Originally Posted By: Shannow
Oil RO207 8.4Cst virgin, 15.9Cst at 15,000 miles
Oil RO243 8.7Cst virgin, 15.3Cst at 15,000 miles
Oil RO208 8.3Cst virgin, 17.1Cst at 15,000 miles
I stand by the condemnation statement.
A fair observation but let's keep in mind the focus of the test and the paper... studying wear at different point in the life of the oil. Take note of the wear metal, iron in particular, which remains low. But let's look at what the testers had to say in SAE 2001-01-4133:
"ENGINE OIL ANALYSIS
The elemental oil composition, viscosities and other properties are shown in Tables I-III. The iron content of the oil remained fairly low even for the 150000 mile drain oil. Aluminum and iron wear metals were mostly lower than the target limits of 50ppm and 100 ppm, respectively for all oil drains including 15000 miles. In RO242 oil, the amount of boron in the fresh oil depleted quickly probably due to volatilization. The viscosity increased to some extent as the oil drain interval increased but a significant increase was noticed for 15000 mile intervals. Similar substantial change was noted for TAN and TBN numbers. However, there are some inconsistencies observed in the data; (a) no Mo was present on fresh RO207 but it appeared on all drain samples, the source of which is unknown, (b) the P content in RO207 is expected to be in the 950 ppm range, (c) the 40C viscosity of 3000 mil drain RO208 oil seems to be higher than expected, and (d) the calcium content in fresh RO243 is higher than expected. These issues are currently being investigated."
That is the the gistof the comments in the paper about those oil samples, though there are the data charts for each oil you cited.
I think the focus of that part of the test is found in the wear metals, not the viscosity, and I think they knew the oil was run out past what would normally be done. Since AFAIK Conoco was supplying oil to Ford at the time, Ford/Motorcraft all parties probably looked at this with some interest on many levels. Other than the one "experimental" oil they cited, I'll bet they were ordinary Conoco/Motorcraft oils.
My comment was more in the nature of "that oil looked pretty good for 15K miles" that it was was to say it was still in great shape. I have run some OCIs out that long and the oil looked much better those, including viscositywise... but those tests were done prior to 2007 and mine may have been better oils. Most definitely in an easier operating environment than mine. A taxi in Las Vegas? Oh the horrors! That's a tough environment and viewed in that context, one must acknowledge the oil did pretty good.