High Iron and Aluminum in Oil

My suggestion will go against the norm, but don't waste your money on oil analysis. IMO oil analysis and scan gauges send people down wild goose chases for problems that don't exist. I might be one thing on a D11, but it's another for a basic vehicle.

I would love to see the same oil sample sent to different labs to see what they all come up with. I would not be surprised if some labs doctor reports so people will sample more often for a problem that doesn't exist.

 

only time I've ever done an oil analysis was after coolant loss (mysterious) and checking the oil to see if there was possible head gasket failure. There was no coolant present so we narrowed it down to faulty electric fan instead (which may have made the coolant boil over after getting too hot at idle).

There is some talk on BITOG regarding blackstone vs. another analysis company and different results at each. No idea about it, but it's possible that the testing methods are different, so the variance is likely.

 

Most probably he was.

 

I'll work on posting mine this weekend. I fiddled around with those I had on the computer and "lost" them. I'll have to dig into my back-up hard drive this weekend and see I f I have them there. Then figure out how to post them.

 

Not saying for sure it's the K&N and not saying K&N sucks because I ran one for 15 years on another car I had but that wasn't driven off road on dirt roads very much. However, that being said I'd never run one out in the dirt on an off-road vehicle. I just don't trust them and any more air flow you might get means nothing to me at all unless I had endless sums of money for hot-rodded engines and rebuilds. I'll never mess with my factory intake or use a K&N.

I'd bet that K&N is the cause of your high iron and aluminum. I'd get it out of there if your next sample reads the same. Actually, I'd get it out of there now but that's just me.

 

That really isn't the case. Oil samples are a very good idea if you want to use synthetics and go for longer drain intervals which, in turn allows you to get your money out of the synthetic. There are differences in how the oil sample is done by different labs but it really doesn't matter. Oil samples tell you a whole lot about what is going on inside your engine and can save you thousands in repairs if you see a problem long before you notice it in how the engine is running. No matter which lab does your testing it is still going give you and idea of how well your engine is doing inside.

The higher aluminum and iron numbers in my most recent sample as well as the OP's are a perfect example. When you see a spike in those numbers after everything has gone well for a few changes it's obvious where to look to fix the problem. The air intake system. With me we had a very mild winter with very little snow which meant more dust and I didn't check my air filter soon enough. Normally, after 2 years my filter was still clean and I just changed it anyway. This time it was clogged with dirt after only 8 or 9 months. When I got the report I knew exactly what had caused the problem. I had also already fixed it before I ever sent the sample in.

The reason I want longer intervals is because I have no garage and I don't like having to change my oil in a foot of snow when it's ten degrees outside. Longer intervals let me change it when the weather is good. It's the same reason I run Iridium plugs when copper is clearly the best conductor.

Last but not least. The whole point for oil analysis in most cases is to EXTEND your drain intervals therefore, the lab is helping you do LESS oil analysis. The only reason they would tell you to do one sooner is in the two cases we are discussing here. My latest oil sample and the OP's. Even then they didn't tell either one of us to change it at say, 2000 miles. In my case they said to go 5000 miles which is the factory recommended interval. Oil analysis is a lot of things and it's good for a whole lot of things but one thing it isn't is a scam.