[lust4speed]

The finished product is a mix of oil and additives. It takes a lot more additives to create a spread of 5w50 over a straight oil. In days past, the additives broke down and became contaminants in the oil, and lowered lubrication properties. Since car manufacturers are now recommending the 0w and 5w blends, I would suspect the oil companies have this worked out. Maybe?

[Chris-Austria]

I agree, oil is not oil and 20w50 is not 20w50... I don't see it as a need to have such a low pour point, the advantage of the thinner oil with a wider range is that it better lubricates the engine until it's warm.. even if you have 50°F in the garage or more... maybe some 20w50 have a pour point that can compete with the 5w50 synthetic, but it still flows a lot worse when cold.

[AdamIsAdam]

I checked my garage. It's 31° outside, middle of the day, sunny. Laser thermometer said the following:

Floor is 47
Car body is 52
Brick chimney inside is 62

This would be a typically day that I'd take the car out,, if not for the 14" of fresh snow of course

[Sirrotica]

Every time a oil (or a filter) thread comes up 99.9% of the replies miss the root cause of engine wear. It's not so much what oil is in the pan, as much as how clean it is kept during the time it's in the engine. If a full flow filter actually kept the oil clean you wouldn't have to drain it frequently to get all the contaminants out of the engine that the filter can't physically remove.

From the time the engine is started for the first time with fresh oil in it it's being constantly contaminated by combustion by products as well as the contaminants (mostly silica) that are drawn in through the induction system that an air filter is physically incapable of removing. It's a fact that no amount of engineering or aftermarket do dads can prevent. Some of the intake contaminants make it into the oil and because the full flow filter pores are usually 40-60 microns they continue to re-circulate abrading all the moving parts that are oiled by the pressurized oiling system.

The size particulate that causes the majority of engine wear is 5-10 microns, well below the pore size of any spin on filter. It's documented if you want to do a search.

By pass filters remove roughly 98% of the sub 40-60 micron size particulate in the first pass. Most by pass filters remove particulate down to 1-2 microns reducing engine wear in the neighborhood of 63%.

I.E. If you get 200,000 miles before the engine needs a freshen up, or a rebuild with a standard filter, with a by pass filter you'd be in the neighborhood of 600,000 miles.

Ring seal is likely the best indicator of engine wear so your going to have more compression for a much longer period of time. Even if you don't run the engine until it's got extensive blowby, you're going to have better mechanical seal keeping the contaminants out of the oil and better compression longer. Not to mention that you can keep the oil in the crankcase many times longer than you can with a factory designed filter system, and it will be just as clean when you do drain it as when you poured it in. It doesn't keep getting more abrasives in it the longer you run it.

That expensive oil ($8-25 a quart) that has all the properties in it that you scoured the web to find out how good it is, isn't going to be shot due to contamination in a year, or 3000 miles. Oil that is kept properly filtered also does not eat up the additives like dirty oil does, making everything associated with the oil last many times longer.

FWIW, even if your engine is currently operating without a real oil filtering system, the addition of a by pass system will start benefiting the engine as soon as it's installed. Removing sludge and actually removing all the contaminants from the engine and the oil.

I don't care what oil you buy, at what price, it won't have as a dramatic effect of reducing internal engine wear by 63% that a by pass filter system will.

[Chris-Austria]

I like the idea of that bypass filter system. Just checked the micron rating of my Wix spin on full flow filter and it says 21. I change it once a year at less than 5000 miles.
If a oil is way too thick but extremely clean.. it still isnt the real deal.

[Sirrotica]

You can any buy oil that suits your application, The proper oil is definitely a factor in good engine performance and longevity, but without keeping the oil as clean as it was when poured in you leave a lot of potential engine wear on the table.

Shame to throw out fairly expensive oil that is just contaminated by a sub par oil filter incapable of removing all of the potential abrasives. Just getting the extra miles out of clean oil goes towards paying for a better filter system. That doesn't even address the extra wear that your saving by keeping the oil from progressively getting more abrasive as you drive.

In the application you sighted you said your changing oil at 5000 miles, with by pass filtration you can safely run it 25000 miles and 3-5 years. At that time I would suggest an oil analysis to see how much longer the oil would be safe to run, more than likely you could run double that mileage.

My 05 GTO has 25,000 on the synthetic oil and 3 years currently, no plans to change it. I just change the by pass filter, add a quart of makeup oil and keep going. 125,000 miles on it since I bought it new. Oil is still amber colored and from just appearance it's still looks good, and is good as far as lubrication properties.

My 93 6.5 turbo diesel truck has 250,000 miles and I last changed oil in 2014, oil has 20,000 miles on it. Rotella regular mineral oil. Next OC, probably in the next couple years, I will probably try the Rotella T6 full synthetic.

One other plus for the by pass filter I use (Frantz) it also will trap up to 6oz. of water to keep acid formation at bay. No full flow filter has that ability. Compare the media of a roll of TP to the corrugated paper media in most canister filters, way more media surface and bulk in the Frantz filter.

21 microns is roughly .001 of an inch, plenty of places in an engine that can be abraded with a 21 micron piece of abrasive. You also don't mention at the filter efficiency at 21 microns, the Frantz is 98% at 1-2 microns.

There is no by pass valve in a by pass filter, so every drop going into the by pass filter gets filtered. Full flow filters have a by pass valve that opens at roughly 10 PSI differential depending upon conditions there may be more oil flowing around the media than through it as the mileage racks up from the filter change.

There are much better choices than the cheaply designed mass produced full flow filters.

[AdamIsAdam]

Hey, I stumbled upon a pic I wanted to share. People were talking about Valvoline VR1. I have some older (1 year) and newer bottles of the stuff. I noticed a label difference. I suspect it's just marketing...

[Chris-Austria]

I just bought some new bottles of 5w50 VR1 and they are gray.. one year ago they were black but it's still the same.