oil analysis question...

My reports look good on my 3VZ-E that has 175k. A friend just did his, same engine but 255k! All elements looked good on that report too.. Dino oil every 3k in both vehicles...

. Blackstone labs say I can try 6K next time, but I

Highway miles are much easier than stop and go and short trip miles. If Blackstone's recommendation is based on a sample where you ran an abnormally high percentage of highway miles, you should shorten their recommendation, not lengthen it.

"Kryptoknight" sez:

The sample is sniffed for a variety of contaminants. Different elements indicate different locations of wear so one can discriminate between bearings or piston/rings, coolant contamination, etc. Presence of silicates indicate poor filtration.

Once the trend line for a particular engine has been established, a spike in a particular contaminant gives the earliest indication of an accelerated wear condition. Labs also have all those other samples to loosely compare things to for the "norm" so a goodly amount of information on the internal health of your engine can be had. Its standard practice for heavy industrial diesel engines and they plan their maintenance schedules by oil analysis.

It might be somewhat esoteric for regular passenger vehicle use, but if you have the misfortune to get a lemon whose engine is eating its young, it would be irrefutable proof of a problem. Might save a person from being bounced around until the warranty is up and they are SOL ...

Good wrenchin' to ya, VLJ

"Kryptoknight" wrote

Is the oil contaminated with water, antifreeze, gas, dirt, trans fluid, etc. Has the oil maintained an acceptable level of viscosity. Are there excessive wear products in the oil. Lead, bismuth, aluminium etc.

Truthfully a good compression check and keeping an eye on your oil pressure and fluids usage will tell you far more about your engines condition on a more timely basis. We use oil analysis at work on gearboxes that see far more stress than your engine will ever see. I've never had a bad analysis and the synthetic oil was over ten years old before we had our first problem. It got real loud because a bearing went out in one of them. The oil analysis still showed good oddly enough. It's like changing your engine oil every three thousand miles. It's generally not necessary but if it makes you feel better then why not?

so if on my 2nd go around i drive on dusty backroads of kansas and then send my oil sample in, a spike in silicates will be in the oil, what does the analysis tell me ?? not much unless i can quantatatively measure the airborn silicate difference between each analysis period.

"Kryptoknight" wrote

If the spike is above levels normally seen it tells you to change your oil more often under those driving conditions. Either that or you have antifreeze leaking into your oil and you buy cheap (high silicate) antifreeze. It's about general trends not exact numbers. More of an art than a science. Unless of course it's a catastrophic failure, in which case you'll know it before the analysis gets back.

an "art" rather than "science"??? not what others says in this group. i suggested comparing oil color while driving using various air filters. others said to use the "scientific" oil analysis method because it tells you what's in the oil.

without knowing the differences between driving conditions (using scientific measures) a oil analysis tells you nothing as it relates to you air filtration, ring wear, etc., but it will tell you "you got more xyz in your oil" which would be an "expected outcome".

i agree it's a "trending" type of procedure, but i would not rely on it 100% to tell me what's wrong with the engine.

"Kryptoknight" wrote

Yup an art. They're right if you are duplicating the conditions exactly with each fresh air filter. Which is of course completely impossible. That's where the art part comes in real handy. Science gives you raw data. The art is deciding what it means, correctly.

The only thing that tells me what was wrong with an engine is fixing it. Anything else is just a theory............