My 04.5 oil analysis question

[Tomeygun]

Tommygun, I would recommend CTC they do a good job. I have a lot customers using them for a variety of equipment and oils (300+ samples a month. )

Cool, do they have a website? I am not familiar with them

 

[JJW_ND]

CTC runs a great lab....

Here is there site: http://www.ctclink.com/public/FLhome.cfm?CFID=280624&CFTOKEN=73466117



I have years of oil analysis now available online. New samples show up on line as well.



jjw

ND

 

[LightmanE300]

Oil Analyzers Inc is the main company that Amsoil uses and recommends for oil analysis. They do sub their samples out to a few other labs, including Cleveland Technical Center (ctc). I have used them since 2001 for many samples and they do a good job. I'll tell ya one thing, unless you pay more than the average test, CAT testing is pretty poor in my opinion. They don't even include TBN. Blackstone labs are good as mentioned above, as is the lab that AVlube uses(www.avlube.com) which is called Predictive Maintenance Services. PMS and CTC also do fuel analysis testing!



Rotts/Don - nobody has suggested this yet which surprises me, but I think that a good contributor to your high wear metals - is the fact that your truck is still breaking in. The high silicon reading would confirm it. Most oil analysis experts will tell you not to even bother testing until you have 20k on the clock of normal vehicles - plus we all know how long it takes for our trucks to break in. When/how many oil drains have you done before this 13-18k run?



Does the truck appear to be running well and getting normal mpg's?



It's clear that changing the oil sooner will not help, because the oil is still in new condition. The TBN is still extremely high, and oil is typically 'shot' when the TBN reaches 50% of its original number (provided other factors don't meet the threshold, like soot, metals etc).



I wouldn't waste time sending in new samples or messing with it further, provided the truck is running well. If I were you, I'd dump the current oil out, get yourself a stratapore filter, and check 5000 miles from now again. I don't think the Fram filter would have singlehandedly caused these high wear metals, but as mentioned above, they are less than desireable if you've got a choice in filters. In a pinch, the napa branded filters are made by fleetguard, however they are the normal version, not the stratapore.

 

[RAndrae]

Russian Roulette

if you have ever seen a fram cut apart you would NEVER use one on anything.

If you are going to risk major damage just to try and save a couple of bucks on a filter just get a revolver put 2 or three rounds in it and point it at whatever and pull the trigger... I have seen two major engine failures from fram.

FRam $4 fleetguard $8 = $4savings. Oil changes at every 5000 mi in 100,000 mi thats 80$$$ not worth it IMO

 

[Turbo Tim 1]

Isn't premium blue a synthetic oil? Aren't we suppose to wait until 20,000 miles before switching to a synthetic oil? Or is that 10,000? With the synthetic things could take alot longer to break in too. I think I would resample and see what the new one says.

 

[LightmanE300]

Premium blue is dino oil -15w40. Prem blue extreme is 5w40 group 3 (petroleum based) 'synthetic' .



I agree, dont be cheap with the filters, however I don't think the filter caused the reading, I think the engine is just too new.

 

[gbartels]

does anybody use scheaffer oil you get free oil scans ichanged to supreme 7000 15w40 at 10,000 mi changed oil at 17,000 sent in sample and they recommed to go up to 9000 mi on oil change

 

[bpenrod]

I usually chage my Rotella T at 10k, did slip and hit 21K on one sample and the lab told me everything looked good. A few readins were over the national average but due to the extended oil use they said it was not bad. Somehow the viscosity was high, I figured it would be low after being in there so long but who knows!

 

[Gary - K7GLD]

"is the fact that your truck is still breaking in. The high silicon reading would confirm it. "



I don't think so - the very first analysis on my '02, and before I installed my Frantz bypass, was WAYYyyyy lower than those readings...



From an earlier oil analysis thread, when I only had 6000 miles on my truck:





"4000 miles on Delo 15/40 - about 2/3 towing - no added oil...



All below PPM:



Aluminum - 2

Chromium - 2

Iron - 19

Copper - 9

Lead - 4

Tin - 1

Silicon - 11



Fuel - 1

Insolubles - . 3



Seems to all fall well into "normal" or better range for an engine with only 2000 miles on it at the beginning of the test period and equipped as listed below, towing a 7000 lb 5er...



Now for my bypass filter install... . "

 

[Vaughn MacKenzie]

Gary is right, rotts4u's numbers at 18k are way high, they're higher than what I had with a brand new engine on the first oil change (both my '03 and '01).



The silicon looks high to me. . . my thought is it's an air filtration issue. Either a bad seal on the airbox, a K&N, whatever, I would check that first.



Vaughn

 

[redram]

rotts4u,



I would say most of your problems are caused by that Fram oil filter. Just my opinion of course, but I would not use one when a Fleetguard can be found easily. Using good oil and a bad filter kind of defeats the purpose.



Again, just my opinion.



p. s. is your username in reference to the dog breed?

mberry, the filter will not be the cause of the wear metals as these particles are in the 1-10 micron particle size and a standard full flow filter (any brand) best filteration is going to be in the 15-25 micron filter size.

You're looking at particles that are too small to see (normal vision people can see 40 micron) so as you can see, the oil filter choice would not have made an impact on this.

 

[rotts4u]

Yes it is referenced to the breed. I have only one now but breed them for years.





And the second oil analysis turned out fine.



don

 

[LightmanE300]

Almost all new engines have high silicon readings as I mentioned earlier. You folks that didn't either broke it in better on the first run or got lucky. . Mine had an absurdly high silicon on the first analysis and then had like 6 on the next one... same filter... Glad to hear it worked out rotts. I lost my first and only pet - a rott- in feb - they are great dogs.