Mobil 1 extended performance 0w-20 10,594mi 2010 FJ Cruiser 103,444mi

[oil_film_movies]

Thanks for the encouragement jag/overkill/jltd, appreciated. When I'm wrong I'm sure I'll get hammered, but the reader is owed the truth & diff opinions.
Originally Posted by Ducked
Those graphs, and your comment, seem to imply that the pattern of TBN decline is vehicle, rather than oil, specific.Why would that be? If it is, it is, but I'd have thought it'd be mostly the other way around
You're right, it's mostly the style of driving cycles, like hot/cold cycle times, highway driving, stop-n-go, etc. that influences oil life. Various engine types are different too, like sump size, oil cooling circuits, you know. .....All factors. .... "Vehicle A" in the graphs probably had different driving cycles than B or C there, and I'm just guessing that "A" was the most similar to the FJ Cruise, just a guess. In any case, A, B, or C, all with different driving cycles and/or engines, all show TBN slowly decaying near the end of a the oil change interval.

 

[oil_film_movies]

Originally Posted by Cgates
Would a fram ultra be a better choice than the trd? I do believe there is a fram ultra available for the 2010 tundra v8, which is the size filter i am using.
A '10 FJ Cruiser only comes with a 4L V6, and it's cartridge oil filter is shorter than the one used in Tundra V8 engines. How do you get a longer Tundra V8 oil filter to fit in the Cruiser's oil filter housing?

 

[Ducked]

Originally Posted by oil_film_movies
Thanks for the encouragement jag/overkill/jltd, appreciated. When I'm wrong I'm sure I'll get hammered, but the reader is owed the truth & diff opinions.
Originally Posted by Ducked
Those graphs, and your comment, seem to imply that the pattern of TBN decline is vehicle, rather than oil, specific.Why would that be? If it is, it is, but I'd have thought it'd be mostly the other way around
You're right, it's mostly the style of driving cycles, like hot/cold cycle times, highway driving, stop-n-go, etc. that influences oil life. Various engine types are different too, like sump size, oil cooling circuits, you know. .....All factors. .... "Vehicle A" in the graphs probably had different driving cycles than B or C there, and I'm just guessing that "A" was the most similar to the FJ Cruise, just a guess. In any case, A, B, or C, all with different driving cycles and/or engines, all show TBN slowly decaying near the end of a the oil change interval.


Here's an "idealised" TBN change-plot from Polaris Labs. I say "idealised" (kinder than "fake") because there are no points, and the curve doesn't show any "noise", in sharp contrast to the TAN values, which I'd guess are real test data accumulated from a diesel fleet, so may show inter-vehicle variation.

(I don't understand that apparent clear "wedge" free of TAN values when they first start to up-tick. There's no explanation of it, or the graph, in the article.)

Anyway, the TBN shows a gradual decline until it reaches a point of inflexion where its running out of buffer capacity, and it "falls off a cliff". This is what you'd expect, and may be "typical" behaviour.

https://www.machinerylubrication.com/Read/2170/oil-drain-interval-tan-tbn

The article that its from suggests TBN/TAN crossover as the condemnation limit, a common rule-of-thumb. This may correspond to the 65% TBN depletion also shown. Its hard to say because they dont fit a line to those extremely noisy TAN points.

TBN/TAN crossover seems a fairly arbitary reference point, isn't universally accepted, and you can only use it if you have TAN values, which, if they're as noisy as those ones are, may not be very useful.

Commercial condemnation TBN values seem to go down as low as 1, so apparently falling off that cliff isn't necessarily fatal

https://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/2698779/2

 

[Cgates]

Originally Posted by oil_film_movies
Originally Posted by Cgates
Would a fram ultra be a better choice than the trd? I do believe there is a fram ultra available for the 2010 tundra v8, which is the size filter i am using.
A '10 FJ Cruiser only comes with a 4L V6, and it's cartridge oil filter is shorter than the one used in Tundra V8 engines. How do you get a longer Tundra V8 oil filter to fit in the Cruiser's oil filter housing?



Good catch....im using a different cartridge housing that accomodates the larger filter. The stock one is a shorter plastic piece, and the one im running is longer and aluminum, from some other toyota v8 application.


Thanks for your detailed answers to my inquiries!

 

[dnewton3]

TBN and TAN are nearly meaningless in today's modern engines with modern lubes.

Show me a graph where TBN/TAN actually has a correlation to wear trends, and more importantly actual causation, then I'll give a darn.

I've seen lots and lots of UOAs (including some of my own) where crossover happened, and not one wear metal was affected negatively or positively.

TBN and TAN are PREDICTORS that something MIGHT go wrong in the future. They ARE NOT a reason to condemn a fluid; that's ol' skool thinking based on outdated concepts with no data to back them up. When TBN is low, and/or or crossover happens, it's POSSIBLE that wear metals may escalate because the acidic nature may start to pit certain metals, especially ones in engines that sit idle for months on end. However, close crankcases, modern lubes, fuel injection, etc all make a much cleaner crankcase with low moisture content. These TBN related topics are misunderstood by most all BITOGers.

Want me to to believe it matters? Show me studies of causation in modern equipment, because outdated charts from decades ago are meaningless. I cannot even find correlation between TBN/TAN and wear trends. If there is no correlation, then causation cannot exist.

 

[oil_film_movies]

About TBN, dnewton3 and Ducked, all true. I see TBN as kind of a canary-in-the-coal-mine thing. A warning that pentane insolubles PIN (sludge, deposits, other evil chemistry) could accelerate soon. It can be seen in the graphs I pasted here above. Notice PIN jumps up when TBN gets low. Degradation signs. Actually a rise in viscosity all by itself, due to oxidation (minus VII breakdown effects), is a pretty good indication your oil is beginning to fail.

 

[addyguy]

Without re-hashing everything, I agree with those that say don't go more than 15-16k.

Yes, the oil may survive more , but it will get ugly near then end.

On a solid truck like this that we have seen is worth some $$, I just don't understand pushing an oil as far as possible.

 

[tig1]

Stick with the M1 0-20EP. My 2007 Fusion with 231K(all on 20 wt M1 and most of it with 0-20) runs like new and still looks very clean even at 10K OCIs.

 

[Ducked]

Originally Posted by dnewton3


Show me a graph where TBN/TAN actually has a correlation to wear trends, and more importantly actual causation, then I'll give a darn.



Dunno if you'd expect one, because accelerated corrosion would probably only happen when the base is almost exhausted, so there isn't likely to be a direct llinear relationship between TBN and wear.

Similarly, AN isnt usually described as measuring the corrosiveness of oil. Its generally considered as detecting oxidation, and so may predict sludging and varnish.

This article

https://www.machinerylubrication.com/Read/100/ph-test-tan-tbn

claims their pH measurement technique predicts corrosion (which would probably show up as wear in an elemental analysis) but theres no data with it and I'm not clear if it was applied to engine oil analysis. Might have been turbines or other industrial contexts.

 

[bbhero]

Originally Posted by JAG
oil_film_movies: great posts. You've been making some great ones lately on topics I would have responded to, but I didn't post because I thought you covered it very well.


^^^^^^^

Agree on this.

 

[joekingcorvette]

Originally Posted by addyguy
Without re-hashing everything, I agree with those that say don't go more than 15-16k.

Yes, the oil may survive more , but it will get ugly near then end.

On a solid truck like this that we have seen is worth some $$, I just don't understand pushing an oil as far as possible.


I have to agree with this.

 

[Cgates]

Im not going to push it on this particular fill, esp since i did not do a filter change, and left over a quart of old oil in there.

In the next few days, new filter, and 6 fresh quarts of mobil 1 EP.

Ill post photos of the TRD filter element too

 

[millerbl00]

Remember a UOA cant show everything. Vanish can cause problems especially with timing chains and timing chain tensioners. Oil is cheap engines not....

 

[Cgates]

I put these in the filter forum too, but this is the filter from this particular analysis. 18k on the filter

 

[Linctex]

Originally Posted by Cgates
I put these in the filter forum too, but this is the filter from this particular analysis. 18k on the filter


That looks like an extremely well-made filter

 

[Gokhan]

Originally Posted by Cgates
Definitely planning on continuing with the M1 EP, although may change up viscosity to see how things change. I am in CA, so 10w30 shold be no problem I think.

Why do you want to try thick and sacrifice performance if you already have the perfect UOA?

Also, only the M1 EP 0W-20 is PAO -- thicker grades are not, meaning you can't go as long with them.

 

[tig1]

Originally Posted by Gokhan
Originally Posted by Cgates
Definitely planning on continuing with the M1 EP, although may change up viscosity to see how things change. I am in CA, so 10w30 shold be no problem I think.

Why do you want to try thick and sacrifice performance if you already have the perfect UOA?

Also, only the M1 EP 0W-20 is PAO -- thicker grades are not, meaning you can't go as long with them.

EP 0-20 is a blend of base stocks, not 100% PAO. Maybe 60% or so.

 

[Doublehaul]

FWIW I run Fram ultras for 2x 10k OCIs and always have. My insolubles etc are always non-existent.

I had 2 company cars in 2014-15 that had the Subrau Fb25 in them. I ran M1 EP to a UOA verified 15k oci and changed the filter every other time so going 30k on it.

 

[JLTD]

Originally Posted by Cgates
Originally Posted by JLTD
FWIW, TBN depletion is not linear.



What would a typical depletion curve look like?


The graph posted above is interesting...there is another set of posts on here where they sampled every 1k (IIRC) and the TBN was up and down throughout the OCI. Apologies for not having the link for you.

 

[Gokhan]

Originally Posted by tig1
Originally Posted by Gokhan
Originally Posted by Cgates
Definitely planning on continuing with the M1 EP, although may change up viscosity to see how things change. I am in CA, so 10w30 shold be no problem I think.

Why do you want to try thick and sacrifice performance if you already have the perfect UOA?

Also, only the M1 EP 0W-20 is PAO -- thicker grades are not, meaning you can't go as long with them.
EP 0-20 is a blend of base stocks, not 100% PAO. Maybe 60% or so.

It says 60 - 70% PAO. 20 - 25% is the additive package. So, only 5 - 20% is the other base stocks with 5% in that being the mineral-oil additive solvent.

The important point is that none of the other viscosities have anywhere nearly as much PAO and some of them have no PAO at all. Speaking of the TBN retention, they won't come close to the M1 EP 0W-20 as a result because of the slower oxidation, which means slower oxidation-induced acid formation, of PAO.