For those interested-UOA of break in

Hey folks,

Looks like a previous thread broke down was locked by the mods because of the negativity or whatever you want to call it. I was going to post this UOA and tried to and noticed it was locked. I went that far so I figured someone would find this useful.

If you need an outlet for negativity please go kick a telephone pole instead. Not looking for a debate-just wanted to share some info that others may want to see.

What I find interesting is that the factory fill measures a bit thinner at 48.7 vs my oil at 56. Both are 0W-20. I have learned that actual viscosity can range a bit for the advertised weight.

Also looks to be a heavier shot of molybdendum in the factory fill.

 

Anything oil related, you will get a debate.
If you really care about stuff like this (i don't) post it up on Bobistheoilguy.com Lots of smart people over there relating to oil. Not so much here.

 

This would be more easily parsable if I knew what a UOA was. Also units could be included with the numbers in your post.

 

Good info. I know there is a lot of debate on an early initial oil change.....but the silicon numbers in the factory fill are enough to justify it in my opinion. YMMV

 

Maybe some kind of special oil formula for engine break-in?

 

Unexplainable Oil Abnormality.

That has to be it…right? That’s definitely it.

 

So....two oil changes in less 4k miles?

And those numbers with no quantification other than "universal averages" tells us what?

Is there a first oil change control test someone did at 10k for comparison?

 

Uncontrolled online anger.

That's why these types of threads keep getting locked.

 

I love a good UOA. I used to do them with my Subaru all the time. I haven't done one with my Tacoma and I really should.

I will be curious to see how your copper trends over time. That was always the value I watched.

FWIW, I did a 1,000 mile change on both my Tacomas. I did it for my piece of mind and in the end only my wallet suffers.

 

Yes, best would be to have a VOA, or virgin oil analysis of the factory fill, and a UOA of a ‘new’ Tacoma’s first oil change at 10,000 miles. Only a few folks at the corporate level know if the factory fill is something specific or parsed out to the lowest bidder.

The ‘universal averages’ are from all the data Blackstone has on this application with an average drain interval of 6900. Definitely not perfect, but gives a rough idea of the high concentration of wear metals on a new engine. At 1400 miles the Iron numbers read higher than the universal averages at 6900.

The copper number is the highest and on its way down.

All of this tells me at I am going to be leaning into a 7500 mile/18 month interval based on my light usage. I may or may not do another early change to get more of the metals out. A couple early changes in the beginning are more for kicks just to see the engine break in.

Here is a VOA from the Liqui Moly I am running now. No particular reason why I am using it. It was easy to buy on Amazon and less expensive than a synth oil at the quick change place. I have some more stock to go through but I am not sure if I will continue. The VOA looks pretty good-especially the viscosity. Likely the OEM specified a thinner oil to help with the Café numbers. Only a VOA of the factory fill and a VOA from the drum at the dealer's service bay will tell us a difference with break in oils.

It seems logical to me that during the tug-of-war between the Toyota accountants and engineers a 10k interval needed to be established to make the vehicle competitive. There is no way Toyota could recommend an early oil change for break-in purposes. The marketing aspect would be horrible. Who knows-perhaps the engineers do an early change on the vehicles they buy new for their family, and the accountants never change it since it is a company vehicle.

 

Thoughts on why?

 

Brett, that’s really very interesting to me personally. I’m planning on changing the oil at about 1100 miles and I’m going to run the same analysis. I’ll post it when I receive it.

My last vehicle (sprinter, original owner) sold with just under 300,000 miles ran only Mobil 1 and switched to Liqui Moly at about 150,000 had no internal problems and had clean internals at that 300k. Looking at the cams and top of heads there was no baked on oil and pars were very clean. I mostly used Wix, oem, Mann, and Mahle filters. On Tacoma I’m planning on Wix. With Liqui Moly Toptec.
What oil filter are you running?
Mike

 

Best practice is to simply change the oil on a new vehicle at 1,000 miles and every 5k or six month which ever comes first thereafter and let the world continue to go round and round.

The money, time and energy spent on analysis trying to figure out how to get around this grisly messy job is just not worth it.
And don’t forget the filters and pcv system valve, they matter too. Today’s engine oil is better, but the job it has to perform is a lot harder and complex than in the good old days. In sum, oil is cheap in engines are very expensive.

 

Hello I am just seeing this. I am running Liqui Moly 0W-20 Special Tec Asia and America. I am using factory Toyota filters. The Toyota filters are cheap enough if you buy them online particularly at sale time. I used to buy expensive filters but after running some UOA I found it didn't make a difference. I do like the factory filter for 'peace of mind' that it won't fall apart (yes this happened to me in the 80s with an orange can) but do often use Mahle and Wix if I am ordering something from Rockauto. I will probably run a couple more oil changes and see how the wear numbers go. One could probably run any quality synth and filter and be just fine with a decent interval but this is more for my interest. Three things UOA has taught me 1. Initial oil changes early are good-gets the wear metals out 2. Regular intervals can be much longer than I was used to (2 years/8k easily for my use) 3. Filter choice is really not that important