Originally Posted by GaryPoe
Im not sure what to think about this one. 5000 miles on the oil and I checked it and was just touching the stick, so I changed next day. It was 1.5 quarts low when changed/sampled. She usually takes it to 20% oil life left on the monitor, Im guessing equals around 7500 miles and it has always been maintained by the dealer, and I have never checked the oil so Im guessing it has been ran very low on oil several times "but no oil lamp". There was some warm up/idle time but not much. My wife drives moderate/heavy footed. 95% city. Changed to M1EP 5w30 and planning on 5k mile oci from now on. Any advice/suggestions?
Your iron wear rate is high even for GDI engine. Based on 568 samples from BlackStone, the rate is 5.7ppm per/1000m, and 2.5ppm/1000m for the same non-GDI engine.
Your fuel dilution is actually above 3%, which is where the above normal wear rates occur. See attached pic of the spreadsheet.
Make sure you have the most current OLM calibration. GM changed it back in 2012/13 because it was resulting in higher than normal OCIs. You can take it a dealer to have them check and update. They should not charge for it.
Looks like your oil viscosity is starting to thicken, normally the fuel will thin it out, but over time it will breakdown and start to thicken.
I would use an oil with high TBN and boron amount. Your boron originally was 105, and has depleted by about 80%. On my Equinox, this is consistant and seems to be buffer for the fuel dilution. I recently switched to Amsoil SS which has 374ppm of boron, and TBN of 12, and viscosity of 10.