seems like it's telling me to change the oil only after 4k miles, mix of 75% highway and 25% city. Seems a little early to me considering it's mobil 1 synthetic.

 

considering there are no sensors to tell it its synthetic.........

 

The car can't tell what kind of oil you have. The change interval is based on mileage and other factors relating to driving conditions. So if it's prompting you to change after only 4K miles, it's a result of those other factors.

I'm not sure exactly what those 'factors' are but I'd guess temperature, engine speed, stuff like that.

 

The computer is ASSUMING that you are using regular mineral based conventional oil.

IT DOES NOT KNOW YOU ARE USING A SYNTHETIC.

Therefore it tells you to change at 4k miles. If you know you are running a synthetic than ignore the MID. You can run a synthetic for 7,500 miles and be fine. I sent my oil sample in for oil analysis with 8,000 miles on the oil. They said everything was good and recommended me to change it at 10,000 miles. I plan on running for 12,000 miles on my Mobil 1 Extended Performance (TRUE SYNTHETIC Grp IV)

 

On average, I change my oil (M1 EP) at 7500 miles, generally when the MID indicates <15% oil life remaining. Oil at that mileage is pretty dark, so I'm not sure I'd run mine to 12K miles, but to each their own.

 

When you're talking synthetics, oil life is usually determined by contaminate level rather than if the oil is "worn" out. That's why we have such a range. The MID will tell you to change it in as little as 3,500 miles with very short trips where the oil never gets warm and sees a lot of contaminates. It will take you to nearly 10,000 miles of pure freeway driving. I cut it off at 5,000 miles due to contaminate load. With my oil and filter I should be good to at least 18,000 miles before either of them are "worn out" but I don't want a bunch of contaminates in there.

TBN and TAN are the two big ones to look at for oil life along with insoluables and fuel dilution. Anti-wear additives also go away with time and mileage. Contaminates, namely acids from repeated short trips greatly reduce TBN and add to the TAN.

 

The label on Mobil 1 EP states it can be used for up to 15,000 (I'm sure it depends on the driving conditions, but still can be done)



He recommended 10,000. I'm sure I can do 12,000 with no harm.

 

MID calcs are based on DINO oil.

So it's only a 4000 mile interval when the mid reaches 0%? That doesn't seem right for 75% highway miles, unless those are being done at 130mph

If you are at 4K when the MID indicator first comes on (15%), you still have another 700 miles left before 0%.

 

The worst thing you can do is base your OCI on a blackstone report or any spectral analysis. The only accurate test for wear metals is a particle count. The spectral analysis only gets a very small snapshot. It can only "see" the small particles. The larger particles caused by and from abnormal wear don't show up in these tests.

There are several comparisons with particle count vs spectral and the results are interesting to say the least. My original plan was to get a PC on the TL around 10,000 miles, once the wear metals had normalized and every 100,000 miles after that to understand what's going on. During an engine's life, wear is very rapid in the first few hours then it levels off for many hundreds of thousands of miles and then the rapid wear begins again toward the end of it's life but nowhere nearly as quick as in the beginning.

The spectral test is only good for showing coolant in the oil, TBN and TAN, fuel dilution, and some insolubles. Wear metals should be ignored. You also need a virgin UOA of the oil that you're using to compare additives and see how much you've lost, not that these tests are accurate for additives either.

I've had two engine failures and the UOAs came back normal even though the oil was sparkly when drained.

The Mobil EP is a great oil but don't forget about the contaminates that are in it. Your engine is not going to blow up and it will last a very long time but the long OCIs take away some of the safety margin if something were to go wrong. I would at a minimum visually check the oil condition from time to time.

One of my biggest problems is the fact that the test is around $20 which is half the cost of the oil.

Where's the rest of the report? I was curious to see how much fuel was in the oil. I'm not trying to say don't use this oil for 10,000 miles, I'm just saying don't base it on the wear metal portion of this test. 10,000 freeway miles is easy for the oil and contaminates should be low. 10,000 miles of short trips would be dangerous but you would probably hit the yearly change before you could do 10,000 miles of short trips.

If you can get past the know it all douches on bitog, there's an old poster that had the letters "clk" in his username. I believe it was "Georgeclk" or something like that. He was in the industry and offered a ton of great info on these tests and performed his own particle count vs spectral analysis tests which made the bitog know it alls angry and ended up in him leaving and never coming back that I know of. His info completely backed up my results from my failures which made me feel a little better about it.

 

Seems like proper filtration is a big factor. Those of you running Synthetics what filters are you using?

 

Thanks for educating me

 

I usually use either the royal purple or K&N filters.

 

The NAPA Gold #1334, WIX with their name on it. After trying all the top (and expensive) oil filter brands like Mobil1, K&N, and RP, I find the WIX seems to keep the oil cleanest the longest. No need to spend $14 for an oil filter.

The synthetic oil I use is NAPA's own brand which is really Valvoline SynPower with their name on it.

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What's your method for testing the filter's effectiveness? I use the one with the best beta ratio and good flow. Unfortunately it happens to cost $14 but it filters better and flows better than the others and the construction is great plus it can go the distance in long OCIs if that's what you're in to.

 

Tried all those filters using the same oil, Valvoline Synpower 5W-20. The oil stayed clean the longest with the WIX filter. That's good enough for me.

Why don't you try the NAPA Gold/WIX filter next time around and see for yourself?
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Purolator: mostly the yellow PureOne, but sometimes the white standard filters as well. They seem good and are often on sale so I stock up- have like a dozen on them now for my 2 hondas.

 

I'll start with any filter will work fine...

I use the Royal Purple filter for several reasons:
It's one of only two filters on the market with the synthetic media. This media offers better flow AND filtration. A conventional filter can only offer one or the other and still fit in the space allowed in a car. FWIW, I believe the PurOne filter filtered nearly as well or as well as the RP filter but it was very restrictive to cold oil.

The reason cold oil flow is important to me is it means less chance of the bypass valve opening and allowing unfiltered oil to pass through the engine especially to those of you that like to start it up and immediately leave rubber out of the driveway. It's probably more important to those that live in cold climates.

The synthetic media filters the same regardless of moisture content of the oil.

It holds up better over time.

The pores are more consistent.

It can hold more debris while retaining flow which is very important for the people that like to run long oil change intervals.

The rest of the filter is top notch. Nothing is special but it combines all of the best components: Silicone adbv, o-ring instead of a gasket, wire reinforced media, metal endcaps, good construction of the bypass valve, and a thicker canister.

So you get a filter that filters well, flows well, and will last a very long time. Is it necessary, no. Does it give peace of mind, depends on the person. I like having a large safety margin built in and this does it for me. If the engine eats a cam you have a better chance of the filter catching it and not bypassing. If you can't change the oil on time for whatever reason, you have a filter capable of going 20,000 miles. If you end up with lots of moisture in the oil, it's still going to filter well. If you consistently run high oil temps, the endcaps aren't going to break down and the silicone adbv isn't going to harden up and stop working like the rubber ones do. Again, total overkill but if you're ocd like me it's worth it. Think about it, many of the clearances in an engine are measured in thousanths and even tenthousanths of an inch and oil (clean or not) is the only thing separating these parts.

The TL's engine is going to last hundreds of thousands of miles with whatever you put on it or in it but I want it in great shape when it gets to high mileage. Right now at 108,000 miles when you look through the oil fill hole it looks like someone took a brand new engine and dumped oil on it.

These are from a while back, I think the car had around 90,000 miles at the time but not bad considering the mileage. The rockers haven't even discolored yet and it looks the same now. I'll take lots more when the valve covers come off for the valve adjustment.

 

Exactly what mine looks like after 122,000 miles. Tony, the chief mechanic at Acura of Manhattan said when HE once looked in there, "See How Clean It Is In There? That's Because You've Been Using Synthetic Oil" .
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meh.. mine looked the same at 105K a year ago with the valve covers off and still looks the same today at 117K.

mobil one; honda and pure one filters... (currently have honda syn blend in the crankcase)

 

Synthetic Oil FTW.

 

Since you showed me yours I'll show you mine...

You can't see much from this but the BMW tech that did the valley pan was surprised at how clean it looked when it was apart.



This was from my old 540 that had about 150k miles. Had Mobil1 0w40 till about 120kmi then I switched to Elf/Total Quartz 9000 5w40 because I was able to get a better deal.

 

honda makes very clean running engines. None that I know of are "sludgers" or build up sludge despite following recommended OCIs (B, D, J, K series). (Audi and Toyota come to mind)

 

Synthetic or Dyno, I always use K & N or Mobil 1 Extended Performance Oil filter, whichever is cheaper. They are both made by the exact same company. The difference is the labeling and the little tail on the K & N filter.