2013 Ford Fiesta first UOA

[Spectre32]

Hello All,

Attached is my first ever UOA. I have been running mostly Mobile 1 regular or EP(5W-20). Swapped to Lubrication Engineers 8531 5W-30. This was with a Fram XG Synthetic Filter. I think there is close to 15K on the oil; it was suggested I change out the filter however everything looks to be OK?


Just looking for some input.

Thanks,

Justin

 

[ARCOgraphite]

No TBN, buddy!

Looks OK. Report said 8K service miles which looks right.

 

[JustN89]

Not a whole lot of input to give here IMO. This is an excellent UOA, but it's hard to discuss extending your OCI without knowing where TBN/TAN after 8k miles. Can it go further, maybe so. How much further? No idea. This is a great report though for 8k miles.

 

[Spectre32]

Well the oil is probably closer to 12K in this report. I think I had put down 8K but after looking at data; that is incorrect.

As for TBN...I did not order a TBN testing. The rep I bought the oil off of said his opinion was that TBN while valuable, would not be a factor in my extending of drain intervals unless I wanted to go extremely extended.

Any idea why Magnesium is "high"?

 

[JustN89]

Magnesium is more than likely a part of the add pack in the oil.

Any time you plan on further extending your OCI, TBN will play a key role in determining whether or not that is a wise decision. An oil may say that it is good for X number of miles, a manufacturer may say that their OCI is X number of miles, but there's so much more that goes into it that without getting TBN/TAN, all we know is that the motor oil held up for that specific OCI (in your case, 12k miles) with your specific driving conditions in your specific climate. Next time, I would recommend at least paying for TBN if you want to stretch your OCI even further. Is it absolutely necessary? No, maybe not. However, that would be a decision entirely up to you. There's not many on here who would make any sort of suggestion on interval length without all the pieces to the puzzle.

 

[Spectre32]

Is TBN the only piece of the puzzle I am missing?

 

[JustN89]

Personally, I would pay for TBN and TAN before I decided to extend my OCI. That said, even just knowing TBN will tell you quite a bit about if, and how far, you can extend your OCI.

 

[SatinSilver]

I’d be more concerned abt the trans lasting. Spend money on frequent atf spill and fills. But even those are no guarantee.

 

[Spectre32]

I didn't really think you can change the trans fluid in these automatics.

 

[JustN89]

Originally Posted By: Spectre32
I didn't really think you can change the trans fluid in these automatics.


It's serviceable. Here's a quick "how-to" video.

 

[Dave1027]

This is an awesome UOA especially for 8K miles. Zero aluminum, zero copper and only 8 ppm iron. One of the best UOA's I've ever seen. What oil did you say? "Lubrication Engineers 8531 5W-30" ? Never heard of it.

 

[Dave1027]

Is this the oil? LE 8531

It's $18/qt. More than 3x what I normally pay for oil.

 

[Oildudeny]

That's expensive $117 case of 12.

 

[irv]

Originally Posted By: Dave1027
This is an awesome UOA especially for 8K miles. Zero aluminum, zero copper and only 8 ppm iron. One of the best UOA's I've ever seen. What oil did you say? "Lubrication Engineers 8531 5W-30" ? Never heard of it.


The OP figures around 12,000 miles.

 

[Spectre32]

Originally Posted By: JustN89
Personally, I would pay for TBN and TAN before I decided to extend my OCI. That said, even just knowing TBN will tell you quite a bit about if, and how far, you can extend your OCI.


Valid point; I will run TBN/TAN. The logic behind not getting it up front was based upon data from my oil rep. Next time I pull a sample I will run TBN/TAN.

Originally Posted By: JustN89
Originally Posted By: Spectre32
I didn't really think you can change the trans fluid in these automatics.


It's serviceable. Here's a quick "how-to" video.


Thanks! I will look into this

Originally Posted By: Dave1027
This is an awesome UOA especially for 8K miles. Zero aluminum, zero copper and only 8 ppm iron. One of the best UOA's I've ever seen. What oil did you say? "Lubrication Engineers 8531 5W-30" ? Never heard of it.
Originally Posted By: Dave1027
Is this the oil? LE 8531

It's $18/qt. More than 3x what I normally pay for oil.
Originally Posted By: Oildudeny
That's expensive $117 case of 12.


That is the oil. We use LE in our turbines at work and that was the result of millions of dollars spent of UOAs; far as I can remember we ran just about every oil out there and settled on a LE oil for that particular application. I think their main bread and butter is industrial. I paid $140ish for a five gallon pail of 5W-30 which is a "deal"...I believe it retails around $170ish.

 

[dnewton3]

1) it's a bit confusing to see that the report shows 8k miles, and your first post said 15k miles, but now you say 12k miles ... What's up with that?
2) does not really matter; excellent wear rates here
3) very low contamination
4) the rep is correct and others here are wrong; TBN/TAN is not needed for OCIs out to 15k miles. This whole topic of TBN/TAN is GROSSLY misunderstood by most folks here. TBN/TAN is a PREDICTOR that something may shift in the wear trends. Low TBN is not, by any means whatsoever, a reason to OCI. Your wear rates are great; knowing or not knowing TBN at this point is moot. Knowing TBN in greatly extended OCIs is important because depletion is more apt to be revealed when only make-up oil is used to bolster TBN. That's not the case here. If you were running 30k miles or more, TBN/TAN would be very important to know. I have not seen one shred of evidence in more than 12,000 UOAs that shows any correlation to a low TBN and high wear. I challenge people all the time who make this claim of TBN relevance to show evidence that it matters in today's vehicles with today's lubes; no one ever puts up credible evidence to back up their claims. It's a historical boogie-man effect from days gone by. TBN is not relevant today up to 15k miles.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

Low TBN may not be an issue but NO TBN can be an issue. Ive seen short, cold tripper kill their oil trying to extend oci. Also there are other component. of oil that get used up that are not indicated on the report.

 

[JustN89]

Originally Posted By: dnewton3
1) it's a bit confusing to see that the report shows 8k miles, and your first post said 15k miles, but now you say 12k miles ... What's up with that?
2) does not really matter; excellent wear rates here
3) very low contamination
4) the rep is correct and others here are wrong; TBN/TAN is not needed for OCIs out to 15k miles. This whole topic of TBN/TAN is GROSSLY misunderstood by most folks here. TBN/TAN is a PREDICTOR that something may shift in the wear trends. Low TBN is not, by any means whatsoever, a reason to OCI. Your wear rates are great; knowing or not knowing TBN at this point is moot. Knowing TBN in greatly extended OCIs is important because depletion is more apt to be revealed when only make-up oil is used to bolster TBN. That's not the case here. If you were running 30k miles or more, TBN/TAN would be very important to know. I have not seen one shred of evidence in more than 12,000 UOAs that shows any correlation to a low TBN and high wear. I challenge people all the time who make this claim of TBN relevance to show evidence that it matters in today's vehicles with today's lubes; no one ever puts up credible evidence to back up their claims. It's a historical boogie-man effect from days gone by. TBN is not relevant today up to 15k miles.

While your opinion is certainly reasonable (I even stated extending to 15k is certainly possible) I myself would be hesitant to make such a recommendation without knowing the whole picture. That's for a good reason, as it's not my equipment. All I know from this UOA is that it returns excellent results for the OCI it ran. Anything else is purely guesswork, even if it's an "educated" guess.

 

[Spectre32]

Quote:
1) it's a bit confusing to see that the report shows 8k miles, and your first post said 15k miles, but now you say 12k miles ... What's up with that?


The 8K listed on the report was a mistake. I have an Excel sheet I track everything in as this isn't the only item that receives UOA. I got my numbers crossed and the real interval millage is as listed is subsequent posts: 12K

Quote:
4) the rep is correct and others here are wrong; TBN/TAN is not needed for OCIs out to 15k miles. This whole topic of TBN/TAN is GROSSLY misunderstood by most folks here. TBN/TAN is a PREDICTOR that something may shift in the wear trends. Low TBN is not, by any means whatsoever, a reason to OCI. Your wear rates are great; knowing or not knowing TBN at this point is moot. Knowing TBN in greatly extended OCIs is important because depletion is more apt to be revealed when only make-up oil is used to bolster TBN. That's not the case here. If you were running 30k miles or more, TBN/TAN would be very important to know. I have not seen one shred of evidence in more than 12,000 UOAs that shows any correlation to a low TBN and high wear. I challenge people all the time who make this claim of TBN relevance to show evidence that it matters in today's vehicles with today's lubes; no one ever puts up credible evidence to back up their claims. It's a historical boogie-man effect from days gone by. TBN is not relevant today up to 15k miles.


I plan on running about as long as I humanly can on this oil; that being said a few follow on questions:

When should I change my filter/should I change my filter? What in the UOA would start to change to indicate that a filter change is required?

Should I keep this thread alive and continue to post results or create a new one?

I was going to sample at 20K miles and get TBN/TBA does any one have a suggestions on a sampling interval?

 

[Spectre32]

Just pulled another Oil sample. Had TBN and TAN run as suggested/requested.

Changed the Fram filter out for a Motorcraft one around 15K. Have about 7K on the Motorcraft. Added in about 1QT of make up oil between samples and the filter change out.