Is the first oil change at 10k miles accurate? I heard its not the oil that breaks down but the filter. So, should we be changing the oil sooner?

 

I always change out the factory fill early. But that's just me. fwiw, I've done it with all new cars. But I also do UOAs with all my drains to monitor oil and engine health. The factory fill (changed very early at around 1.5k) was full of metals and silicon (expected with a new motor.) I did a few more changes with UOAs until I determined a 7.5k drain is fine for my driving style and environment. After my last UOA I now see that I could go 10k with no problem. My motor is really smooth and quiet (and no tappet noise, etc..) It also doesn't use any add oil at all between OCIs. I assume the rings got seated nicely at break-in. Barring any unknowns, I feel confident it'll reach 100k+ with no issues. Not sure about the rest of the car, lol.

 

UOA?

 

Used oil analysis.

 

When Mercedes told customers to rely on the car to tell them when they needed an oil change, they found that paper filters wouldn't last on changes that occurred well past 10K. They began to recommend using fleece filters rather than paper filters.

Now I believe they have gone back to the less expensive paper filters for 10K changes.

I change oil yearly but I don't drive many miles. I'm going on a 6,500 mile trip in September and I'll change oil before I leave and when I get back. The one before the trip will be the initial change and there won't be many miles on the clock when it's changed.

I'm curious to see what MB recommends for direct injection engines. It's more likely oil can be contaminated by fuel with high pressure direct injection. I read a piece by an engine builder and he changes oil at 5K on direct injection engines.

 

There was a class action suit surrounding FSS. But it was primarily with dino fills and not syn oil. Motors developed sludge and coking. I think that was part of the motivation to go to a mileage/time based OCI. A sensor based system is good in theory, but clearly not infallible. But the idea of a sensor based system does imply that one's driving style and environment does have a bearing on oil health. If you track the car on weekends or use it as a taxi in the Sahara Desert, then there is no "average" in respect to drains. Doing UOAs is a good and painless monitoring system, imho.

But to the OP, sorry to make it seem complicated but I'm probably on one end of the spectrum. Under 'normal' conditions and circumstances a 10k OCI with the approved syn oil and OEM filters will be fine.

 

Whats FSS? FWIW synthetic is just a grade of dino oil.

 

how do you do uoa's?

 

I do the same. I do a used oil analysis with every oil change and I also dump the FF early. In this case I dumped my FF at 1000 miles and refilled with Royal Purple 5w40. Here is my oil analysis at 5400 miles on the clock and 4400 miles on the oil.

METALS
Iron: 47
Chromium: 1
Lead: 1
Copper: 12
Tin: 2
Aluminum: 4
Nickel: <1
Silver: <1
Titanium: <1
Vanadium: 1

CONTAMINANTS
Silicon: 14
Sodium: 9
Potassium: <5
Water: <0.05%
Coolant: NO

ADDITIVES
Magnesium: 82
Calcium: 1898
Barium: 13
Phosphorus: 1052
Zinc: 1291
Moly: 226
Boron: 71

PHYSICAL TESTS
Viscosity(cSt 100C): 11.7

PHYSICAL/CHEMICAL
TBN: 4.6

 

Dinosaur and synthetic engine oils are considered different. We know synthetic oil is from a man-made base stock and/or chemically modified petroleum components rather than just the processed base crude with additive packs (which is what we normally call dino oil.) If you want to consider it all just a grade of "oil," then be my guest. But I consider syn and dino oil as different products as most people do. One can call it whatever they want, but normally one differentiates between dino and syn oil as one being synthesized while the other is not.

Certain specialty dino oils like Brad Penn (which I used to use in my 964) supposedly come from the original crude pool in PA (and the same that the original Kendall came from.)

FSS is the Mercedes Flexible Service System. From Daimler themselves: "The Flexible Service System in your Mercedes monitors the oil quality, engine loads, RPM, operating temperatures and driving habits to determine when regular maintenance is necessary."

 

So, is royal purple superior? Who does your uoa?

 

220- It would be nice if we could assume synthetic as synthesized or "man made". Not the case with oils today. The use of synthetic today only signifies that the base stock whether petrol or "true synthetic" meets a certain quality specification. I believe the oil industry chose a group 3 as being where the line was drawn for a Dino oil to be labeled as a synthetic. So in actuality synthetic is a performance standard versus being purely man made. I think amsoil & redline have the only true synthetic man made motor oils, otherwise we are using Grp 3 Petroleum or "dino" oil, otherwise known as synthetic.

 

The current 0W-40 Mobil 1 oil is also supposed to be Group IV.

 

I realize that but my point being that consumers differentiate between syn and dino oil, whether it's semi or full synthetic. Brad Penn or Kendall wouldn't be considered a synthetic oil for example, whereas M1 would, even though it's not a true Group 4. As I posted, syn is from a man-made base stock and/or chemically modified petroleum components. The general public usually doesn't know the difference between 3 and 4 but does know what dino and syn means. If you start saying Redline, Amsoil, Royal Purple are the only synthetics and the rest are just a grade of dino oil then there would be confusion by general consumers. And if you tell them M1 is mislabeled (which technically it is) and is a dino base oil with syn additives, they'll be further perplexed.

Hence I stick to the syn versus dino idea as different products in general discussions for simplicity's sake. And the FSS class action lawsuit was about dino oil with the system and not synthetic/semi-synthetic oil which seemed not to create problems with FSS; i.e., using M1's marketed syn oil versus regular dino oils.

Anyway, this sort of minutiae is lost on every day reality. Consumers who do the mfg recommended OCIs just need to stick to the mfgs recommended oil while under warranty. It's these long OCIs that have created concerns and questions. If we were on the track and changing out the oil after every race, then there would be no concern about which oil to use except for getting sponsorship money from a particular brand.

 

Bud, yea there's a few group IV's out there, not real sure all the latest but even some companies use Grp III & Grp IV in their different synthetics. I just wanted to make sure people understand that a synthetic oil does not mean it's synthesized or man made. It should mean that but does not and those that think it does have surely mistaken.

 

Whether it is or not really has no bearing on us mortals in the real world. Our engines will out live the rest of our car, anyway. And the base stock of an oil isn’t the final word on performance. The important thing is the oil and the add pack. What is also important is cost and performance. M1 gives good performance and the cost is reasonable. But if one doesn’t like what they see in their UOA, then try another brand.

And then there's profitability and marketing involved, as in any product. And this dialogue about which oil to use will go on forever. The irony is that we used to be afraid of using syn over dino when it first became available.

It all reminds me of film stock debates. The lab techs and post crew will argue over the characteristics of Kodak stock versus Fuji stock and endlessly hash out the tiniest of details. In the meantime the creatives concentrate on the actual cinematography and just use what works for them for recreating their personal vision.

 

The confusion lies in the word "synthetic". In reference to oil only in the U.S., it is a level of performance. Any oil, Kendall, Penz, Havoline, Castrol, Quaker State, Mobil1, can say full synthetic and it can be made from nothing other than crude base stock. Probably (I'm guessing here) but 85 to 90% of all synthetic oil sold in the U.S. for car engines comes from a hydrocracker refined crude base stock.

 

Or like a million other terms we end up using that in actuality have little connection to their literal definition. It's just become dino versus synthetic, and not, "I need a synthetic versus conventional level of performance." It's just easier. The whole world uses this terminology. And Hydrocracked Refined Crude Oil wouldn't do very well as a sales pitch, either.

Anyway I think we're getting more into semantics/common word usage and connotation here.

But let me ask you this: Mobil does call their 0W-40 oil a fully synthetic POA engine oil and not a hydrocracked crude base syn oil. POA is also a synthetic base stock that's recognized by the API as a Group 4 synthetic engine oil. Or is it really just base crude with the polyalphaolefins added. So is it synthetic oil or not? Red Line says their oil is a polyol ester base stock, also a Group 4. But then Mobil says all oils (dino, semi, and full synthetic) come originally from crude. So are they all really just hydrocracked crudes with additives that are simply being categorized by the API. Who do we go to for the info, the API or the mfgs? Both seem to often contradict themselves.

 

Here's a good read. This is why the term synthetic no longer apllies to man made oil. According to this though Mobil 1 is a true man made grp IV synthetic as Bud mentioned.

http://www.technilube.com/faqs_info/synth_diff.php

 

As far as I know POA and group 4 is synonomous and means only synthetic by the actual sense of the word and being a "man made" product. Not sure where the info would come that Mobil says everything originally comes from crude.

 

From their website: "Both types of engine oil are made from crude oil that comes from the ground. The difference is that synthetic oils undergo numerous additional highly-advanced distilling, refining, and purification processes — and therefore are of a higher purity and quality than conventional mineral oils."
http://www.mobiloil.com/USA-English/...Motor_Oil.aspx

btw, I've read that Amsoil article before, but that's part of what I mean. The API says one thing, industry says another thing, and individual mfgs say all kinds of things. btw, Amsoil is notorious for spamming the internet with "info" that are really ads for their product. It's a good product but sometimes I'm not sure I can trust absolutely everything they say because of their "infomercial" way of advertising.

 

Don't confuse the "both types" as being synthetic and crude. They are reffering to semi-sythetic and full synthetic. That's exactly what the bottle states when you purchase it. Full or semi. In either case both base oils are crude. This would mean that it's from a hydrocracker refined base stock, which is the only process to bring crude oil to the original standard of "true" man made synthetic. This is exactly the point I wanted to bring here is today dino and synthetic do not mean what they meant 15yrs ago. I think it's time people understand what exactly it is their buying. If you ever see hydrocracker refined oil, it looks like water it's so pure. The additive package gives the oil it's yellow tint. Since the Amsoil article is old and the article from M1 is recent, I would say they switched from POA Grp 4 to a Grp 3 hydrocracker base. Not sure if all their products are or not.


To answer a question from your previous post- As for where to get the info is a good question. What I have done in the past when I had a question about oil was I called a chemist that worked for Conoco down in Texas or asked my dad. I got a 1-800 number to him from my dad since he's been in the industry for 30yrs so he has some resources. My question at the time was regarding Molybdenum Disulfide and if and when would it be placed into car oil. Guy was upfront with me and gave me the low down on it before it was ever placed into car oil. Those guys love to talk oil too.

 

It's not clear what they are saying exactly. They mention this in the same paragraph as synthetic versus conventional. It's not clear that they were comparing semi syn or syn. But I thought you were implying earlier that synthetic can't come from crude because then it's not really synthetic. But above you say hydrocracking is the only way to bring crude to a true "man made" synthetic. So true synthetic can come from crude after all.

It's not making a lot of logical sense. I have a headache.

Synthetic Oil vs. Conventional Oils
There are two basic types of engine oil available:

Conventional mineral oil, the traditional engine oil and most widely used

Synthetic motor oil, which is steadily gaining popularity among auto manufacturers and consumers

Then they say: "Both types of engine oil are made from crude oil that comes from the ground." Then pictures of the molecule size of syn versus conventional.

So what precisely is synthetic and what is dino oil? They both can come from crude oil base. Right? One is refined with man-made additives and the others can have additive but not additives considered synthetic, or man-made(?) Or is full synthetic only man-made w/o any crude base? Mobil seems to say otherwise (or at least aren't being fully transparent about its meaning....)


My Dad is a petroleum geologist. We lived in an oil camp in South America for several years. But I doubt he would know because he's not a petroleum engineer or chemist. He just finds the stuff. But who knows, maybe he does know. I'll see what he says.

 

220S-now your making my head hurt. I never implied synthetic couldn't come from crude oil cause it's synthetic. What I said, in a nutshell, is synthetic has nothing to do with HOW it's made. Synthetic only has to do with a performance standard. It's like drawing a line in the sand and API says that "ALL lubricants, regardless of how they are made, that pass this line will be called synthetic. All lubricants that don't make it to this line will be considered conventional lubricants". That's exactly how it works. No if's and's or but's about it.

See before Hydrocracker refining there was a big gap in performance between synthetics and dino oils. When Hydrocracker came and replaced solvent refining it made the dino oil so pure that it mimicked the qualities of the synthetics at the time. As you know Mobil sued Castrol but the API ruled in favor of Castrol as stating that Synthetic in oil denotes a performance standard, that to which hydrocracker refined crude oils could mimick. So now we have 2 oils, one that is crude, one that is synthetic and now they are both labeled synthetic according to the ruling the API set forth as it being a standard of performance vs how it was made.

So to be specific when refering to synthetic oils, we need to refer to them as either "true" synthetic class 4 POA's, or hydrocracker refined class 3 oil, also called synthetic. If we say synthetic is man made, in reality and all other instances I can think of YES, synthetic is man made, BUT when we are talking oil, it is not, at least not in most cases. That's why I say just the word synthetic throws everyone off, cause defining it, it means man made or synthesized. The API is the one who drew line that when crossed you could be called synthetic, hydrocracker refining crossed it.

Also I'm not talking additives, like adding some man made synthetic additives to crude so you can then call it all synthetic. This synthetic denotation has to do with the molecular properties of the base oil, not what any additives bring to the table. Also semi-synthetic is just a 50/50 mix of conventional motor and grp3 synthetic or grp 4 synthetic.

Also 220S, the Mobil1 site is referring to 2 kinds of oils. They are putting ALL oils into 2 classifications, which is synthetic and conventional oils. In essence, there are 5 categories or groups for rating the performance of oils. It goes like this. Group 1: Crude oil; Group 2: Crude oil; [synthetic performance line] Group 3: Crude oil (hydrocracker refined) can call it pure synthetic cause it exceeds the line; Group 4: POA synthetic (true man made synthesized product). Anything made or pulled out of the ground or sky or another planet or yet to be discovered. If it meets the group 3 standard, it will also be called a synthetic.

 

Chris, I wouldn't call Royal Purple superior per se but it is a Grp IV synthetic(Polyalphaolefins) which is a 100% synthetic oil and it has a great reputation in the racing world. I am now using Red Line 0w40 and I think I will stick with it since it has really quieted down my engine and lifters.

The company that was doing my UOA's was Stalevey Labs but I think they just got bought out by another company so its called something different. If I find the name I'll post it here.

Thanks.