In reply to Brokeback (Matt) :
Looking at those results, there's nothing that stands out. All the important things are in line with what you'd expect to see. The old Navistar motors are tanks, but they always showed small signs of wear that would concern a gas engine IMO. That base number, if my calculations are close should have started around 8-ish on the used method, so you're barely scratching the surface on longevity there. You could easily stertch that to 24 months on the interval. They're "less than one is not recommended" is ... naive. You want to start watching it at 50%, change at 25%. Base number doesn't drop evenly throughout it's life, and once you get it to a point, that will start to accelerate. So I'd recommend a change at around 2 on this oil.
In reply to z31maniac :
It doesn't make monetary or even mental sense in most cases. You change on a fairly normal interval, people don't keep their cars long enough to build that long term trend to catch a failure before it happens, and honestly its not worth the money. But... and this is why I started all this, if you've got a racecar that you beat on and want to monitor or determine the right time to change, that would be a great option. What does an E46 M3 engine run nowadays? Doing one $40 sample per season to catch it before it goes critical might just be worth it.
I don't do it for every vehicle, but I really like oil analysis in the right situation.
I bought a very nice 20 year old turbo car; potentially reliable, but also potentially troublesome.
I immediately changed the oil, took a sample and sent it off to the lab. The results were very favorable, so then I knew that I had a car that I could fairly safely invest more time/money/effort/love into. As I added miles to the car, I sent off samples with each subsequent oil change, and got good results at each one.
When it came time to sell the car after three and a half years, I was able to go way beyond "yeah... I changed the oil every 5000 miles..."
Here's the data. Look at it. I started with a good car. See the dates and mileage on the reports? Check out those results. Pretty solid car, eh?
When I listed that car through a marque specific Facebook group, I sold it for my full asking price to the first guy who came to see it. He didn't even try to negotiate. He had data to confirm that he was making a solid investment.
I spent maybe $150 total on oil analysis, and it was worth every penny.
I've used them for the same purposes that Woody does - what's the condition of the car I own? A few years ago, I was making a decision on which car to keep - our '06 Rav4 with 200k+ or my '01 Mustang GT with 307k on it. The RAV4 came back with a sparkling oil analysis at 200k+ (no surprise, I'm the original owner), but the Mustang's showed concerning levels of wear (also not a huge surprise at 307k). So that made the decision to sell the Mustang that much easier, and I gave the buyer the Blackstone report when he was asking about Mustang, so I knew they knew what they were getting into. In all fairness, I sold it back to the original owner's son-in-law at a price where the drivetrain could blow up, and he could part it out and make double what he paid for it.
I typically run one oil analysis per year per vehicle to make sure there are no major changes in condition that would change how I would invest (time/money) in the car. With a higher-mileage fleet, I figure it's good insurance.
Bobzilla - is there a thread that details how to run an oil analysis through you? If not, I can reach out by PM.
In reply to dj06482 (Forum Supporter) :
This was the start. You can PM me here, Send me an email at the racersoilanalysisresource@gmail.com or text, but PM/Message me for that.
