Oil Analysis Test

[abscate]

Don't know honestly - I will look at the container tonight. I know it is 'full synthetic' and not blend.

[rmmagow]

Walmart synthetic 10w30 in my 217K V70, down 1/2 QT after 4500 miles. I have increased my change interval to ~7500 since the oil still looks good. My last drain I caught some in a jar and I can still see through it. Not real scientific but....

[erikv11]

At this age/mileage (160,000 miles for me), it is a good idea to do an oil analysis to check on the health of the engine.

Let's say there are leaky injectors, it will show as fuel dilution.
Or let's say there is internal coolant leak, glycol will show up in the oil.

I recently did a Stage 0 tune-up (new spark plugs, cap/rotor, Bougicord, new fuel filter, FI cleaner etc. etc.). You can tell the oil analysis looks good after 5,000 miles. See the report!

I use NAPA Synthetic Oil (supposedly made by Valvoline):

CNOilAnalysis.JPG

How much does this analysis cost you? Looks like you can walk it in yourself, that is nice.

[cn90]

I pay $16 for the oil analysis.

Each day, this company does about 110 samples! About 95% of their business is heavy farm equipment because these machines are very very expensive ($250K ---> $1M), they operate under severe condition: mud, dust, rain, etc. etc. These farmers take good care of their expensive toys.

As long as you can find a heavy machinery service company (such as Caterpillar, John Deere etc.), you should be able to find their oil analysis service.

Sadly, the car industry does not use this service regularly. An oil analysis is like a blood test, it can tell issues way before the owners know it.

As a good car owner, other than when you have problem (such as blown head gasket), part of routine care IMHO is to do oil analysis at let's say: 100K, 150K, 200K, 250K etc. etc. It is $16 well-spent!

[blandis]

We sent our samples to Blackstone in Ft. Wayne. Grew up less than an hour from there and had many of the "expensive toys" mentioned earlier as we farmed a fair amount of ground. Money well spent.

I do 5K with Mobil 1 on both the XC90 and S70 I own. Have considered changing the filter at 5K and topping level off and running another 5K then doing a complete oil change.

[erikv11]

... I do 5K with Mobil 1 on both the XC90 and S70 I own. Have considered changing the filter at 5K and topping level off and running another 5K then doing a complete oil change.

I have read of a few people who do that with their turbo Volvos. Especially if the vehicle sees mostly trips above 10 miles or so, seems like a good way to go.

[rspi]

I did send in a sample to Blackstone for testing at about 225,000 and got the report back that a5,500 miles my oil had 57% of it's additives left. Meaning that I could probably change every 10,000. They recommended that I bump the changes to 8,000 and retest. I now change at about 7,500 but have NOT sent another sample in yet. I have two and will likely send one in.

Not sure where I posted the results but they claimed that my motor was burning very clean for it's age and there was very little of anything in the oil other than valve stem seals I think. The report shows what particles were in the oil in parts per millions I think and that different parts are made of different materials. So, if a crank bearing is wearing, it would have that material in the oil.

I'll see if I can find the report and link the photo here... You can always see one on their site if I don't find mine.

Blackstone Lab Result

black-2.jpg (170.7 KiB) Viewed 1148 times

[mecheng]

I always laugh at the ppl who change their oil with the best synthetic oil at 5000-8000km only to sell
Their car when it has 200,000km or is too old. What a waste.

On my Hondas I used good Dino oil and changed it at 10-12000 km and never had a problem. Engine was very clean.

[instarx]

Changing synthetic at 3,000 or even 5,000 (in under 6 months) is just throwing away money. Most high quality synthetics or even semi synthetics will be good til 8000-10000 mile intervals if you don't do a lot of short trips or idling.

It's worth sending in an analysis at 7.500 miles and seeing what they say.

Do I ever agree with this! But you will never get a lot of people to even consider it, despite the actual evidence. "Always changed my oil at 3,000 miles and never had a problem", they will say. Of course they wouldn't have had a problem if they had changed it every 50 miles either, so that isn't exactly what I call hard evidence that 3,000 miles is "correct".

Oil analysis is the only way to go - then you KNOW.

Back in the 40's, 50's and 60's 3,000 mile change intervals were needed - but today not. On today's engines (tighter tolerances, harder materials) using today's oils the rest of the car will probably fall to pieces before you wear out an engine.

[cn90]

The truth of the matter is: most of us drive in the "severe category" according to the owners manual, which means winter, frequent stop-and-go, grocery shopping, kids school, work etc.

As mentioned above, if you drive primarily highway to work with at least 7-10 miles each way, then synthetic oil change every 9K-10K is fine.

But since mots of us belong to the severe category, I use synthetic and replace it every 5K-6K, which is what the car guru Larry Carley says, whatever it means to people.