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Wimpy API Oils

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by FL_Prius_Driver, Feb 4, 2008.

  1. FL_Prius_Driver

    FL_Prius_Driver Senior Member

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    Got the analysis back on the 2001 Prius with 6031 miles on the Castor Oil Syntec 5W30. TBN was at 2.57.

    Also got the analysis back on the 1999 Camry with 5385 on hte Mobil One 5W30. TBN was 2.44.

    The original oil in the 2007 Prius at 5034 miles had a TBN of 4.03. Will keep track of changes over time.

    These are significantly lower than the long life AECA specified oils I will be using in the future. It is not enough to be synthetic, it must also have the acid neutralization to last longer than 5000 miles.
     
    #1 FL_Prius_Driver, Feb 4, 2008
  2. ScottY

    ScottY New Member

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    #2 ScottY, Feb 4, 2008
  3. jayman

    jayman Senior Member

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    The Castrol 0W-30 is actually made in Germany. It meets the stricter ACEA A3, B3, B4 specs

    Mobil 1 0W-40 is the only Mobil 1 I know of that also meets the ACEA A3, B3, and B4 specs, in addition to BMW LL
     
    #3 jayman, Feb 5, 2008
  4. FL_Prius_Driver

    FL_Prius_Driver Senior Member

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    Looking over history of other's TBN readings, the 5W-30s seem to have lower TBNs than 5W-20 or 5W-40. The 0W-XX oils seem to be much better. The key jayman observation that API only oils are shortchanged when it comes to long life oil chemistry is true in the trivial, but non-zero, number of checks I have done so far.
     
    #4 FL_Prius_Driver, Feb 5, 2008
  5. Winston

    Winston Member

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    TBN depletion will vary dramatically by driving conditions.

    How do you know the other oils will do better if you have not tried them yet? ( I think the will do better too, but your post has no data to back up that claim) Also, TBN depletion is not linear.
     
    #5 Winston, Feb 7, 2008
  6. FL_Prius_Driver

    FL_Prius_Driver Senior Member

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    The driving conditions of my two Prius's was identical, it was the TBN that was vastly different. Also, look at the spreadsheets on PriusChat. Note the big difference between API spec oils and AECA spec oils.
     
    #6 FL_Prius_Driver, Feb 7, 2008
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