Thanks all for the info.

Ethan, I haven't a chance to go get the booklet, but I found the URL for approved oil
http://www.whnet.com/4x4/oil.html

I am a 0W40 type guy so that's what I'll be using in my next service. Hopefully the current Mob1 10W30 won't cause any problem for 5-6K. Any thought?

Regards,
Jeffrey

I had used Mobil 1 !0W30 for many miles in my C230, the 10W30 was a Mercedes approved grade for many years and still is particularly in synthetic grade.
But for newer cars with FSS, Mercedes approved a particular sector of grades and manufacturers - strictly for the fact that the oil may stay in the sump for 12K miles or more.

You don't need to worry about Mobil-1 10W30 in your car

Don't worry about your oil, and make sure the brake fluid has been changed in the past two years, the coolant in the past three.
Your sunroof rails have been lubed. And give some thought to changing out the rear differential fluid.

I think that it really depends on the type of driving you do and also the age of the car.

I always use the weight that the OE lists as the recomended -- this is very important!!. They give this for a reason.

I also have a few cars that do not get much use -- I always change it once per year regardless of the miles.

Our sales cars and our transport cars all get a lot of highway miles, some up to 60K per year, most in the 30K range -- I change them around 5k never before - I use regular oil and have never had an engine go. I do not keep them past 200K.

I have noticed with newer cars the oil is CLEAN, this being on cars with 5QT sumps! I looked at the last 5K change on one of the Nissan Pathfinders with 35K -- you would not believe how clean it was!! I have been thinking that I may start to move towards 7K changes

MB's hold lots of oil -- In normal driving
with Mobil 1 -- I change them at about 8k. My Jag also holds 8.5Q -- Jag says 10K in normal driving.

If you do short trips you do need to change it more often, but even that depends on the spacing of longer trips in the mix and the outside temp.

Rafi, good point. I got lazy typing, but here is full analysis report for 99 ML430:

Mileage 87k........................70k
Mobil1 15W50.................Mobil1 10W30
After 6k miles................ After 15k miles

Aluminum 5...........................7
Chromium 1..........................1
Iron 12 ...........................16
Copper 4...............................7
Lead 0...................................4
Tin 1 ....................................1
Molibden 0.............................0
Nickel 2..................................0
Manganese 3 ......................72*
Silver 0 ..................................0
Titanium 0............................. 0
Potassium 9...........................0
Boron 58..............................31
Silicon 23...............................9
Sodium 5................................4
Calcium 800.......................848
Magnesium 1372...............1352
Phosphorus 897.................655
Zinc 1082............................757
Barium 0................................0
Viscosity 80.3......................59.9
Flashpoint 380....................360
Fuel% <0.5........................<0.5
Antifreeze 0%..................... 0%
Water 0%.......................0%
Insolubles 0.4%...................0.3%

* High Manganese content was due to a lot of Canadian gas used
Regards, Mike

I am over 60 years old and have put many many cars and trucks, along with what my parents drove, over 100k miles in both the US and overseas and have always changed the oil at 10k miles. I have never, never had an oil related engine problem. I currently use Havoline 30w in 2 Diesel trucks with a total of 300K on them, a Chrysler mini van with 190K on it, my 450slc with nearly 150K on it, and my 40 year old Ford 4400 Diesel tractor with God knows how many hours on it.

The trick to long oil life is to run your engine until it is hot. That pretty much burns out the water that collects in the engine during the first few minutes of operation. Its the water mixed with the sulfur in the fuel which results in a mild sulfuric acid that damages you engine and exhaust system.

From what I have read and gleaned from those who know there basically isn't a dimes worth of difference between all the name brand oils on the market. What ever one oil has today the others will have tomorrow. I can hear everyone rolling their collective eyeballs back and recounting their horrific experiences with various kinds of oil. I have used most kinds of foreign and domestic oils. I mix grades and brands as necessary, and, as I said, have never had any problem.

Some years ago Consumer Report did a very interesting study on oils. They put 77 newly rebuilt 350 engines in New York taxies. They ran straight oil, multi grade, oil with STP and all other additives. They changed oil at intervals ranging from 2ks to 20ks. They did the same with filters. Their results: Change your oil and filter anywhere between 6k and 12k. Use a name brand oil of any viscosity. Some multi grades will improve your milage but basically any good oil will see you through.

For those that change their oil at 2k you might as well stand in your front yard and throw dollar bills in the air. Not only are you wasting money, you are support corrupt regimes around the world, you are causing excess polution, using up a valuable world rescorce, and you are helping the US negative balance of payment. There, I covered all the sensitive geo-political areas and offended almost everyone.

My husband is also a little skeptical about the intervals of the FSS and we were wondering what everyone else does, but it looks as though people do whatever they think is best - in most cases it looks as though a more frequent schedule is followed. My car is a 2002 and is still under warranty. We plan to put it away for the winter and think we should do that with fresh oil. He has winterized vehicles before and has added fuel stabilizer to the full gas tank. Has anyone else winterized? We live in Southern Ontario and it will be inside. I also need to pick up a car cover - any ideas where to find one that fits well?

What are these units? pounds per gallon? picograms per liter? meaningless without a reference.

And I like your statement...no oil change needed. So why do you continue to change it with few miles? Cause a book says you have to?

I change oil, or rather I let my 11 year old little girl do it, anywhere from 3 to 10K miles, Castrol 10W40. quarter million on a Isuzu, only 90K on the benz.

Would that be BUSH IRAQI COALITION CRUDE ?

The unit is parts per million (PPM) in terms of weight per weight so the weight can be anything grams or pounds of the material lets say zinc per gram or pound of oil and then there is a factor of million. So if the Zinc reading was 1 that would be 1 gram or pound of zinc per million gram or pound of oil. You can convert to % since the magnesium is such a large number 1352 PPM would be 0.135 %

These measured parameters does not say anything about the source of the oil (mineral or synthetic). They are just materials added to impart the oil with different characteristics and improvements on some its defeciencies. Some of the other metals are not added to the oil but come off from your engine (such as aluminum, chromium, iron, etc).

But generally there would be different additive packages added to mineral oil vs synthetic.

After thinking about this, the analysis has no meaning without knowing what the concentrations were of these same substances prior to putting it in the engine.

oil analysis should be a periodic procedure

However TBN -Total Base Number - the amount of NaOH / grams / unit, is useful to know regardless, a number of two or lower means oil has become too acidic and needs to be changed.

Also physical properties like; glycol, water, fuel are self explanetory in their presence and amount.

Physical properties of matter are plasma,vapor, liqiud,solid, what you list are physical things, but not properties ... of matter

In response to previous post.

The idea of using oil analysis at intervals is in response to the reply immediately preceding my reply. What could be a more logical response?
Is oil analysis totally irrelevant? That subject is inconsequential of the development of the replies in the thread.

I have never seen an oil analysis report where - glycol, water, fuel, viscosity and solids - were not listed under PHYSICAL PROPERTIES

TBN reflects the amount of sodium hydroxide left in the oil. The less NaOH, the less protection your oil can offer against acid build-up. Low TBN numbers, like 2 or 3 are good indicators to change your oil.

The TBN is the amount of NaOH remaining in grams per unit. My writing, `the amount NaOH/grams/unit` and using a diagonal to seperate the three main items was simply to indicate the three successive elements I think are relevant in understanding TBN. And that knowing about TBN is worthwhile even when not using periodic oil analysis.

Ethan- There is no sodium hydroxide (NaOH) in the oil. The TBN (total base number) reading is KOH equivalent (milligram KOH equivalent per gram of oil). The basic properties comes from calcium sulfonate and calcium phenate as well as its magnesium counterparts if it is added (magnesium sulfonate, etc) as well as some calcium carbonate. The sulfonates and phenates also have detergent peroperties.

I e-mailed redline with two questions,



Redline;

Does the TBN reflect the amount of NaOH or KOH in the oil?

No it doesn't.
The TBN level in the Red Line motor oils is from CaCO3, Calcium Carbonate.


Is there any NaOH in motor oil? if so how does it get there. combustion or in fresh oil?

There isn't any NaOH in our oils.