yrotory
11-22-2003, 12:34 PM
I just did my first oil change and sent a sample of the factory fill off for analysis. The oil was run 2037 miles and I changed it because I was finally down about 1 quart and didn't want to dilute the factory oil before the analysis. My car was delivered with the oil overfilled and it took about 1000-1200 miles before it was down to the full mark on the dipstick.
The analysis was done by Blackstone Labs, cost was 20$ plus the postage to send the sample. There are many other labs available to choose from, so this is not an ad for Blackstone. No affiliation....blah, blah, blah.
Test results were as follows:
Aluminum, 9 ppm
Chromium, 5 ppm
Iron, 30 ppm
Copper, 19 ppm
Lead, 3 ppm
Tin, 2 ppm
Molybdenum, 551 ppm
Nickel, 0 ppm
Manganese, 1 ppm
Silver, 0 ppm
Titanium, 0 ppm
Potassium, 9 ppm
Boron, 130 ppm
Silicon, 49 ppm
Sodium, 8 ppm
Calcium, 1750
Magnesium, 4 ppm
Phosphorus, 745 ppm
Zinc, 817 ppm
Barium, 1 ppm
SUS Viscosity @ 210 F, 48.7 - low end of 20 weight range
Flashpoint °F, 335 - should be greater than 355
Fuel %, 1.5 - should be less than 1.0
Antifreeze %, 0.0 - should be 0
Water %, 0.0 - should be less than 0.1
Insolubles %, 0.2 - should be less than 0.6
Blackstone flagged the aluminum, chromium, iron, copper, silicon, flashpoint and fuel as out of range but typical for an engine being broken in.
The aluminum, chromium, iron, and copper are all wear metals. Persistent high readings would mean abnormal wear. The copper can also leach out of the oil coolers if they have copper cores.
Silicon can come from sealers or from dust passing the air filter.
The high fuel level is a result of blowby and is probably also responsible for the low flashpoint. It will be interesting to see if this comes down in the future or proves to be the nature of the beast.
I was curious to see if Mazda really was filling the car with 20 weight oil. Looks that way. The molybdenum level is very high and is part of the extreme-pressure/anti-wear (EP/AW) additive package. This seems to be typical of the factory fill for various Japanese cars. The boron is also part of the EP/AW package.
The zinc and phosphorus are from ZDDP (another EP/AW additive) and the level is consistent with the phosphorus limits for this weight SL or GF-3 oil.
The calcium is also part of the additive package.
I plan to keep up with the tests to get a trend established so that I have a baseline for making decisions about brand, viscosity, etc. in the future. I only drive the car about 800 miles a month, so data will be slow coming from me.
For what it is worth, I re-filled with 5W-20 Pennzoil. Most of the 5W-20 oils that meet the Ford spec are going to be better than average oils. I don't want to start some kind of flame war about which brand is best, what viscosity is correct, or whether synthetic oil is OK. Guess I'm just hoping a few other owners will also be anal about their oil and help grow the database.
Besides, if you weren't spending 20 bucks on an oil analysis you'd probably just be stuffing it in some stripper's g-string
:D
yrotory
The analysis was done by Blackstone Labs, cost was 20$ plus the postage to send the sample. There are many other labs available to choose from, so this is not an ad for Blackstone. No affiliation....blah, blah, blah.
Test results were as follows:
Aluminum, 9 ppm
Chromium, 5 ppm
Iron, 30 ppm
Copper, 19 ppm
Lead, 3 ppm
Tin, 2 ppm
Molybdenum, 551 ppm
Nickel, 0 ppm
Manganese, 1 ppm
Silver, 0 ppm
Titanium, 0 ppm
Potassium, 9 ppm
Boron, 130 ppm
Silicon, 49 ppm
Sodium, 8 ppm
Calcium, 1750
Magnesium, 4 ppm
Phosphorus, 745 ppm
Zinc, 817 ppm
Barium, 1 ppm
SUS Viscosity @ 210 F, 48.7 - low end of 20 weight range
Flashpoint °F, 335 - should be greater than 355
Fuel %, 1.5 - should be less than 1.0
Antifreeze %, 0.0 - should be 0
Water %, 0.0 - should be less than 0.1
Insolubles %, 0.2 - should be less than 0.6
Blackstone flagged the aluminum, chromium, iron, copper, silicon, flashpoint and fuel as out of range but typical for an engine being broken in.
The aluminum, chromium, iron, and copper are all wear metals. Persistent high readings would mean abnormal wear. The copper can also leach out of the oil coolers if they have copper cores.
Silicon can come from sealers or from dust passing the air filter.
The high fuel level is a result of blowby and is probably also responsible for the low flashpoint. It will be interesting to see if this comes down in the future or proves to be the nature of the beast.
I was curious to see if Mazda really was filling the car with 20 weight oil. Looks that way. The molybdenum level is very high and is part of the extreme-pressure/anti-wear (EP/AW) additive package. This seems to be typical of the factory fill for various Japanese cars. The boron is also part of the EP/AW package.
The zinc and phosphorus are from ZDDP (another EP/AW additive) and the level is consistent with the phosphorus limits for this weight SL or GF-3 oil.
The calcium is also part of the additive package.
I plan to keep up with the tests to get a trend established so that I have a baseline for making decisions about brand, viscosity, etc. in the future. I only drive the car about 800 miles a month, so data will be slow coming from me.
For what it is worth, I re-filled with 5W-20 Pennzoil. Most of the 5W-20 oils that meet the Ford spec are going to be better than average oils. I don't want to start some kind of flame war about which brand is best, what viscosity is correct, or whether synthetic oil is OK. Guess I'm just hoping a few other owners will also be anal about their oil and help grow the database.
Besides, if you weren't spending 20 bucks on an oil analysis you'd probably just be stuffing it in some stripper's g-string
:D
yrotory