Engine Oil analysis Have you ever had one?

Have you ever had an engine oil analysis performed?

  • Yes on my 4 runner

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Yes but on another car

    Votes: 5 22.7%
  • No

    Votes: 10 45.5%
  • I want to, but haven't yet.

    Votes: 7 31.8%

  • Total voters
    22
  • Poll closed .

Boaz

New member
I am interested in how many members have done an engine oil analysis. How much did it cost? Where did you get it done at? Did it help? What did it tell you?
 
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I'm planning on starting to do it at about 60k miles or so. WIth the V8 engine and using M1, there is no need to do it earlier. Every single analysis on bobistheoilguy looks like almost a perfect score sheet.
 
I've had it done on a previous car (1995 T-bird 4.6L V-8).

The cost is $20 plus shipping (a couple bucks). I used Blackstone Labs which can be found here:

Blackstone

They have example reports. On my car, I was changing the oil every 3K-5K miles; their analysis reported that mine was a very good wearing 4.6L engine. There were very little wear metals and other bad things present based on the mileage and the sample. They do provide the breakdown of materials they found in the sample.

If I can find the original report, I'll post it here (it's a pdf).
 
SteveM said:
I've had it done on a previous car (1995 T-bird 4.6L V-8).

The cost is $20 plus shipping (a couple bucks). I used Blackstone Labs which can be found here:

Blackstone

They have example reports. On my car, I was changing the oil every 3K-5K miles; their analysis reported that mine was a very good wearing 4.6L engine. There were very little wear metals and other bad things present based on the mileage and the sample. They do provide the breakdown of materials they found in the sample.

If I can find the original report, I'll post it here (it's a pdf).

THanks for the link and the info. I think IM going to do this next oil change. Do they provide the container? Or do I find my own?
 
Boaz said:
Do they provide the container? Or do I find my own?

NEvermind, I see that they mail these kits out to you free of charge. I ordered 2 one for my 4 runner and one for wifeys jeep.
Im actually excited about this...... I feel like a dork!:nerd:
 
redwhisky5150 said:
Im not sure what that is, but I'd like to know more details. If anyone would care to explain.

CHeck out blackstones website in the posts above, pretty much explains it all. Better than I could!
 
Boaz said:
NEvermind, I see that they mail these kits out to you free of charge. I ordered 2 one for my 4 runner and one for wifeys jeep.
Im actually excited about this...... I feel like a dork!:nerd:

Don't feel bad lol!

They will send you a new kit after they do the analysis on the first one.

Still looking for the report from my T-bird.
 
I did the engine on my last car, an Acura CLS. Used Blackstone. I wanted to see if Mobil 1 or AMSOil was better for the engine, if AMS was worth the cost. I also had a foam air filter element and wanted get an idea if it worked well.

In the end, I found out Mobil 1 was bad (4 times more wear, shot at 7500 miles), and the foam air filter was good. I changed oil filters at 3750, oil + filter at 7500.


For the 4.0 aluminium owners using Mobil1, I'd get some analysis done. There is no history of how Mobil1 performs in your engine. There are many reports showing the V8 does fine on Mobil1.

I still won't buy/use Mobil1. They have a habit of changing their formula all the time.

Why?

To cut cost? To improve performance (because the stuff before sucked)?

And whay have 5 different formulas? Marketing BS.

I've never read of AMS, Red Line, and Purple changing their formulas.

My opinion, Mobil1 is driven by the $, supported by marketing. The others HAVE to research and make a good product to survive.



I was also going to monitor the tranny fluid in my last car because of know transmission problems. Had the tranny replaced once. After the ATF fill plug was crossthreaded on the replacement transmisssion, by the dealer, I was so pi$$ed I traded in for the 4Runner before having the fluid sample analyzed.
 
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I was planning on getting my oil analysis with the stock air filter and then next oil change put in a K and N and see if the analysis changes. I would like to see if there is any increase in dirt and crap in the oil from the K and N. But also I am curious about the Mobil 1 Vs Amsoil...

My buddy has a 2004 Chevy Silverado SS. He runs Amsoil for 10k and only changes the filter, he told me yesterday that he will run it for another 10k. I think he is crazy. I also ordered him a oil kit , i want to see an analysis of AMSOIL with 20k on it.
 
Bluto said:
I did the engine on my last car, an Acura CLS. Used Blackstone. I wanted to see if Mobil 1 or AMSOil was better for the engine, if AMS was worth the cost. I also had a foam air filter element and wanted get an idea if it worked well.

In the end, I found out Mobil 1 was bad (4 times more wear, shot at 7500 miles), and the foam air filter was good. I changed oil filters at 3750, oil + filter at 7500.


For the 4.0 aluminium owners using Mobil1, I'd get some analysis done. There is no history of how Mobil1 performs in your engine. There are many reports showing the V8 does fine on Mobil1.

I still won't buy/use Mobil1. They have a habit of changing their formula all the time.

Why?

To cut cost? To improve performance (because the stuff before sucked)?

And whay have 5 different formulas? Marketing BS.

I've never read of AMS, Red Line, and Purple changing their formulas.

My opinion, Mobil1 is driven by the $, supported by marketing. The others HAVE to research and make a good product to survive.



I was also going to monitor the tranny fluid in my last car because of know transmission problems. Had the tranny replaced once. After the ATF fill plug was crossthreaded on the replacement transmisssion, by the dealer, I was so pi$$ed I traded in for the 4Runner before having the fluid sample analyzed.

I also tried M1 10w30 once in both my 86 4runner and 01 prelude and stopped using it afterwards. It dropped my fuel economy in both cars by a little over 5% (averaged over about 10 tanks, same driving route). I went back to Shell Rotella T synthetic 5w40 and Mobil Delvac 1 (a real oil, but not cheap...$23/gal). For the money, the Rotella synthetic is good, but it's made of a type III basestock while the D1 is a true synthetic. Both give me great mileage (30-31 for the honda and 23.5-24 for the 4runner). Also note that the total base number (TBN, an indicator of the amount of additives in the oil) of consumer-grade M1 is only like 6 when new, while Delvac 1, Amsoil, and others are 10-12. No, I didn't get a UOA done, but IMHO, fuel economy is a pretty good indicator of how one's engine is running, especially one that's going on 20 yrs and still runs strong & smooth (of which 16 yrs of that was running normal 10w30/40 dino). M1 is all marketing hype, IMHO.

--Jim
 
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Hm..I've been wanting to do this as well. I'm interested in seeing how the V6 fares in the tests. My V6 has been getting M1 5W-30 for a while now every 5k miles. Maybe at 40k in a few months.
 
If you use Blackstone or Butler Labs you can get an additional opinion from Terry Dyson (Dyson Analysis) for an extra twenty bucks. Terry is an oil expert that looks at the numbers and gives you additional information in terms that you can understand without being an oil nerd. The important thing here is that if Terry does several of these over the years you will have a very good picture of what's going on inside your engine and any trends that might be of interest. Some answers you can get are things liike am I using the correct viscosity oil, or is the brand I'm using doing the job and is something sneaking up on me. Terry has been doing this stuff for 25 years and is recogonized amoung his peers as really good at this stuff.

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/terry.html
 

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