Bruce In Philly

http://www.blackstone-labs.com/by-pa...filtration.php

Choice quotes from Blackstone Oil Analyzers:

- Oil that becomes contaminated needs to be changed promptly.
- In our opinion, there are no magic oils or additives.
- Oil does not wear out. Its usefulness is limited by contamination.

The last point is a big one.......

I just sent them a sample for an analysis of my 78K 2009 C2S maintained by me..... I hope to see if my DIY changes are slowly blowing up my engine.

Peace
Bruce in Philly

upier

Did you send it to Blackstone?

LexVan

Bruce, one report won't tell you too much. Just establish your baseline and tell you of anything majorly out if spec.

Luxter

http://www.machinerylubrication.com/.../oil-breakdown

Cheers,
=L=

Bruce In Philly

Yes, sent it in yesterday.

Yep, a baseline at 80K miles.

I don't know why I do this... honestly I am not sure what I will learn or what I am supposed to do with this information. I guess I am just a curious geek.

Maybe..... maybe I will get another done after a few changes.... and then try a different Porsche approved oil like Motul that some rave about, and then get another test after one fill and see if there is a difference.

Peace
Bruce in Philly

Hella-Buggin'

I send in a few a year. I do it to monitor for IMS degradation and have established what Blackstone considers baseline for an engine that looking good for it's age at 10 Years and 74k miles.
They always mention that my oil change intervals could be elongated but I change it between track events and I'm not changing that behavior.

Chrono

Nothing on this earth "wears out" if you want to be academic about it. It just changes state. Some states are more desirable than others for the intended purpose of the medium.

You will absolutely learn something from your Blackstone report. If the quality of the spent oil and metallic suspension isn't important to you, or you just don't care, then skip it. It's a $25 no-brainer for me.

Bruce In Philly

Then the next change I do, I will make sure to look the other way and not "observe" it...... (just a joke)

Peace
Bruce in Philly

Bruce In Philly

Mark, did you ever use a different oil and note differences in analytics?

Peace
Bruce in Philly

Chrono

Good one! The Observer Effect, and the changes it may impart to our oil, was greatly reduced with obsolescence of the dipstick in or cars. Until we change our oil, the oil can not be changed by our observation of it. German Science!

Macster

Blackstone is right. In some situations the oil can remain in service a long time if there is no contamination. Example: Power steering. There is no change interval for this fluid.

Another example is the transmission. 90K miles is pretty much "forever" and the fluid lasts this long because it does not get contaminated.

Engine oil of course gets contaminated. Like Blackstone said, the oil doesn't wear out. What happens is the additive package gets depleted and can no longer combat acid in the oil nor be as an effective detergent to help keep solids (soot) in the oil in suspension so they are removed when the oil is drained. (It is these solids that drive the oil change to be done with the engine up to temperature the idea being these have not yet had time to settle out of the oil.)

I would disagree with Blackstone on this point: "there are no magic oils or additives."

But mainly in degrees... I believe modern synthetic oil is magic in how well it works at cold and hot temperatures, how long it can be run under the right conditions, and just generally how well the stuff works.

Additives in the oil, additives the oil comes were are magical to me. My info is with modern oils the additive package is very important and this is one reason why oils should not be mixed. That is to say approved oils are miscible so one doesn't have to flush the oil system when moving from say an approved 0w-40 oil to a 5w-40 or even 5w-50 approved oil but I note that Porsche still says that when it is time to top up the oil level to do so using the same oil the engine was filled with.

kcheves

I also submit samples to Blackstone. I like getting the affirmation that our cars are doing OK.

I send samples from every change on my 2009 997.2 (30K miles, oil changed on 5K mile intervals), and every other change on my wife's 2004 BMW E46 (170K miles, oil changed on 10K mile intervals).

I don't bother sending samples for our 2003 Honda Pilot (174K miles, dino oil changed on 7500 mile intervals), perhaps because I secretely hope it will die.

Petza914

I submit mine to Blackstone as well. I was looking into a potential issue with one of my cars via the oil analysis and what's interesting is I didn't get any real useful information until I paid the additional to have the optional TAN & TBN analysis done. I then sent these reults to Jake Raby for his take and he bounced them off Lake Speed. The consensus was that running 5,000 mile change intervals in both my supercharded C2S and my stock C2S using Mobil 1 Turbo Diesel 5W/40 (which I had chosen for the high ZDDP levels) actually saw a deterioration of the addative package and a viscosity change from 5W-40 down to 5W-30. I switched to Motul xcess after I got this analysis back on 2 different cars, and interestingly enough, a 5,000 mile change interval showed very similar results with the Motul oil as it did with the Mobil 1 TD. Jake recommended I change to a 4,000 mile change interval, which I did and the report from the Motul at 4,000 miles was quite a bit better than at 5,450 miles, but there was still some breakdown of the additive package. I'm going to switch to his endorsed DT40 oil when I deplete my current stock of the Motul and I'll see what those analysis figures show.

Attached are the Blackstone Reports for these 2 cars. The lowest TAN value is the supercharged RUF car at a 5,500 mi change interval on the Mobil 1, then the stock C2S with Motul at 5,450 miles, and then you can see how the shorter change interval of 4,000 miles had a positive effect on the TAN #with the Motul Oil.