaps the engineer dropped a Cooper washer or wire into the oil filter or oil fill point.
 
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I refilled it with Mobil 1 Supersyn SL 0w30 (for the winter near Rochester NY)....I'll do another UOA in about 7K and let you guys know how it goes...Thanks for the thoughts...

PS: I'm not gonna sweat this too much because I think it's an anomaly due to changing oil brands (types). I was pretty impressed that a 15 year old SJ rated, 99 cent a quart, dino still had 2.4 TBN after nearly 7K (albeit mostly highway miles)...except for the copper, this was a very good UOA...
 
Originally Posted By: pbm
I refilled it with Mobil 1 Supersyn SL 0w30 (for the winter near Rochester NY)....I'll do another UOA in about 7K and let you guys know how it goes...Thanks for the thoughts...

PS: I'm not gonna sweat this too much because I think it's an anomaly due to changing oil brands (types). I was pretty impressed that a 15 year old SJ rated, 99 cent a quart, dino still had 2.4 TBN after nearly 7K (albeit mostly highway miles)...except for the copper, this was a very good UOA...



Copper can't be formed by a chemical reaction, it's either in the engine block or oil cooling system already or it's a contaminant (This engine does not have a turbo which along with an oil cooler is a more normal source).

There are a number of greaes used on various systems like the brakes that have high levels of Copper, BUT I can't think of any sealant that would be used during a normal or cam belt service that has grease in it. The sealants often show up as Silicon.

I think the most likely reason is that at some point in the cars history someone added Copper seal to the coolant to help stop a leak. Not sure how many coolant system additives apart from HG sealers have Copper in them, but that seems the most likely source.
All it then takes is one small pin hole in the HG for the Copper in the coolant additives to cause a jump in the UOA figure.

The UOA shows a bit more Sodium that might be normal (Check the VOA figure) for an anti foaming agent and although the 15 ppm figure was for the last OCI, the pin hole or small crack in the HG might have not started until near the end of that OCI.

Was there any Potassium in the UOA, as that is a good marker for coolant ingress, although not all anti freeze contains it.
 
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PS: The Potassium figure in the UOA should be zero, so if it's more than about 5 ppm, I would keep a good eye on the coolant level and oil quality. Any signs of Mayo on the dipstick, dump the oil.

If you catch an HG failure early it can often be stopped by using both an oil stop leak additive AND an HG sealant. The best ones are the ceramic fine particle sealants, BUT you must get all of the anti freeze out of the cooling system as they react badly with anti freeze. So both the block and heater need to be drained and flushed several times. The instructions then say that the car has to be driven for X miles just after the sealant is used.
Some cheaper HG sealants tend to block the radiator matrix up to some extent and that often results in owners having to remove the thermostat and drive around with the heater full on to help stop the over heating. If that happens the only thing to do is replace the radiator or figure out which acid will burn the sealant out. I got one cleaned up by using battery acid for a rad flush!
 
If that second column of numbers is correct, then that SJ Proline 5W30 has a somewhat strange additive pack. I've seen all Calcium systems, all Magnesium systems and mixed Ca/Mg systems which are roughly 1:1 but nothing that is 1:4 before.

Also the combined Ca + Mg at 1000 ppm looks very low. Ca & Mg detergents tend to stay put in the oil regardless of how long you run the oil so this low figure would give me cause for concern. The implication of a low combined Ca + Mg number is that the oil started its life with a low TBN. And here's the rub. The only time I've seen Copper numbers rise by this magnitude is when you have acid attack as a result of total loss of TBN and AO control. However this is inconsistent with the fact that your used oil still seems to possess some TBN reserve and the KV100 is on-grade (if you had lost all AO control, you would expect this to rise tenfold).

There's one other possibility that comes to mind. Back in the late-90's, Paramins (the then Exxon lube add company) was big on Copper antioxidants. I only know this because there was a big legal bust-up with Exxon successfully suing Lubrizol for infringing its Cu AO patents. This is an SJ oil so may well be blended with some old, obscure DI pack which may possibly contain Copper. If this is the case, then you have nothing to worry about because the Copper isn't coming from your bearings or radiator but was in the oil from the moment you added it.
 
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Interesting post as I did not know any oil company had used an additive that has Copper compounds in it.

When you analyse a UOA, it is essential to have both the VOA of the new oil and a set of universal averages from the same type of engine.

I did not notice the Ca was so low and I agree that the oil in use is not a good one in both detergent and AW additive terms.

PS: The PQIA has 2 VOA's of ProLine and PROLINE (Seems to be 2 different companies) 5w30 and neither oil has any Cu in their VOA.
 
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Originally Posted By: SonofJoe
If that second column of numbers is correct, then that SJ Proline 5W30 has a somewhat strange additive pack. I've seen all Calcium systems, all Magnesium systems and mixed Ca/Mg systems which are roughly 1:1 but nothing that is 1:4 before.

Also the combined Ca + Mg at 1000 ppm looks very low. Ca & Mg detergents tend to stay put in the oil regardless of how long you run the oil so this low figure would give me cause for concern. The implication of a low combined Ca + Mg number is that the oil started its life with a low TBN. And here's the rub. The only time I've seen Copper numbers rise by this magnitude is when you have acid attack as a result of total loss of TBN and AO control. However this is inconsistent with the fact that your used oil still seems to possess some TBN reserve and the KV100 is on-grade (if you had lost all AO control, you would expect this to rise tenfold).

There's one other possibility that comes to mind. Back in the late-90's, Paramins (the then Exxon lube add company) was big on Copper antioxidants. I only know this because there was a big legal bust-up with Exxon successfully suing Lubrizol for infringing its Cu AO patents. This is an SJ oil so may well be blended with some old, obscure DI pack which may possibly contain Copper. If this is the case, then you have nothing to worry about because the Copper isn't coming from your bearings or radiator but was in the oil from the moment you added it.



SoJ and Ultrafan:

Thanks for your informative replies....these are the kind of posts I was hoping for. I have a half qt. of this Proline oil left so I may do a virgin UOA to see if it contains copper.
Prior to the Proline I ran an older SJ rated '76' brand 10w30 (last summer). As you can see, it may be part of the reason for the 1:4 calcium/magnesium ratio.

This is what Terry Dyson said about the 76 oil several years ago:

"For the fella that was interested in the 76 lubes older formula we tested. Relies on dipserants and not detergents for longevity. Lab was Amsoils old OAI lab.


V100C 10.6 cSt

TBN 5.7

si 2
b 13
mg 196
ca 574
p 574
zn 809


Interesting oil and it performed well in a 2.9 I 6 Volvo S80 test engine."

Terry


PS: This Elantra doesn't use any oil in the my typical 5 to 6K run...because I never know how many miles to expect from my daughter, I plan on using synthetic from now on as a precaution.

Thanks again guys.
 
I just wanted to give an update....I had a VOA done on this oil and SonofJoe is correct...the VOA showed 86 ppm of copper.....apparently I used an oil with this Paramins additive package which used copper anti-oxidants.


We are lucky to have such knowledgeable people as SoJ on this site....
 
Just out of pure curiosity, I did a bit of Googling to try and find out what this copper additive was.

It seems it was invented by two old Exxon colleagues of mine; Terry Colclough and John Marsh. Give that the patent was filed in 1989, these guys are now either happily retired or have gone to The Great Laboratory In The Sky!

Several copper compounds are mentioned in the patent...

Copper Oleate. Fairly simple stuff where you react C18 oleic acid with copper hydroxide.

Copper Dialkyl Dithio-Phosphate. This is an analogue of common Zinc Dialkyl Dithio-Phosphate (ZDDP)

Copper Dialkyl Dithio Carbamate. This is an analogue of common Moly Dialkyl Dithio Carbamate (MoDDC).

The patent gives a clue as to why these copper compounds were initially successful but ultimately disappeared . Whilst they were pretty good antioxidants, anything over 100 ppm of copper in oil caused a significant increase in wear. As wear specs tighted up over the years, I suspect copper compounds were displaced by Moly which is both a brilliant AO and good on wear.

Interesting stuff!
 
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