How many of us do oil analysis?

Kinda curious. Wae's thread on milky stuff got me thinking. I know quite a few of us do. 

If you do, do you know what you're looking at? I don't mean the silly comments Blackstone uses, or the bland/boring Oil Analyzers/Polaris stuff.  I mean do you know what it's telling you?

Since I'm bored, and I have training and certs still thanks to my previous employer I'll throw this out there: If you got one, and you want an explanation, post it up. I'll give you as much as I can from the report. 

Gotta do something with this knowledge. IT's just going to sit here and clog up useful space anyway.

I'm not sure any explanation is really required/possible here with a single analysis and a low mile engine, but I'm game.

I do kind of wonder if PHEV stop/start operation is something that would be expected to result in higher fuel percentages showing in oil analyses.  I had taken pains to road the car with the engine running for a good half hour before taking the sample.

I'd guess it was a 20W oil. Looks pretty solid, vey low wear. The downside with BS is they don't actually measure fuel content. They use the flashpoint and a formula to determine an estimate. Other labs will run a GC (Gas Chromotagraphy) to measure the physical amount of fuel present. start/stop engines notoriously have more fuel present but the modern oils (0-20 especially) handle a lot of fuel before it becomes a problem. 

I do only for one car. I just sent the oil for analysis Monday so I should have a new one with more data next week. 

Regarding whether I know what I am looking at, no. I just concentrate on two parameters, the rest I honestly ignore and its most likely the reason the engine will fail lol. 

Bob - I have gotten a baseline report when I buy higher mileage used cars. I got this report after 20k additional miles as a curiosity. I'd love to know if you see anything of interest -  thx

edit: looks like I did second test after 10k 

bobzilla said:

I'd guess it was a 20W oil. Looks pretty solid, vey low wear. The downside with BS is they don't actually measure fuel content. They use the flashpoint and a formula to determine an estimate. Other labs will run a GC (Gas Chromotagraphy) to measure the physical amount of fuel present. start/stop engines notoriously have more fuel present but the modern oils (0-20 especially) handle a lot of fuel before it becomes a problem. 

Yeah, it's the BMW labeled 0W-20 oil.  Thanks!

I'll play.

In reply to Slippery (Forum Supporter) :

Curious what engine and oil this is. There were sone serious lead spikes in sone of the older samples that are curious. Overall the last few samples look pretty decent from what I can see. Love to know what was going on with those older samples. 
 

for all: if the report does t show, let me know the engine and oil used. 
 

In reply to OHSCrifle :

Has there been work in this engine? Anything resealed like oil pan or cam covers or anything? Other than either gasket maker seepage or a little extra dirt ingression the wear looks great. 

on gas engine oils base number(or tbn) is very helpful to determine oil life. Think of it like a gas gauge. The longer in use the more it decreases. Once it gets to a certain point it can no longer neutralizer the acids engines create while running and can start to increase wear. Getting maximum oil life is a fine balance of low base and low wear. 

I just bought a 195,000 mile sequoia and thought about using a company to sample oil for the first time. I have seen Blackstone used here frequently, is there a better place? I was also thinking I would do the first few oil changes to get a baseline. 
also, I'm in the middle of a couple of thousand miles of rv towing, so I sort of expect this oil change to be different- worth starting out with this batch of oil or no? 
thank you!!

Let me just air this.... I loathe BS test packages. Insolubles in a gasoline engine oil is a pointless test. Flashpoint doesn't answer much and is not a great barometer for fuel dilution. Not measuring base number or oxidation to determine oil condition is just terrible. What they're really offering is a basic wear and contamination package that doesn't answer the question "how is the OIL doing". 
 

ok.... back to it. Parker: 385k and it's consistent. When this engine finally fails, it'll be a fatigue failure and not a wear failure. I had a customer that did uoa religiously on a delivery van for 450+k miles. He bought it with over 200k on it. It threw a rod through the block in Oregon a week after his sample came back. Every sample for 3 years was perfect. But like everything, there's a limit. Those rod bolts decided 700k miles was it. (4.8 gmc express van). This report reminds me of that one.  It'll be perfect until it isn't!

This is fun. If you got one you don't want to share with the class message me or send me a direct email. I'm good with that 

In reply to bobzilla :

thanks! The car was new to me for the first test. Nothing resealed during my ownership.  No idea what oil was used prior but I ran Pennzoil 0W-20 full synthetic between first and second UOA. 
 
Now I'm curious. Why would TBN be blank?

Edit:  if not Blackstone- who?

In reply to bobzilla :

Give me a min. I am on my phone and did not want to put my info. I will wdit it out in a min and send the rest. BMW 10W60 - BMW S54 ('04 M3)

It's like Bob is the oil guy

ba dum tissss

OHSCrifle said:

In reply to bobzilla :

thanks! The car was new to me for the first test. Nothing resealed during my ownership.  No idea what oil was used prior but I ran Pennzoil 0W-20 full synthetic between first and second UOA. 
 
Now I'm curious. Why would TBN be blank?

Blank means it's not being tested. IIRC they outsource base number, acid and Karl Fischer water testing to my former employer. 
 

id have been reprimanded/fired for this 3.5 months ago! 

grover said:

I just bought a 195,000 mile sequoia and thought about using a company to sample oil for the first time. I have seen Blackstone used here frequently, is there a better place? I was also thinking I would do the first few oil changes to get a baseline. 
also, I'm in the middle of a couple of thousand miles of rv towing, so I sort of expect this oil change to be different- worth starting out with this batch of oil or no? 
thank you!!

As much as I disliked the way my former employer treated me and my fellow employees, their service is good. Amsoil had a good private label program they run through POLARIS labs. They are a little more expensive than buying them direct but for the one or two samples they work well. If it's something you see yourself doing go straight to Polaris and get their 10 pack. It works out to about $17 a sample. 
 

for a tow vehicle it's a good practice imo. Make sure they're testing oil properties: viscosity, oxidation/nitration, fuel dilution and base number. Those will tell you if you're overworking the oil itself and not just show wear and contaminants. 

Total pita, but edited 

Regarding the spikes, lead and copper is what I monitor. This is the reason:

These engines are notorious for needing bearings at around 100k. Mine probably got exacerbated by me tracking it on race tires. 

No, never have.  

On my Alfas, the head is the weak point- the bottom end is super tough.   On my Miata, I never bothered, even when it's up at 200k.

No other car I have matters- they are leases and not mine.

I do UOAs on everything.  On the DDs I do it to figure out the right change interval.  I did every one on the CLS63 as that motor has a weakness (head bolts) that can be cought by doing so.  The NSX I do just because.  The race car (Civic with k24) I do to keep an eye on things as this lives life between 5k-7k and at full throttle.  
 

The only one I have on my phone is from the Civic.  We did this after we won a race by 1.3 seconds, so I was beating it for everything it was worth. It got a little hot at the end and wouldn't idle well for a bit, until it had cooled off, so I wanted to check that it had no major issues that the compression check didn't see.  
 

I notice reports here show a lot or very little Molybdenum. Is this an oil additive or from the engine? Good, bad or indifferent? . 

Moly is a friction modifier iirc. It's an additive. Newer Diesel engine oils use higher amounts of moly and boron/borates and less phos/zinc and calcium. 

In reply to Sonic :

Once again I am underwhelmed by the report. On a race engine especially you need to be monitoring the oil properties and less the wear. Those oil properties are what tell us whether we are using the right oil or it's getting baked. Since they're trusting the flash point and viscosity reading it could be masking an issue. Oxidation increases will increase the viscosity while fuel dilution will lower it. So you can have fuel (which you should have around 2-3% if you were flogging it that hard) and cooking the oil but you won't know because the two problems cover each other up. Not saying that is what's happening here, just want to emphasize you get the right testing for what you're trying to figure out. 
 

tht used to be the #1 question I'd ask customers when they asked me what testing they should get. My response was always "what questions are you trying to answer?"  If you just want to monitor wear, simple testing with the elemental analysis and viscosity is fine. Extended drain intervals? You need a bit more than that. It isn't a magic 8 ball and really doesn't work for what a lot of people want it to do. I told lots of folks to not waste their money because we weren't going to answer their questions for what they needed. 

In reply to Slippery (Forum Supporter) :

Copper by itself isn't necessarily bad. It's a soft metal and a lot of oil coolers use copper. Diesel engines are notoriously high copper values. The oil film sticks to the metal To provide protection. Duh. It's what oil does. When you change that out with new tht later of old oil comes free and with it molecules of that soft metal. It's not wear, just a leaching effect into the oil. The icp instruments detect the presence of copper because it's actually there, but it's not there as wear. 
 

edit: you also used a different oil at 95k or they were having instrument issues. Your zddp and calcium are about 15% lower. I'm guessing same oil but they had inst calibration issues. 

In reply to bobzilla :

Thanks for the heads up on Polaris Labs. I've studied  the subject a lot - having planed to keep a few different trucks long term. But something always came up, and didn't keep long enough to get there. Never got as far as doing a baseline on anything; wasn't ever sure enough on wo to use. I'll prolly start, so I can help ya have fun!

This year I bought a babied 03 F350 diesel from the original owner with 133K miles. I hope to keep it a very long time.So this is great timing.

bobzilla said:

In reply to Slippery (Forum Supporter) :

Copper by itself isn't necessarily bad. It's a soft metal and a lot of oil coolers use copper. Diesel engines are notoriously high copper values. The oil film sticks to the metal To provide protection. Duh. It's what oil does. When you change that out with new tht later of old oil comes free and with it molecules of that soft metal. It's not wear, just a leaching effect into the oil. The icp instruments detect the presence of copper because it's actually there, but it's not there as wear. 
 

edit: you also used a different oil at 95k or they were having instrument issues. Your zddp and calcium are about 15% lower. I'm guessing same oil but they had inst calibration issues. 

At 95k is probably when I swapped the bearings and there was quite a bit of Redline assembly lube in there. I actually told them that so there would not be any surprises. I always used them same oil. 

Thanks for all your insight!