Syntec oil analysis @ 10K miles

[hudsonjrwt]

Results for an OA analysis of dealer installed Castrol Syntec (presume that is what they installed) in a 2000 Jetta TDI. Vehicle has 10,475 miles on it, the oil had 5,659 miles over a 65 day period. Been on a steady diet of Amoco diesel fuel and Power Service fuel supplement. Would appear the Castrol is OK for 5K service intervals. Only variation I notice is viscosity is a tad low for a 40 wt at 100 degrees C (30 wt range is 9.3-<12.5, 40 wt is 12.5-<16.3). Dumped the new Syntec out after 100 miles and replaced with Delvac 1 to be able to establish a comparison between the two products.

PHYSICAL PROPERTIES:
Glycol: neg
% water: <0.05
% fuel: <1.0
viscosity @ 100 degrees C: 12.3

OIL DEGRADATION:
Soot: <1.0
% OXD: 4.4
% NOX: 18.6
TBN: 7.1

SPECTROGRAPHIC ANALYSIS (PPM):
Iron: 61
Chromium: 2
Lead: 4
Copper: 5
Tin: 2
Aluminum: 8
Nickel: 3
Silver: 0
Manganese: 3
Silcon: 8
Boron: 69
Sodium: 0
Magnesium: 372
Calcium: 2792
Barium: 0
Phosphorus: 1109
Zinc: 1319
Molybdenum: 17
Titanium: 0
Vandium: 0
Cadmium: 0

COMMENTS:
No corrective action required
Oil is suitable for continued use
Resample at next regular interval

[This message has been edited by hudsonjrwt (edited July 22, 2000).]

 

[mickey]

Iron seems a bit high, especially after just 5000 miles. But the rings could still have been "seating." That might explain it. TBN looks surprisingly good!

I sure wish that Oil Analyzers would provide EXACT soot content data. "Less than 1%" isn't enough information.

-mickey

 

[GeWilli]

TBN actually looks low compared to mine at 10k miles.

Iron is about right for 'newer' engines. Still grinding it down

Viscosity, now that is cool.

Since you didn't have measurable soot levels and your OXD % is way low (kicks delvac -1 butt) the viscosity decrease is gotta do with the fact that this 5W-40 syntec is really the 5W-30 stuff with a few more modifiers.

Catrol always formulated to the lower side of the viscosity range. Usually not a problem but with the 5W-40 it looks to be.

Your Moly looks very low. not quite what I would expect. It looks like Castrol might have reduced the amount of Moly-Disulfide to cut costs . . . .

 

[Oil Man]

GeWillie,
Question? Do you know for a fact that the Castrol 5w-40 is a 5w-30 with vis mod's or are you just guessing? I would like to know for sure. How did you come to know this?
Kevin

 

[Ted]

If you look at the viscosity, 12.3 Cts, it is clear that this stuff is barely a 40wt oil. As you may recall, it starts out @ 12.8 Cts and this slight drop could be from polymer shearing and some fuel dilution.

The wear metals are high for iron, but the engine is still new. It will probably take at least 10k miles for the wear pattern to settle down. In this particular case, the TBN would probably not hold up for 10k miles.

TooSlick