AMSOIL AEL 5w-30, Cruze diesel, 10,000

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Dec 13, 2002
Messages
2,528
Location
North Carolina
This is AEL in my diesel Cruze at 10k miles with the AC Delco oil filter. (wish they made a better filter for this vehicle), the UOA before it was at 5k miles, the two UOA's before that were RLI's low ash 5w-30.

 
As for a better filter, Wix and Fram ToughGaurd oil filters should be a bit better than the all-cellulose AC-Delco.

Wish we know the average for that engine. Iron might not really be too high if thats just what that diesel does. Soot does have a way of liberating metal from surfaces. Not excessive in all likelihood.
 
Looks like it is on target compared to the other 10k run.
I think I might do 7500. Mile changes instead. Did they offer any written statements?
 
Originally Posted By: oil_film_movies
As for a better filter, Wix and Fram ToughGaurd oil filters should be a bit better than the all-cellulose AC-Delco.

Wish we know the average for that engine. Iron might not really be too high if thats just what that diesel does. Soot does have a way of liberating metal from surfaces. Not excessive in all likelihood.


Not much of a "good" selection of filters out there. Fram makes only the Extra Guard filter. Wix is just a basic Wix, not an XP.
 
Actually, the wear rate is pretty darn consistent overall. Double the miles = double the Fe metals. In theory longer OCI should reduce your wear rates; but this engine series is new enough that I don't have data on it. It may "flatline" the wear rather than drop slightly. But, the accumulated metals are not nearly high enough to be dangerous by any stretch. I don't see any harm in the 10k mile OCI; going to 1/2 that isn't going to reduce wear. Your data is direct proof of that. What were Terry's thoughts?


As for the filter, if you can get a Wix (95% at 20um) that's a decent filter and you don't need the XP anyway. (There is unresolved questions surrounding the beta data of the XP, and at face value I'd not want to use one). But the typical Wix/NG is a very good filter; decently efficient and cost effective for 10k miles.
 
Last edited:
Here is a summary of what Terry Suggested.

1) wear control decreasing, not wear I want to see in bearings and pistons at 10,000 miles. Stanadyne, water and fuel to blame.

2) what oil filter in use this run AC? It may not be filtering out water as well as it needs to.

3) elevated water content 2X higher than it should be and hypermiling may not be getting enough heat in engine.

4) Stanadyne may be too high a treat rate @ 4 ounces to 15 gallons of fuel. Why I stopped recommending it years ago, it's too solvent and strong and hard on softer metals. Iron highest ever too. SN tin trace very problematic if we are wearing into bearing overlay.

5) AEL is not a great protector of soft metals and allowing elevated acids growth. Water makes that even worse.

6) RLI would be my first pick. LE and Schaeffers are alternates. I am not against Amsoil but in 10,000 miles it's allowing more wear than I want at this seasoned 46,000 miles.

Look forward to your input, does Amsoil make a tougher oil that we could experiment with if you prefer not to use the suggestions above?
 
Renewable Lubricants may have excellent products and I have used their bio booster additive previously. It should be noted they have Terry Dyson's name on their website and advertise for his oil analysis. I guess when saw renewable lubricants as his first pick-it triggered a memory that he had business involvement with them while he still posted on BITOG. I think it is important to understand potential biases of any opinion from the person giving you that recommendation.
 
Originally Posted By: Rat407
Here is a summary of what Terry Suggested.

1) wear control decreasing, not wear I want to see in bearings and pistons at 10,000 miles. Stanadyne, water and fuel to blame.

2) what oil filter in use this run AC? It may not be filtering out water as well as it needs to.

3) elevated water content 2X higher than it should be and hypermiling may not be getting enough heat in engine.

4) Stanadyne may be too high a treat rate @ 4 ounces to 15 gallons of fuel. Why I stopped recommending it years ago, it's too solvent and strong and hard on softer metals. Iron highest ever too. SN tin trace very problematic if we are wearing into bearing overlay.

5) AEL is not a great protector of soft metals and allowing elevated acids growth. Water makes that even worse.

6) RLI would be my first pick. LE and Schaeffers are alternates. I am not against Amsoil but in 10,000 miles it's allowing more wear than I want at this seasoned 46,000 miles.

Look forward to your input, does Amsoil make a tougher oil that we could experiment with if you prefer not to use the suggestions above?



Terry does not wish to have his comments posted here.
 
Originally Posted By: Brons2
Originally Posted By: Rat407
Here is a summary of what Terry Suggested.

1) wear control decreasing, not wear I want to see in bearings and pistons at 10,000 miles. Stanadyne, water and fuel to blame.

2) what oil filter in use this run AC? It may not be filtering out water as well as it needs to.

3) elevated water content 2X higher than it should be and hypermiling may not be getting enough heat in engine.

4) Stanadyne may be too high a treat rate @ 4 ounces to 15 gallons of fuel. Why I stopped recommending it years ago, it's too solvent and strong and hard on softer metals. Iron highest ever too. SN tin trace very problematic if we are wearing into bearing overlay.

5) AEL is not a great protector of soft metals and allowing elevated acids growth. Water makes that even worse.

6) RLI would be my first pick. LE and Schaeffers are alternates. I am not against Amsoil but in 10,000 miles it's allowing more wear than I want at this seasoned 46,000 miles.

Look forward to your input, does Amsoil make a tougher oil that we could experiment with if you prefer not to use the suggestions above?



Terry does not wish to have his comments posted here.


Well ....
That cat is already out of the bag. That genie isn't going back in the bottle, either.


Rat47 -
You paid for the advice from Terry, are you second guessing his approach?

I, for one, would disagree with Terry here in some aspects at least. i'll be specific ...

Why does he call out these metal levels? He states "wear control decreasing"? I beg to differ here; the wear RATE is darn near flat; double the miles is double the metals. Those metals are not really anywhere near a condemnation for accumulated totals, so why does he call this out? Cutting the OCI from 10k back to 5k will NOT reduce your wear rate; the data is right there in front of you, and him!

The TBN/TAN hasn't even flipped yet! The acid is below the base, and by a substantial margin still. Hasn't ever even come close! I've seen acid crossover base many, many, many times and never seen any harm come of it. Here you're way below inversion at 10k miles, and he's concerned about acid?

Further, I don't know of any common oil filter that's going to filter out "water". Some cellulose filters have the ability to absord minor amounts of moisture, but that's not a lube-filter's job anyway.

He may or may not be right about the Stanadyne; I'm not a chemist. Terry has a lot of experience in this regard; most of it military as I understand the history told to me by others. However, if the fuel additive is the issue, if the treat rate is not right, they why is he talking about changing the oil brand?

What info does he have that AEL is "not a great protector of soft metals", but yet recommends RLI, LE and Schaeffers?



Here's my recommendation ... (since you came here and shared Rat47, you must agree that you asked for the input from all of us)
Ditch the boutique lubes and go get something that meets the Dexos2 (I presume that is the correct spec). Use the GM fluid for a cycle or two. Use a larger brand name for a cycle or two. See where that leads you. As for the fuel additive, don't go changing things all at once, or you'll never know what works and what does not. If you want to alter the Stanadyne, then don't go swapping oil brand just yet!

As much as I've come to respect Terry, I don't understand where his head is at here. Actually, you should ignore both me and him; read the DATA! What does the DATA tell you?

I see flat wear rates, base/acid well in control, and moisture that no normal filter is going to remove.

But hey, I'm just a guy reading a UOA for what it is.
 
Last edited:
dnewton3, thanks for the extra info.

I understand what you are saying. I listen to Terry because other UOA's I sent him pointed to issues with our other vehicles and we were able to catch a problem before it got big. One was on our Cruze 1.4. That UOA was showing something was wrong and not sure exactly but took the vehicle to the dealer and they found a bad intake check valve and a cracked PCV hose. Who knows how long it has been running with those issues but the UOA was definitely showing something wasn't right.

I know the the fuel add might have been off, but I went with was was on the label for how much to mix. Probably could have just reduced and see what happened next. I just cut it out all together this go round.

I also should have probably stayed with the AEL to see how it would trend but switched it up for a different oil this time and will keep with it after the UOA's to come to see how it works out.
 
Originally Posted By: Rat407
Here is a summary of what Terry Suggested.

1) wear control decreasing, not wear I want to see in bearings and pistons at 10,000 miles. Stanadyne, water and fuel to blame.

2) what oil filter in use this run AC? It may not be filtering out water as well as it needs to.

3) elevated water content 2X higher than it should be and hypermiling may not be getting enough heat in engine.

4) Stanadyne may be too high a treat rate @ 4 ounces to 15 gallons of fuel. Why I stopped recommending it years ago, it's too solvent and strong and hard on softer metals. Iron highest ever too. SN tin trace very problematic if we are wearing into bearing overlay.

5) AEL is not a great protector of soft metals and allowing elevated acids growth. Water makes that even worse.

6) RLI would be my first pick. LE and Schaeffers are alternates. I am not against Amsoil but in 10,000 miles it's allowing more wear than I want at this seasoned 46,000 miles.

Look forward to your input, does Amsoil make a tougher oil that we could experiment with if you prefer not to use the suggestions above?



Thanks for posting this, we were using Stanadyne too, and that was my concern, what effect was it having on the oil. If Stanadyne is too solvent and strong, maybe you could use something with less solvent and detergent-based?

I saw this in Oreilly's, and was thinking of trying it. We live on a farm and have tractors. We were using Stanadyne as well, but, I was concerned about using it all the time with the solvents.
The Peak additives are claiming to be detergent-based, it caught my eye in the description that it says it extends the lube oil life. Maybe because it isn't so high in solvents that would break down the oil otherwise?

https://www.peakhd.com/product/diesel-fu...jector-cleaner/

https://oreillyauto.com/detail/peak-4561...dasdb16/4609981
 
Looks like something to give a try and see what happens to the UOA's. I think my problem was over treatment. Instead of continuing at a lower dose I just stopped. I know it doesn't help out others that might want to try it to see if things improved.

I was also looking at RLI's diesel treatment.

RLI Bio-Power Summer Diesel treatment
 
dnewton3, because Tin only comes from deep in the bearing races. This is why Terry is making his recommendation. Notice the RLI never let the bearings take a hit at 10,000. 2PPM of Tin is not healthy, at least long term wise.

A filters job is part of filtering out liquid contaminants to some extent, fuels dilution and acid control is highly dependent on the filter used. The WIX XP is likely the best in the market. In back to back UOA's on the RC F(a big time diluter) using the OE filter vs XP resulted in lower EGRed residuals, FD and acid.
 
Originally Posted By: spiderbypass
Renewable Lubricants may have excellent products and I have used their bio booster additive previously. It should be noted they have Terry Dyson's name on their website and advertise for his oil analysis. I guess when saw renewable lubricants as his first pick-it triggered a memory that he had business involvement with them while he still posted on BITOG. I think it is important to understand potential biases of any opinion from the person giving you that recommendation.



I agree spiderbypass on bias but I've tested RLI on hundreds of vehicles and short of their non HD formulas, I haven't seen an oil under $100/gallon that could out perform BioSyn. Back when Terry was still working with me, I used to have my suspicions about his affiliation to RLI and ultimately that loss of trust is why our relationship ended. It wasn't until I started doing my UOAs solo in Ferraris, Lambos, GTRs, every day daily drivers & diesels that I started to see RLI stomp on oil after oil, time and time again. Joe Gibbs, Motul, Amsoil, Redline, Mobil, Elf, Brad Penn, Penn Grade, random blenders and so many more just could' compete with RLI. Sad thing, one of the last times we spoke, he was explaining to me, that he could formulate an oil twice the standard BioSyn set. I'm still grasping that other than the base stock not being composed of any GIII and some changes to the add pack would drastically improve it.
 
Weird. I would think that an NC summer would allow ample time for the moisture to burn off. All parties have mentioned it, but the real question is why?

Pretty sure the diesel does not have a PCV system, given that it has no manifold vacuum to use for it. You mentioned you suspected hypermiling , but what part of it?

Seems your engine needs some good hot runs on the highway, or else consider your moisture and sodium may be coolant working its way in.
 
That "moisture" or water the KF is reading is not entirely water. It'll actually read polymers, fuel additives, molecular bond stretches and some other concepts I don't fully grasp.

There are only four people(across the US) I've ever met that understand what Karl Fischer is actually reading and it has to do with how the instrument works. Terry being one of them, but he never fully explained why as at the time I was working with him, I didn't know the difference between GII and GIV. Fast forward to today and it all makes sense.

The KF PPM reading is an overall indicator of the engine's fueling state. When used in conjunction with the fuel % by GC and nitration values from the FTIR, you can see some interesting things. O2 sensors, timing conditions, rich/lean conditions, total spark function, etc.
 
I am completely out of my league with regards to truly understanding an oil analysis. I imagine the Chevy Cruze diesel has a dpf and likely requires a mid saps oil, which is often a dilemma because higher saps oils often show less wear. Looking at the raw data-I was impressed Amsoil's 5w30 AEL held it's own in comparison to the much stronger additive package of RLI especially when you look at the 10000 mile runs done previously with RLI.

Whenever I think of Terry I immediately think of Molakule because they were basically two of the founding father's of this website-both with incredible knowledge and pardon a Star Wars analogy-strong with the force. I view Mola as a true Jedi and Terry as more of a Sith. One using knowledge to empower others and the other using knowledge to empower himself opportunistically.
 
I have a question for some smarter people than me...What would BioSyn's higher SAPS of 1 have on our emissions equipment. Dexos2 only allows .8. Thank you for any insight anyone can give.

Michael
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top