Carsy

The viscosity was slightly high and this could show the oil is starting to show its age, but it's still reading in the 40W range, so it's not really a big concern, especially since the insolubles were still low. All in all, a good first report at 68,000 miles.

Hello Matt,

Your oil is showing signs of "showing its age" at 13,000 miles. I cannot understand why you would not consider changing a little earlier. It certainly would not cost a great deal in the scheme of things & would give you peace of mind if you were to keep the car for any length of time.
I plan to keep my car for 15 years & I change the oil at 10,000 Km.

My previous car's oil was changed at 5000 Km & is now 16 years old & done 280,000 km . It is running like a clock without any major repairs except fuel pump seals.

LILBENZ230

Here is the updated oil report. I'm not an oil man, but compared to the average 6,800 mile sample in the M271 my car seems to have done quite well. Interested to hear Glyn chime in on this amended report.

LILBENZ230

It's "starting" to show its age. Which it should be, considering it is time to change it at that point. I take good care of my car, I really do. But I don't ever look at the screen showing when the next service should be until the car starts telling me on start-up. I'm a bit OCD and I am annoyed at the idea of doing things well before the system tells me to. Obviously, by this report, I'm not really harming my car. If it was really out of control, I would change it more often - but clearly it's fine. It could be slightly better, sure - but we're talking about tiny, tiny differences. As you can see from this report, the car had 68,000 miles in the first week of December. It's at 75,000 now. I drive A LOT. I like the extended intervals and they're working for me. I plan to keep my car for a lot of miles - but I certainly won't keep it till it's 15 years old. At the most, I'll have my car another 4 years. At the current rate that'll mean ~200,000 miles. If it doesn't make it till 200,000 miles without a major issue, it's not likely to be from oil change intervals. Car technology and safety moves forward at a rapid pace and the C230 is very modern and up to date in this regard (because it was advanced in its day). When it becomes out of date, I'll be looking to move on, as well.

Glyn M Ruck

Matt - the amended report shows your engine showing typical values for a M271. The M111 averages are lower. I consider that you have nothing to worry about after the amended data. Your engine is not ingesting silica so operating conditions/air filtration are both good. I would not worry. Carry on as you are now that we are comparing apples with apples.
Take another sample at your next change to see trend.

People operating in dusty, sandy conditions should not take this as Carte Blanche to run extended drain with standard filtration. That needs to be checked by sampling.

Carsy

Well said, I will be interested to know how the engine is travelling at 200,000 miles so keep us informed. Thanks for the interesting post.

LILBENZ230

Carsy, there's a thread called "almost there...pic" on the main page from a guy named Scottisha. I'm not completely sure, but IIRC he's followed the 13,000 mile service intervals for his 2005 C230 - which is now at 200,000 miles with only an alternator failure.

johnand

Sorry Matt, I missed this before. I must say, that report is not too bad considering the paper filter. Next report, please get the report with TBN. What I find interesting, is in every report I have seen on the Mobil 1 0W-40, is it shears very quickly to a 30wt viscosity, but your's obviously is well into the viscocity range of a 40wt, being virgin M1 0W-40 has a viscosity of 13.36. I suspect your TBN is very low as the oil thickened that much. TBN is a very good indicator of how long is too long for an OCI.

Attached is a vigin oil analysis of M1 0W-40 for comparison: (Click on the image for full res version)

e24kgold

I follow the 13k interval and have 135,000 miles with no problem. Just switched to castrol edge and will send in samples in another 6500 miles

Glyn M Ruck

John - as I said to Greg on the other thread - I would like to see a TAN done as well to see if this is oxidative thickening rather than evapourative. It's unfortunately too expensive for a man in the street to run a NOACK (ASTM D-5800) to check for propensity to evapourative loss.

Will be interesting to see what Greg's sample does regarding viscosity change.

johnand

Glyn, just saw that in the other thread. Nothing wrong with Blackstone, but that is why I prefer Oil Analyzers over Blackstone is they provide TBN and TAN with no additional cost.

Taken a closer look at Matt's report and based on the revised universal averages for the correct engine, the numbers all look in line except Maganese. That should be ~ twice the averages and is well over 5 times the averages. Since the VOA doesn't contain Maganese, where is it coming from? The other interesting note, is Matt's air filter is doing an OUTSTANDING job as there is really no silicone when you take into account that M1 0W-40 contains that amount when new.

PS to Glyn. I am sending in some virgin Pentosin that we discussed so I have a baseline of that oil when I do my UOA later on. So far I gained ~1mpg better mileage and the hot startup noise has decreased a lot.

LILBENZ230

Glad to know that the air filter, which had been in the car for 26,000 miles at that point, was doing a great job.

lkfoster

Up to a point, a dirty filter is more effective in stopping particles from passing through. The built-up layer of crud helps to block ever smaller particles. The "yeah but..." bit is that if it's an air filter you lose air flow and throw off your air-fuel metering depending on your type of fuel injection.

If it's an oil filter you start by-passing unfiltered oil once the pressure drop across the element reaches a certain level, which with no oil pressure gauge you'll never be able to see. An effective, and functioning, oil filter is one of the reasons why we can get 200,000 miles from current engines. Our '35 Ford that doesn't have an oil filter had a engine life expectancy one-tenth that.

Carsy

[QUOTE=lkfoster;3940413]Up to a point, a dirty filter is more effective in stopping particles from passing through. The built-up layer of crud helps to block ever smaller particles. QUOTE]

I have heard this statement before from a diesel fuel pump specialist. He recommended not changing the fuel filter before it is recommended by the manufacturer as newly changed filters are not as efficient on collecting smaller contaminants.

Glyn M Ruck

Sorry John,
missed this with all the forum trouble I'm having since installing Vista SP2.

Primary sources of Manganese in oil samples is from hardened steel components in an engine. It is also used as an additive in gasoline to improve the octane rating.

I suspect in this case that Matt is using gas that has some manganese in it. While US gas is not the best around I thought they were getting close to metals free! Hey Matt - you chucked any octane booster in your tank lately?? or any other additive for that matter? Don't tell me Techron - Techron has no Manganese in it.

LILBENZ230

No. The only additive that I have ever used is Techron, and I used Techron gas frequently but not exclusively.

Glyn M Ruck

Yeah - you have probably picked up some gas with manganese in it. At cold start some fuel always gets past the rings. We don't realise how rich these things run until warmed up to achieve stable running which FI does so well. It concentrates things like Manganese in the sump very quicky because the fuel component evapourates off once at operating temperature.

You only have to to worry about elements like Manganese if they rise in direct relationship with iron. If your next sample shows high Manganese ask Blackstone to comment. They would be a lot more au fait with different US gasolines on the market than I am. All gas in SA is now metals free.

LILBENZ230

So Glyn isn't that an argument against warming up a car for more than 30-seconds then? My car can sit for ages at idle and never reach normal operating temp. I thought this was terrible and contaminated the oil and was bad for the emissions system.

mtnman82

OK - here's mine. You guys will have to tell me what's what. I don't really like the opening line part about wear being generally above average... Had the TBN and TAN done too. I had about 70,500 miles on the car when the oil was changed (10,000 miles on the oil itself without adding any between changes - was about 1 qt. down after the 10k miles), and this was with the Hengst oil filter.

Glyn M Ruck

Greg - sorry for late reply - been via London to Dallas where I'm on vacation with friends.

This oil does not look too healthy. Presume the car does lot's of short trips? Oil shows both shear of VI Improver & pretty severe oxidation with low TBN & high TAN. Air filtration is once again excellent - Low silicone/silica

I recommend you reduce drain interval to 10,000 miles OR do a halfway change of oil without changing filter - That can run 13,000 miles.
Good luck

johnand

I missed this the 1st time around. I agree with Glyn, that oil is NOT healthy. One interesting thing is, it didn't thicken like Matt's sample, but sheared to a 30wt like is usually the case with this oil based on UOA. Also, why did Blackstone say the oil wasn't too good, then recommended INCREASING the drain interval another 1-2K miles?

mtnman82

Thanks for the replies, guys! London and Dallas Glyn? Sounds like a fun vacation!!!

Yep, I wasn't thrilled with the 'wear generally above average' comment and kind of perplexed by the recommendation to increase change interval. I was waiting for you guys to chime in.

My car is used almost exclusively for short trips. It's only about 5~6 miles from my house to work in the morning, and I drop 3 kids off at 3 different places along the way. It's also only ~6 miles form one end of town to the other. It probably only had half a dozen trips over 200 miles on it.

The oil was in the car for 15 months & 10,000 miles. I didn't think my #'s were that far off from Matt's... Can you guys point out which elements/#'s I need to be concerned with?

Glyn M Ruck

Greg - sorry, I'm a dope - thought the sample had done 13K miles - I see it's 10K. I think Blackstone made the same mistake. Your wear levels are OK but the oil is shot for 10K. Low TBN & high TAN mean it's oxidised which should have reflected as a little thickening. Rather we are seeing VI Improver shear & thinning. Trace of fuel means car not running at operating temp for long enough to drive off fuel dilution. Fuel dilution accelerates oxidation. Don't panic about wear - it's still relatively minor. For your operating conditions I still recommend a reduction in drain interval to maybe 8K miles.

johnand

I agree with Glyn 8K changes may suit you better, or better yet, just do changes once a year, since it took you 15 months to do 10K. In fact, running oil more than a year is generally not a good idea, especially with your current driving regimen.

mtnman82

Thanks Glyn & John! I will definitely change next time @ 8K and have another analysis done. I appreciate the details to help understand what everything means. I really didn't mean to go longer than 12 months, just got busy and let it go too long... 12 months should be ~8K miles, so this could work out nicely.

During the winter months I'll always turn the heater on full as soon as possible for the kiddies, which I'm sure isn't helping warm the engine up. I also also just recalled one very high speed run thru Death Valley in the summer months averaging triple digits for ~1.5 hours, which is by no means a regular thing for me (just an opportunity that presented itself).

mdchaser

Hi, I don't want to hijack the thread so please let me know and I'll start another one. I just picked up my c230 and was planning on running amsoil 0w40 (or 5w40) @ 10k change intervals here in a week or so. The place I'm going to take it to uses mann filters, is there a better filter I should pick up to run the 10k mile safely?