Used Oil Analysis of CAMRY'S Pennzoil Platinum 5w-30 after 4,920 miles

That's good if you're making lumpia but it's different than typical Chinese soy sauces... and the Chinese sauces come in a variety of different densities and sweetnesses, for various different table and cooking applications.

The plates were very interesting. We found, for instance, that Pearl River Bridge Gold Label is identical to the cheaper and lower grade Pearl River Bridge sauce, except with more water and salt added. And also that there are a lot of companies selling Pearl River Bridge sauce that isn't actually the real thing at all. It seems that that brand has enough of a name that other Chinese companies are printing labels with that name on it.

Oh... another interesting thing we found is that the heavy sauces almost always have less wheat than the table sauces, which is important if you are cooking for people who can't handle wheat proteins. Some of the sauces that claim to use peanuts instead of wheat will actually use wheat anyway because it's cheaper.

Let's hear it for Chinese quality control...

--scott

And there is the rub.

There probably ARE some people who have done good controlled studies on the subject, but they aren't going to be telling anyone about them because that's valuable proprietary information.

--scott

Amazing. Well, for us, the wife either goes with Datu Puti or Silver Swan... and won't touch anything else. Even Kikkoman. Well it's her dish, so that's fine with me... :D if I cook, so long as it's black and smells like soy sauce, that's good enough for me.

Isn't gel electrophoresis for determining protein weights? So you have a bunch of sodium dodecyl sulfate and polyacrylamide handy at home, eh? :D It's been years since I took a biochemistry lab.

Michael

If you can't handle wheat, you probably should stay away from any bottle of that stuff. I've never seen a peanut soy sauce. Sounds icky. I prefer Aloha brand shoyu. This is a fake sauce and one that many folks would say sounds icky. :-)

Yaaaay!

Well, I am probably as stingy and tight with my money as ANYONE but I ONLY use syn oil in my 99 Camry 6 cyl. here in Edmonton, Canada. No matter HOW COLD it gets, e.g. -40, there is NO DRAG....car starts instantly. Try THAT with dino oil.

Going through Death Valley...no oil breakdown. Try THAT with dino oil.

I see no "data" that "stands behind" your statement: "Synthetic is no benefit to me." either.

What assumptions influenced your opinion, resulting in the perspective,that synthetic motor oil is no different than non-synthetic motor oil if used in your vehicle?

Just curious, regards, Joe.

What assumptions influenced your opinion, resulting in the perspective,that synthetic motor oil is no different than non-synthetic motor oil if used in your vehicle?

Just curious, regards, Joe.

**************** Manufacturer does not either recommend or specify synthetic. That is one reason.

Second reason is that I do not now live in a part of the country where extreme cold is an issue. I have no need for the extreme temperature specifications claimed by synthetics.

Third is that my previous cars which were lubricated with high quality petroleum based oils all had excellent engine life with no indication of premature wear. Some went 200,000 miles before I traded up, and I kept others to well over

100,000 miles before I traded (usually due to the age of the vehicle). The only engine I ever lost was a Pontiac Fiero 4 cylinder which was due to the inferior casting of this engine block.

Fourth, for me to change to synthetic which costs twice as much money at least, I will have to run the car at least twice as long on change intervals just to break even.

This isnt data. It is anecdotal. But in lieu of hard data to convince me to change from a pattern which has worked well for me, and to go to a system which is more expensive, it is good enough.

Fair enough. If you experience temperatures that low, then synthetic is one method to approach it. Block heaters are another.

I'm 100% with you guys on this and it is exactly what I do. Right down to the Kind of oil: Pennzoil Platinum 5W20 in the 5 quart container. Not that you need my support, but I thought I would chime in here and give my own Personal Endorsement to what is being said regarding extended oil change intervals.

Carry on.

Nick

My sneaking suspicion is that Kikkoman is overpriced junk as Japanese style sauces go, but I don't really cook that style food and so I never did test any of those sauces.

Your wife has the right idea, though... find something good that you like and which is consistent, and stick with it.

You're basically taking everything in the sample and separating it top to bottom by molecular weight, then right to left by electric charge. The faster it climbs the gel, the lighter it is, and the more it's pulled by the polarization voltage across the plate, the more charged it is.

Then you can apply a dye that indicates protein, or pH, or anything else you want. We used a dye for proteins since that's the interesting stuff you want to characterize with soy sauce.

I'm not a biochemist but I have friends who are and who will loan me stuff out of their lab in exchange for my loaning them stuff out of mine.

--scott

I grew up with Aloha Shoyu and it's probably one of the better Japanese style sauces. They have limited distribution on the mainland.

There are some good peanut-based soy sauces out there.... ask your local Vietnamese market for "vegetarian soy sauce" and they can probably find something of that style.

The Chinese have perfected processes for making soy sauce out of human hair and other repulsive procedures....

--scott

Don't blame the oil for that. People shouldn't live that far north. You have to wear clothes all the time. If you went outside in shorts you could die! How can people live like that? Water is supposed to be a liquid. When it turns into a solid form, this is a sign that human habitation is not a good idea.

Actually, what fails at high temperatures are mostly the viscosity improvers and not the oil itself. The VI chemistry is getting better and better, and it's not related to the base oil at all.

--scott

Speaking of other repulsive procedures... there's a Philippine dish called "siopao" which is basically pork-filled bread. While visiting the Philippines, there was a story on the local news about the Chinese substituting the pork with cardboard... they'd soak cardboard in water overnight, then stuff that into the siopaos and sell them.

Never heard about the human hair though... yecch.

I bought some food-grade Aspergillus oryzae planning on making ethanol at home (basically a modified Japanese sake process) but it stinks up the garage too much, so I abandoned that line of experiments... but A. oryzae from what I hear is used in making soy sauce... maybe brew your own?

Michael

On Jul 7, 5:51 pm, ransley wrote:

That's why I use the castrol syntec blend. To help prevent coking and sludge build up in the hot head areas. And from what I've seen so far, synth oil and to a slightly lesser extent synth blends, do resist coking vs dino oils. It flows better when cold, but that's not a big issue to me at this location. The Toyota I have now is the first car I've ever used synth or synth blend. But it had low miles to begin with, and I want it to last 300k miles, and the previous sludge problems made me paranoid. I never want to see that problem on mine. Yes, they supposedly modified the heads to make them less prone to sludge, but I've heard of the problem on the newer models too. It didn't totally go away, but I do have to wonder about the oil change skeds of the ones with newer models that sludge. I feel the extra protection from sludge is cheap insurance on that car. I sleep better at night. I change it every 5k as per the Toyota schedule. I'd never use extended oil changes as I feel it's stupid. I want the dirt and crud out of my engine on a regular basis. I want a new filter on a regular basis. And I want new oil on a regular basis as the detergents, etc are depleted. BTW, I know this is not a controlled test, but I know of people that have torn down engines that used various oils through their life. I know of one that has torn down several of his own engines, and knew what oil they had used through the years. He stated that the engines that used synth oils had lower engine wear, and were generally cleaner when town down after 150-200k+ miles. He said the wear using dino oil was quite acceptable, but not quite as good as an engine that had run synth oil it's whole life. Not a scientific test by any means, but I believe him when he said the high miles synth oiled engines had less sludge and overall wear. He didn't work for an oil co., and had to reason to lie about it. But for me, it varies to the vehicle, type of engine, potential problems, etc.. I use dino oil in both of my old Ford trucks. I don't feel synth oil is worth the extra money for those engines as they are not as critical as the higher rev, hotter head temp FI four banger in my Corolla. But like I say, I paid a pretty good hunk of change for the Corolla, and with the past sludge issues, I consider paying an extra buck or two a quart for the synth blend cheap insurance. BTW, I don't use oil analysis. No need.. I can tell if something ain't right just listening to it run. :/ Unless there is a problem to be diagnosed, I consider an oil test as basically a waste of money. I didn't even bother on my rebuilt Ford 300 after the first 500 mile oil change. What good would it do? Not much unless I had an obvious problem like a suspected bad bearing, etc. Being it ran great, I couldn't see wasting money to get someone else to verify from the oil that it was running great. Kinda silly.. :/ I'd rather save the money for future oil changes.

Block heaters, over a period of time, consume a lot of electricity. One isn't able to plug in unless at home, as a rule.

Shorts? I don't even OWN any shorts--at least the kind that one would wear outside or in a gym.

IIRC, it was not a high operating temperature that caused the sludging in that particular series.

It was difficult to get the straight story, but Toyota said that in every case, the owner had not serviced the vehicle conscientiously. But, they also lowered the oil change interval after that.

Others said that the PCV system on those cars had been revised, and that might have been a causative factor in the sludging.

I do not believe that Toyota recommended changing types of oil to solve the problem.

Please correct me if my memory is faltering.

Oh, BS... You can heat your block for a long time for the cost of 5 litres of synthetic oil.

Where I got cold weather experience, our homes, hotels, and even some parking areas had provisions for block heaters.

The TOTAL cost of the syn oil is NOT the figure to use. One should use the DIFFERENCE in price between SYN and DINO oil for a fair comparison. Incredible. Someone pays 40, 50, 60 thou for a vehicle and whines and moans about paying an extra buck a litre or so.