The Oil Thread

josby

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I'm really surprised at the viscosity of your sample. We've seen Mobil 1 samples come back with lower viscosity after less mileage. I'd be very curious to see a sample of that oil new to see if it actually is a 0w20. One question, do you drive mainly expressway?
Yeah, I'm kind of surprised too. That's the first time I've used Amazon Basics oil. The previous ones were all lower, and they were (in order) Valvoline Synthetic, Mobil 1 Extended Performance, and Mobile 1 Advanced Fuel Economy.

No, not mainly expressway driving. I'd say about 60%. My driving wasn't much different than for the previous oil intervals either. Maybe a little more highway due to a few summer trips out of town. My overall MPG has been 35.9, but for the duration of that oil interval it was 36.4, so that's probably also due to a little more highway. But still, nowhere near the EPA's 41mpg highway number for the car.
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josby

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This is very interesting that you had little oil dilution when filled below the mark. I observed the same thing - no oil dilution when filled just a couple mm under.
That's an interesting idea. I filled it to about the halfway mark again this time, so I'll report back if I get the same result at the next oil change.
 

Zodd

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dealer changed oil that i picked, castrol titanium fst a3 0w-30, and after 2k miles i cant smell absolutely no gas on dipstick... i find that weird, lets see what happens after few months... car is civic 1.5

and gas is really easy to smell...
 

Dario1101

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Thanks for sharing. I was curious did you send a sample prior which is why they say there is nothing wrong and do they compare each subsequent results ? I was curious how much is it for an oil analysis ? I'm not surprised that Amazon oil is as good as it is. If you think about it, Amazon is a huge market and any supplier that gets this contract automatically has a big supplier to sell their product. If anything amazon has a reputation to maintain, so if there were issues with amazon oil, the company would do something immediately.

Does not surprise me that the quality is as good as others. I'd use it on my car, the bigger issue is sticking to oil change intervals vs. oil brand name imo.
It's that time again! My car just hit 15% on the oil life and I am nearing 30,000 miles on the car. It's been a great ride for the last two and a half years. My first car and I love everything it's done for me. I learned a lot about cars in the process of maintaining this one.
For some weird reason, I recently went to check on the bottle of Amazon Basics 0W-20 oil I had in my laundry room and found that the bottle had a deep crack down the middle. Had I squeezed the bottle hard enough I probably would have broken it and would have had oil seep everywhere! Mind you, that's a hard plastic bottle for oil; I wonder how it developed that long crack down the middle. Perhaps when I first opened it out of the package when I received it I cut it with a knife; I don't know why I wouldn't have noticed it before though.

At any rate, I am going to order a new 0W-20 5-quart bottle of Amazon Basics engine oil, alongside a M1-110 Mobil 1 Oil Filter, and probably do the oil change sometime at the beginning of December. Like I mentioned before, I will be sending two oil analysis kits out for processing at that time: One will be the used oil (Mobil 1 0W-20 Extended Performance) that I will be changing out for the new 0W-20 Amazon Basics oil; and the second one will be a fresh sample of the 0W-20 Amazon Basics oil so that the oil analysis company has a reference material to look at when I send out my used oil of the Amazon Basics oil in about 6 months time.

I'm a bit worried that the Amazon Basics oil won't work as effectively in my engine because it will be diluted by some leftover Mobil 1 oil, but I hope it all works out.
 

Dario1101

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I have gone ahead and did my oil change on Wednesday. I sent two samples of oil, one of the oil that was in my engine, and another of the virgin Amazon Basics 0W-20 oil, with a Total Base Number (TBN) on there so we can see what's up lol. I will post the results when I get them in about two weeks.
 


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Gruber

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Costco just started selling their own brand of full synthetic oil (made by Warren, same source as Amazon Basics). $25 for 10 qts in store or $30 online. Iā€™ll be switching over to this 5W-30 as soon as Iā€™ve depleted the stock pile of Mobil1. Tired of fighting for my rebates.

https://www.costco.com/kirkland-signature-5w-30-full-synthetic-motor-oil-5-quart,-2-pack.product.100527865.html

upload_2019-12-6_21-5-7.jpeg
Also noticed this new oil just a couple days ago at Costco. It should hurt the Amazon brand. Shipping oil by the bottle can't be free. Not that I'm going to buy it myself, but the cheap oil competition is interesting now. One thing I don't understand is how some auto parts stores like Pep Boys etc. still manage to offer motor oils at the prices they have.
 

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With the recent AAP clearance of mobil super synthetic at 0.65$/qt and AZ clearance of Shell Rotella gas truck at 2$/qt (free after rebate), itā€™ll be a WHILE before i need to buy oil again. 80+qts stash that cost me 60$ - hell yeah lol

on a side note, costco oil will do just fine, especially 5w30
 

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I did see that oil as well at Costco. Is it fine to run 5W-20 instead of 0W-20 ? It's pretty warm here in California year around, so I'm not concerned about the cold, but in a colder climate area, I can see it being a bigger issue.

One thing that I came across while looking was this here:

https://www.amsoil.com/lit/databulletins/g2192.pdf


Says Honda's OEM filter is 66.5% efficient ? Seems like more emphasis is given on oil flow, but I really don't like seeing that efficiency rating. Next oil change I'm going to use something else. I used for my other car Wix XP and have seen the breakdowns. The car has over 8,000 miles and the oil still looks good. At amazon they are pretty reasonable in price and will use those moving forward.
 

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Anyone on here have any experience with Eneos Racing Street 0w50? Looking for feedback from track guys or warmer climate zones specifically on this oil. I am using their 0w20 oil now for two oil change intervals, but want something with more wear protection for So Cal summer track days.

https://www.eneos.us/product/eneos-racing-street-0w-50/

Honda Civic 10th gen The Oil Thread ENEOS-RACING-STREET-0W-50-Typical-Properties-0418b-1
 


parshisa

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I did see that oil as well at Costco. Is it fine to run 5W-20 instead of 0W-20 ? It's pretty warm here in California year around, so I'm not concerned about the cold, but in a colder climate area, I can see it being a bigger issue.

One thing that I came across while looking was this here:

https://www.amsoil.com/lit/databulletins/g2192.pdf


Says Honda's OEM filter is 66.5% efficient ? Seems like more emphasis is given on oil flow, but I really don't like seeing that efficiency rating. Next oil change I'm going to use something else. I used for my other car Wix XP and have seen the breakdowns. The car has over 8,000 miles and the oil still looks good. At amazon they are pretty reasonable in price and will use those moving forward.
5w20,5w30,10w30 in your climate will do just fine. Run with confidence. As far as filters go, get yourslef From Ultra and run it for 2-3 OCI, no issues at all.
 

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I have gone ahead and did my oil change on Wednesday. I sent two samples of oil, one of the oil that was in my engine, and another of the virgin Amazon Basics 0W-20 oil, with a Total Base Number (TBN) on there so we can see what's up lol. I will post the results when I get them in about two weeks.
Just found this on a bitog thread.
http://pqiadata.org/AmazonBasics_0W20.html
It'll be interesting to see your results.
 

charleswrivers

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Out of curiosityā€¦ as I'm kind of ignorant on the subject...

Assuming you have a filter that filters something like 99%+ of anything out of the oil at the 20 micron+ level... but still even a few percent at the single-digit micron level... since the oil is constantly passing through the filter and UOIs are looking at wear metals for engine wear... silicates for (I assume) sand bypassing the air filter and fuel for oil dilution (the filter won't filter fuel intrusion obviously)... do UOAs really provide a good basis for engine wear? The suspended wear products are going to be at some equilibrium bases on the actual wear happening and filter efficiency. Even if you had some event that caused large particles to actually cause bearing wear because the particles, at least combined, were able to bridge the bearing gap... they'd pretty much immediately be filtered out and you wouldn't see it in any UOA unless you got to the oil right after the event occurred. I'd think to actually determine engine wear, you'd need to somehow sample the filter media itself.

Again... curious. I've never been terribly interested in oil discussions... and I was reading another thread where someone was again talking up oil dilution, and I agree UOAs being a way to identify it... but actual wear? I don't see how it'd be a good way of determining it. The tiny quantities of wear products at their equilibrium in the oil between two filters wouldn't necessarily equate to the difference in grams of wear materials trapped in the filter media. I see the reports discussing concentrating in units of ppm... but what I'm not getting is what the particle size is of said materials. I also global levels... but no ranges. Without a range (again, for the few I've looked at)... it doesn't really give, me at least, any good feeling about whether some of the reports shared are good or bad. Some of the reports seem to have wear products an order of magnitude above the global level... which would make me think is bad, then again some of those reports were of newer engines which I assume is from some break in. Some of the text on the Blackstone reports makes it look like the global information is just that... global. If I had a larger displacement V8 with several times the amount of perspective contact area between bearing surfaces and ring to cylinder surface... I'd assume the equilibrium of those engines should (could) be higher based on design alone. I've looked at just a few and a lot of the wear metals for some larger engines were a lot higher. Whether this was because of my theory or just because those engines were wearing more for whatever reason... I can't say. If it's true though, it'd make global averages kind of skewed if your engine size was on either end of the spectrum possibly. And this is to say nothing about the other variables like air cleanliness at your air filter efficiency... oil/viscosity used... oil filter used... etc.

I've been doing a bit of reading and apparently practically nothing in the oil is of larger size... and that makes since based on even poor filters having efficiencies over 50% for single pass and single pass isn't indicative of what's actually happening in our engines... and the largest concentration... about 1/4 or so of all contaminates are apparently around the 1 micron level... which most filters apparently filter poorly but still can handle in the single digit efficiency ranges.

Just a bored Sunday working on some random training I need to knock out and I'm so desperate to think about something else... I've taken to contemplating the riddle of stee-... er... oil.
 

Gruber

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Out of curiosityā€¦ as I'm kind of ignorant on the subject...

Assuming you have a filter that filters something like 99%+ of anything out of the oil at the 20 micron+ level... but still even a few percent at the single-digit micron level... since the oil is constantly passing through the filter and UOIs are looking at wear metals for engine wear... silicates for (I assume) sand bypassing the air filter and fuel for oil dilution (the filter won't filter fuel intrusion obviously)... do UOAs really provide a good basis for engine wear? The suspended wear products are going to be at some equilibrium bases on the actual wear happening and filter efficiency. Even if you had some event that caused large particles to actually cause bearing wear because the particles, at least combined, were able to bridge the bearing gap... they'd pretty much immediately be filtered out and you wouldn't see it in any UOA unless you got to the oil right after the event occurred. I'd think to actually determine engine wear, you'd need to somehow sample the filter media itself.

Again... curious. I've never been terribly interested in oil discussions... and I was reading another thread where someone was again talking up oil dilution, and I agree UOAs being a way to identify it... but actual wear? I don't see how it'd be a good way of determining it. The tiny quantities of wear products at their equilibrium in the oil between two filters wouldn't necessarily equate to the difference in grams of wear materials trapped in the filter media. I see the reports discussing concentrating in units of ppm... but what I'm not getting is what the particle size is of said materials. I also global levels... but no ranges. Without a range (again, for the few I've looked at)... it doesn't really give, me at least, any good feeling about whether some of the reports shared are good or bad. Some of the reports seem to have wear products an order of magnitude above the global level... which would make me think is bad, then again some of those reports were of newer engines which I assume is from some break in. Some of the text on the Blackstone reports makes it look like the global information is just that... global. If I had a larger displacement V8 with several times the amount of perspective contact area between bearing surfaces and ring to cylinder surface... I'd assume the equilibrium of those engines should (could) be higher based on design alone. I've looked at just a few and a lot of the wear metals for some larger engines were a lot higher. Whether this was because of my theory or just because those engines were wearing more for whatever reason... I can't say. If it's true though, it'd make global averages kind of skewed if your engine size was on either end of the spectrum possibly. And this is to say nothing about the other variables like air cleanliness at your air filter efficiency... oil/viscosity used... oil filter used... etc.

I've been doing a bit of reading and apparently practically nothing in the oil is of larger size... and that makes since based on even poor filters having efficiencies over 50% for single pass and single pass isn't indicative of what's actually happening in our engines... and the largest concentration... about 1/4 or so of all contaminates are apparently around the 1 micron level... which most filters apparently filter poorly but still can handle in the single digit efficiency ranges.

Just a bored Sunday working on some random training I need to knock out and I'm so desperate to think about something else... I've taken to contemplating the riddle of stee-... er... oil.
Good questions, and professional oil analysts have thought more recently about these issues. For machines that are critical and/or worth much money, more extensive oil analyses can be done to get a full picture.

First, the spectroscopic methods are limited to particles up to max 5 Āµm for ICP spectroscopy. "Wear particles larger than 5 Āµm have no chance of being detected." They just don't make it to where they can be evaporated in the instrument. So there are some particles that are mostly not caught by the oil filter and may keep circulating, but are still ignored by the spectroscope. And then there are those larger particles lodged the filter, but some fraction may be as small as a couple of Āµm.

It is possible to digest the whole oil sample in acid and then pass it through the spectroscope. The difference from the direct sample would be the particles too large for spectroscopy but not caught by the filter. The same can be done with a sample, or even all of the filter paper. It is also possible to count particles in the oil under microscope, but it's not easy to identify them. That would almost double the price (Blackstone) and still not include what's on the filter . Blackstone centrifuges oil samples to determine insoluble content, but they don't analyze these solids under the standard analysis.

So if you had an increase of wear metal particles sized about 3-4 Āµm and larger, the standard UOA would likely not detect it.
 

charleswrivers

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Good questions, and professional oil analysts have thought more recently about these issues. For machines that are critical and/or worth much money, more extensive oil analyses can be done to get a full picture.

First, the spectroscopic methods are limited to particles up to max 5 Āµm for ICP spectroscopy. "Wear particles larger than 5 Āµm have no chance of being detected." They just don't make it to where they can be evaporated in the instrument. So there are some particles that are mostly not caught by the oil filter and may keep circulating, but are still ignored by the spectroscope. And then there are those larger particles lodged the filter, but some fraction may be as small as a couple of Āµm.

It is possible to digest the whole oil sample in acid and then pass it through the spectroscope. The difference from the direct sample would be the particles too large for spectroscopy but not caught by the filter. The same can be done with a sample, or even all of the filter paper. It is also possible to count particles in the oil under microscope, but it's not easy to identify them. That would almost double the price (Blackstone) and still not include what's on the filter . Blackstone centrifuges oil samples to determine insoluble content, but they don't analyze these solids under the standard analysis.

So if you had an increase of wear metal particles sized about 3-4 Āµm and larger, the standard UOA would likely not detect it.
Thanks! I guess the think thatā€™s getting me regarding their use for engine wear is that it seems like everything isnā€™t using a high/low spec range... but a global average to compare. I do think there good value in the UOAs for seeing the fuel content... or the current viscosity as a function to determine dilution/whether whatever the additive pack the oil has to determine if itā€™s, well, ā€˜wore outā€™ to determine for extended OCIs on the high quality ā€˜boutiqueā€™ oils, how far they can be pushed.

I just havenā€™t seen looking at the UOAs how their very good at determining engine wear, other than comparing one car it itself over its life. Even then, if you had some event occur that caused wear, Iā€™d think the oil filter would rapidly clear the oil and that the wear materials would have a half-life so that after 5 full circulations of oil (god knows how long thatā€™d take... but Iā€™d assume in the realm of minutes). Very heavy things that arenā€™t entrained would certainly fall out in the pan and be a red flag if you saw... yā€™know, bits (assuming theyā€™d wash out and off the pan on a drain), but if weā€™re talking large bits, well... theyā€™d be too big for the UOA to catch anyways. Thinking of large turbines, their bearings have babbit which is magnetic so you can see whether or not you have excessive bearing wear by looking at your magnets that is in the filtration system. I never thought Iā€™d it before, but a magnetic drain plug would kind of be a good way to quantify some wear. You could even go crazy I guess and do a ā€˜clean weightā€™ then weight the think using a little gram/reloading scale to quantify whatever it has on it once you dab the oil off of it.

Iā€™ve never gotten a UOA but have looked at a bunch of other peoples out of interest... but using them to analyze wear just doesnā€™t make sense to me based on the data they have to compare the provided numbers against and how the oil should be filtered other than I guess comparing whatever equilibrium wear products exist immersed in the oil between different oil changes when youā€™re comparing, say, if one oil filter is more effective in filtering small (<5 micron) things in the oil.
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