Mobil One Extended Performance..Yea or Nea???

01RedCognacRT

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Curious as to what the consensus seems to be on the new Mobil One Extended Performance hi-perf synthetic oil? They claim 15k between changes. It would be nice to only have to change my oil once a year but I am leery of letting ANY oil go for that long in a motor especially in a Viper.
BTW-I always use a quality filter such as the Mobil One or K&N.

Isn't there some guy on this board who is known as "Master of Lubes and Such"? :D Sorry don't know his name offhand.

Regards,

Dave S
01 RT/10 :usa:
 

Finally got it !

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I know no Viper, but I am close to 15k since my last oil change on my daily commuter. Once I get there the oil will be anaylized. I will say this, no oil burn off. Seems to look ok. I ran a K&N oil filter. Will cut that open too and inspect....
 

Gerald Levin

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Isn't there some guy on this board who is known as "Master of Lubes and Such"? :D Sorry don't know his name offhand.

Regards,

Dave S
01 RT/10 :usa:
There is a master of lubes, oils, fluids, etc on this board and his name is Tom F&L (I believe). If he does not know the answer, then there is NO answer.
 

Tom F&L GoR

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Master, no. Geek, OK.

Extended drain oils are not new technology. The technology improvements in diesel engine oils may appear to be similar to passenger car oils in that they climb up the API performance ladder (API CD to CF to CG-4, CH-4, CI-4...) and the associated OEM specs, but the marketing and differentiation of diesel oils is also based on long drains. In fleet use, engine oils often go 100,000 miles (I think ~30,000 is minimal and certain fleets go much farther than 100,000.) Mind you, it's a different application, since a diesel truck that accumulates miles quickly is one that starts once a day, runs warmed up all day, probably runs the same route every day, runs within a small RPM window, runs at an average high load all the time; in other words, it's easier to tune an oil for this application.

Passenger cars typically have much broader uses. City, highway, many starts, short trips, long trips, light foot, heavy foot, etc. And most significantly, no used oil monitoring like the fleets. In practice, OEMs have kept oil drain recommendations short because they are responsible for the engine warranty period, predicting the type service is impossible, the short drain is good insurance, and this insurance is free to them because the consumer pays it.

For passenger car use, it is entirely obvious to the formulators to use some "diesel" oil technology in a passenger car oil. (One reason is that the cost of the additive is not much different than the cost of the synthetic base oil, so it's not more expensive to manufacture the oil, only to develop it.) Diesel oils typically have 2X to 2.5X more additive than a passenger car oil. Amsoil and others appear to do this since they add diesel performance credentials and advocate higher TBN (a chemical measure of how much of a certain additive type is in the oil.) Those fancy "Euro" oils are better because they also include diesel specs, since in Europe half the passenger car population is diesel. Having an oil that works in both gasoline and diesel engines is a requirement (and therefore typical) in Europe but is being touted as "better" here.

Rather than go into all the technical details, I've pointed out that it's really not a high technical hurdle to have a long drain passenger car oil. But do you believe in it?

One way to compare is to realize that the amount of fuel used is an indication of how much "protection" is needed from the oil. A diesel truck that goes 100,000 miles at 3MPG with a 10 gallon sump means each gallon of oil has to protect during 3333 gallons of fuel. A Viper goes 5,000 miles at 10MPG with 2 gallons of oil, or each gallon protects during use of 250 gallons of gasoline. That's a truly high level way to compare and there are lots of things that make one or the other more difficult, but does show that there's room to believe you can go longer drains.

As to how long you really can go; you won't know without doing the used oil analysis that the fleets do. And since an engine won't "die" due to one very long drain, only after several, it's hard to figure out. You can say that if you were happy with 3000 mile drains using Mobil 1 and the new version claims 15,000 miles, or three times longer than before, then go three times your 3000 miles.

If you do used oil analysis, then expect your results to be higher. Wear rates won't decrease, they will probably stay the same. At three times the drain, the wear metals will be three times higher, which would be typical.
 

Steve-Indy

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Mobil 1 users MAY not have a choice...stores that I visit are all letting the regular Mobil 1 10W-30 Supersyn stocks fall while offering more shelf space to the new (and more expensive) Mobil 1 Extended Performance (15,000mi) ADVANCED Supersyn.

For THIS summer, I have used regular Supersyn in our Vipers, and have enough of it to go 2 more oil changes per Viper. By the time that I need to restock, hopefully we will know about supply plans for the two types of Mobil Supersyn formulations out there....and, a little more "track record" on the Extended Performance stuff (which I did use for Wife's Jeep...in a single-blind experimental study).
 

Gerald Levin

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And just a quick plug for you guys that are not familiar with Blackstone Laboratories:
http://www.blackstone-labs.com/gas_engines.html
They will send you free sample kits and you take a sample of your oil during the middle of your oil change and they will compare your oil change chemically (down to over 20 components) to your last oil change. It will detect minute metal particles. You can compare your oil changes to detect if problems are developing. Best $20 ever spent. Thanks again to Steve Fess and Ron Fleming (our Indy tech gurus) for this invaluable info.
 

AJ

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.. or we can learn from the people that really know how oil affects their engines- most higher-priced german cars have oil-change indicators. if you beleive those- a normal daily routine (5-10 miles stop-go traffic, 20-40 miles highway driving), 2 cold starts a day results in oil-change intervals of 10-12k miles.

alex
few cars
 

Tom F&L GoR

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I wouldn't trust those oil change indicators 100%, since they don't directly measure oil properties, but indirect properties. A change in the dielectric constant of an oil probably means something about how long it's been used, but even those systems use a "map" generated be miles, starts, coolant temp history, engine RPM...

Ask a Mercedes service manager about Mobil 1 and their indicators... (oops!)
 

Steve 00RT/10

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I have run extended drains(15 to 20K miles) for many hundred thousand miles since the mid 70's...on many different vehicles. Amsoil had a 25,000 mile warranty 30 years ago. With the Viper, I usually change every 6000 to 7000 miles..just for GP.. and have always used oil analysis. My miles typically have a track event in there as well as some autocrossing. It always comes back good to go. With almost 50,000 miles on the clock, I use very little oil between changes...especially when mostly highway.

Steve
 

Steve-Indy

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" I wouldn't trust those oil change indicators 100%"...

Yes, I do agree...but in the case of our Vipers, it is of academic interest in most cases...especially since one was only driven 44 miles since the last oil change !!!

That said, I'm always comforted to see NO evidence of coolant on an oil sample, and even happier when referring to Gen I's with no sign of headgasket malfunction...YET !!!
 

GR8_ASP

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As to how long you really can go; you won't know without doing the used oil analysis that the fleets do. And since an engine won't "die" due to one very long drain, only after several, it's hard to figure out. You can say that if you were happy with 3000 mile drains using Mobil 1 and the new version claims 15,000 miles, or three times longer than before, then go three times your 3000 miles.

I will not argue Tom's argument on the whole but the point above is noteworthy. And there is plenty of documentation available on the topic. One single extended drain interval can cause engine failure. And when it does the OEM will know it occurred during extended oil change interval by the failure characteristics. That condition is sludging, or coagulation. This type of failure is very oil and engine dependent. Some engines (a Toyota V6 is probably the best example) provide a combination of high operating temperatures with poor pcv functionality, which coupled with engine oil formulation changes a few years back, result in sludging conditions that can cause failure in well under 15k miles. Is your car susceptible? Who knows. Would diesel oil have fared better? Who knows as no OEM or oil company actively tests those formulations in large scale fleet testing. Would synthetic or ACEA (European) oils fare better? Yes, and documented as such.

If you want proof regarding the impact check your owners manuals for service intervals and you will note a REDUCTION in miles between recommended changes 2 or so years back for the more affected OEMs. That was not due to engine changes it was due to changes in the US oil formulations.
 
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