Focus Fanatics Forum banner

Used Oil Analysis

9K views 28 replies 14 participants last post by  sailor 
#1 ·
After reading up on used oil analyses on BITOG.com I started to get a little spooked about our direct injection engines and the increased risk of fuel contamination of the oil. So for some peace of mind I had a Blackstone UOA done.

I dumped the factory fill at about 1,500 miles and used cheap (but decent) old Pennzoil Yellow Bottle 5W20 and a PureOne filter. Changed that at 6,500 miles and sent in the sample, so a relatively low 5,000 miles on the oil.

To my novice eyes the results look great. Wear metals are relatively low especially for such a new engine, and very little fuel dilution. With a TBN of 3.9 and flashpoint of 410 the cheapo oil had plenty of life in it.

I decided to fill it with Motorcraft Synth Blend this time (still using a PureOne filter) and will probably continue to. Since the MC blend is probably a little better than the Pennzoil dino oil, looks like we can pretty easily go 10,000 miles on the synth blend. Still, I’ll probably change this batch at 7,500 or so since the engine is probably still breaking in a little.

Here’s the Blackstone report and a comparison I did myself using some UOAs of 2nd Gen Foci on BITOG.com. I welcome your comments.






 
See less See more
4
#3 ·
Awesome! This is like... bloodwork for cars. How much does this cost? Might it be worth doing on an older car as a way of troubleshooting and/or preventing upcoming issues such as low amounts of antifreeze in the oil before a head gasket blows?
 
#6 ·
Thanks for posting this, Kam. Wear metals look really good, especially for an engine that new. And seeing fuel dilution isn't a problem makes me think some of the direct injection worries are overdone. Maybe Ford was right coming up with the 10,000 mile OCI.
 
#11 ·
Your TBN is great for dino oil @ 5K miles. Looking at UOAs on BITOG for the MC blend, I suspect also that it will be fine with 10K OCIs in this engine. Considering that this is plain dino, I think that is not far off the mark.

Thanks for posting your results!
 
#12 ·
Thanks for sharing this information. I'll still continue with my 5,000 mile changes just for the convenience. Any time I check my oil I smell the dipstick for fuel. Haven't noticed a hint. My last car however, as soon as you pulled the stick out of the engine you could smell the fuel.
 
#15 ·
I'm a data driven person, which is why I did the oil analysis. I can blank out my personal info and post the whole analysis another time, but here's the narrative from the Blackstone analysis I did at 9,873 at my first change:

"You're doing the right thing by changing the oil according to Ford's recommendations, especially while you're under warranty. This sample looks about as expected considering this is factory fill. Aluminum, iron, and copper read high, but they're due to wear-in and should improve with time. Silicon is from factory sealers and sand-casted parts and it, too, should improve over time. Averages show how metals look after about 6,000 miles on the oil. Your engine should progress towards those readings soon. The TBN is okay at 1.5 (1.0 is low). Try 10K again."
 
#16 ·
Cool. Yeah if you have the time I think you should post your results in this thread and hopefully others will to so we have a database of results handy. So far I haven't found any other posted '12 Focus analyses on BITOG or anywhere else for that matter.
 
#18 ·
I will have my first one in about a month, and I'll be sure to post it. It will be my second change, with only about 4K miles on the oil.
 
#19 ·
Watch in the next few weeks when I begin a dedicated thread for UOA results as I track them in a detailed excel speadsheet. We did the same thing on SVTPerformance forums.

GT500 UOA thread

I have my factory fill sample from 945 miles as a baseline test. There will be additional testing with the Amsoil 5W-20 currently in the sump at every 3,000 mile interval. I will not change the oil at all, only test every 3,000 miles. Here is my factory sample.



I dumped the factory fill at about 1,500 miles and used cheap (but decent) old Pennzoil Yellow Bottle 5W20 and a PureOne filter. Changed that at 6,500 miles and sent in the sample, so a relatively low 5,000 miles on the oil.

To my novice eyes the results look great. Wear metals are relatively low especially for such a new engine, and very little fuel dilution. With a TBN of 3.9 and flashpoint of 410 the cheapo oil had plenty of life in it.
It amazes me that a cheap lubricant can perform easily to 5,000 miles, yet still have life left in it.....

but people still have a hard time understanding that a premium lubricant like Amsoil Signature Series 5W-20 can easily perform up to 15,000 miles or one year per oil change (severe service schedule).

How much did the analysis cost you?
Amsoil Preferred Customers only pay $26.00 for a complete oil analysis, also includes free TBN and oxidation testing. Blackstone charges you extra for TBN and they do not offer oxidation testing to my knowledge (unless specifically requested). Amsoil's $26.00 price also includes UPS return shipping. Polaris Labs actually does the testing. OAI is only a cover name from Amsoil.
 
#24 ·
Watch in the next few weeks when I begin a dedicated thread for UOA results as I track them in a detailed excel speadsheet. We did the same thing on SVTPerformance forums.

GT500 UOA thread

I have my factory fill sample from 945 miles as a baseline test. There will be additional testing with the Amsoil 5W-20 currently in the sump at every 3,000 mile interval. I will not change the oil at all, only test every 3,000 miles. Here is my factory sample.





It amazes me that a cheap lubricant can perform easily to 5,000 miles, yet still have life left in it.....

but people still have a hard time understanding that a premium lubricant like Amsoil Signature Series 5W-20 can easily perform up to 15,000 miles or one year per oil change (severe service schedule).



Amsoil Preferred Customers only pay $26.00 for a complete oil analysis, also includes free TBN and oxidation testing. Blackstone charges you extra for TBN and they do not offer oxidation testing to my knowledge (unless specifically requested). Amsoil's $26.00 price also includes UPS return shipping. Polaris Labs actually does the testing. OAI is only a cover name from Amsoil.
I pulled my dipstick the other day and it was maybe 1/3 of a quart low after 4k miles which tells me that oil would need to be added before 15k miles.

I use the house brand "cheap" oil. always have and usually change my oil around every 3k miles and have never had a problem with any vehicle.

with the focus i'll change oil every 5k which means the only time I will need to pop the hood is when I add wiper fluid. at the 5k intervals i'll have air pressure brought back up and at every 10k have the tires rotated.
 
#21 ·
If they do, post it in the dedicated UOA thread. Excel spreadsheet coming soon.

Link
 
#22 ·
I test my oil every few years to see how long I can go between oil changes. I'll post up some of mine in the other thread. The reports can be reassuring if you track your car a lot, much urban driving, or spend much time in the upper rpms.
 
#23 ·
Motorcraft Synblend Goes 8,000 Miles Safely

Here's my 2nd UOA. The Motorcraft SynBlend safely went to 8,000 miles. Maybe could've stretched it to 10,000, but I probably won't in the future.

I have Pennzoil Platinum and a K&N filter on now, not because I like synthetics but because it was $20 for both at AAP back in March. I plan to run that to 8,000 miles too and do an apples to apples comparison, in other words how much better does the PP perform, if any.

 
#26 ·
As promised here's my third (and probably last) UOA on my Focus. Wanted to do a direct comparison between the Pennzoil Platinum and Motorcraft SynBlend over the same mileage and same driving conditions - commuter car, same commute for both periods.

It's no surprise the PP was in better shape. But I don't see it greatly exceeding the value of the MC on a cost/mile basis. The PP has about a 40% price premium over MC. The MC would've easily gone to 9k miles. Would the PP have easily gone to almost 13k miles? Impossible to say based on this UOA but I'm guessing they're about even on value.

Sure, NOACK is a concern. But the recent PQIA testing of PYB and QS conventionals with their ultra-low noacks solves that problem.

I think after exhausting my stash of PP I'll stick to PYB at about 8-9k OCIs.


 
#27 ·
PYB may be a good answer for you. But take a look at the recent thread about the new GTL Pennzoil Platinum: the new PDS shows 5w/20 Noack of 8.6% or thereabouts, which is considerably higher than the PQIA result for PYB. So either something was wrong with the PQIA's testing or that particular batch of PYB was an aberration. It wouldn't seem to make sense to Pennzoil to put more GTL into PYB than Platinum. No telling when/if Pennzoil will publish a new PDS for PYB, of course...

The UOAs look great, incidentally.
 
#28 ·
Is this thread still a thing??



I'm a bit worried by the iron/aluminum numbers. I've run Motorcraft 5W20 since new, though I just switched to Mobil 1 5W20 because Wal-Mart was all out of Motorcraft. I'll run this one for 7000 miles and test again, hopefully the numbers are down!
 
#29 ·
No oil added in almost 10k?

That's certainly still nice & tight.

Prev. change intervals can affect current numbers, and it really takes a series of reports to get a better idea what's going on unless something major shows up as an issue (like contaminants that shouldn't be there).
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top