Technical Just an observation about oil

My disclaimer before you read any farther. I am not trying to be mean to you and this is just an observation about oil. no more no less.

The wife drives a late model, not HAMB friendly in the least. But it still has a 4 stroke internal combustion engine. It has well over 200K on the clock.

One oil change back we decided to try "High Mileage" oil. We noticed something that bothered her a lot. The oil pressure dropped off about 7-10 PSI. Hot or cold. So I told her maybe it was the oil which calmed her down.

I changed the oil and filter back to normal everyday oil. The oil pressure came back up to normal.

Like I said this is just an observation. Maybe it will help someone maybe it wont.

Perhaps @Blues4U knows something about this, he knows way more about oil than I ever will.

 

Good post, was wondering about “high mileage” oil myself.

 

When you buy a "high mileage" car, you get an older car that has a lot of mileage on it. When you buy "high mileage" oil ... aren't you just getting used oil that already has a lot of mileage on it? I may be cheaper than dog shit but ... no used oil for me thanks.

 

it is not reclaimed oil it is virgin oil that is supposedly made for high mileage cars. It costs the same per quart as any other oil.

Here is one brand most oil companies make a high mileage formula oil.

 

I don’t think you’re buying used oil, but oils with additives for high mileage engines.
Will be interesting what @Blues4U has to say.

 

Its usually more expensive so my cheap ass does not buy it and use regular oil in high mile vehicles,ever extra I have to spend takes away from my beer money and can not have that.

 

I have not seen reclaimed oil since the '70s. I am sure that you can still get it though

 

So formula of the high mileage oils has alot of things to make seals swell and prevent leaks etc. Going from regular oil to high mileage will swell seals, then if you switch back to regular oil after a extended time on HM oils then it will start leaking like hell.

Oil pressure drop is probably there due a little variance in the oils and how the viscosity is actually calculated etc. Normally I have seem HM oils raise oil pressure not lower... But alot depends on the oil blend itself...

 

My sister worked for a guy that did the reclaim oil thing in the 90’s, quite a process I guess. The same fella had a contract with places that used oil from gallon jugs, he’d pick up the spent jugs, put them in some type of press and get the last drops out of it, the do other processes and also recycle the jugs. I never saw it first hand, just going by what my sister told me.

 

STP, it's the razor's eddge

 

I have been poor enough in my life to toss a quart of reclaimed oil in. never used it for an oil change. it was 11 cents a quart when oil was about 35 cents a quart and my bring home was 80 dollars a week as a close tolerance welder. LOL

I did not know that we still did that here in the states. Good information thanks.

 

I'm curious, was the 'high mileage' oil the same viscosity as what it replaced? Same or different brand?

 

You’re talking can days. Hey, can I interest you in the a few punch in fillers nozzles? The rubber may need to be replaced by now

Edit: Not reclaimed, but used. My ex SIL brought in an OT truck, rattling like a beast. I pulled the dip stick and was dry. I’d done two oil changes and hadn’t emptied my jug.
I took a old tee shirt and tie wrapped it to the drain and filled him up.
I’ll pm you in a bit about a odd oil story

 

I noticed the same thing in my later model Ram truck, the oil pressure would drop when I stopped and rise after I gave it gas, this truck has in excess of 200,000 miles and on start up in the morning the engine rattled until the oil got pumped through the engine.

I went back to the oil I had always used those scary scenarios disappeared, I don't know squat about viscosity's and what does what, but trying new things don't always work, at least for me. HRP

 

5W30 on both, same brand, same brand filter.

The mill has consistently held 40 psi at idle and up to 45-50 cruising. With the high mileage oil it held in the 30-35 range at idle and about 41 cruising. granted we do not know how accurate those numbers are but we are using the same gauge in the same vehicle on the same engine.

Like I said it is just an observation. Maybe someone else will get different results.

 

I got one in the garage and if I dig I got one of the pitcher looking things that you fill from the barrel and put the snout down and pull the lever.

he does not know this yet but Austin kays is inheriting all this stuff. Don't tell him it might make him treat me different and I am proud of him just the way that he is.

 

I personally do not follow that BS.
I do run Castrol GTX 10/30 in my truck & I use same in 5/30 in wife car.

I may be wrong here ... I refuse to use some special oil in my cars because of mileage.
I may add zinc additive on a older engine ... but not high mileage oil on a modern car ... snake oil.

 

At my local Dollar General, all the pain relievers are "extra strength" and all the motor oil is "high mileage".

 

Fools Oil. Buy this and it'll get the car off the road sooner I mean last longer.

 

Beaner, it's hard to say. High Mileage type oils tend to be Group III synthetic base oil, plus additive package intended for older engines, meaning higher detergent level to clean up deposits and seal swell additives to recondition seals, maybe some extra dispersants to keep any soot or other particulates suspended. If both oils were the same viscosity there shouldn't have been a loss of pressure when hot. On cold start-up you might see a loss of pressure vs a standard motor oil because the synthetic base oil will tend to maintain a more consistent viscosity, so it will have better flow performance when cold. But if both oils are 5W-30, then it is the "30" that we're concerned with at operating temp. Two different SAE 30 oils should show pretty close to the same pressure once up to operating temp. Note each SAE visc grade is actually a range of viscosity (measured at 100C), you could have one blended to the low end of the range, and one blended to the high end of the range. There's nothing about high mileage type oils that should cause a loss of pressure. Sorry I don't have a better answer for you.

 

I don't think it works like that. Seal swell additives actually recondition the seals, yes making them swell, but also making them more pliable, like a newer seal. An analogy would be like reconditioning a leather jacket. Switching back to a standard oil would only allow the seal to start the natural aging process again, you'd just eventually go back to where it was to begin with.

 

Uggghhh, that's not good!

 

Re reclaimed oil. I remember that stuff too, on the shelf at the local drug store. I never did use any, except maybe in an old lawn mower. With the old reclaimed oil they filtered the oil as clean as the technology allowed back in the day, then added fresh additives, or not, and put it in fresh cans.

But those days are coming back around. Reusing oil requires less crude oil, so it's mostly a feel good thing, but there's lot's of gov't interest in it, and a lot of interest in it from industries that are feeling the pressure to reduce their "carbon footprint". Except with today's technology they aren't just filtering the oil, they're running it back through the refining process, just as they would with crude oil. They run it through a distillation tower to fractionalize it by weight, and this also removes most contaminants in the process, then hydro-treating it with pressurized hydrogen to saturate the hydrocarbons (think back to your HS science/chemistry classes). The resulting product is claimed to be as good or better than base oil refined from crude. At work we're going to start a trial at some waste hauling companies with a motor oil with a re-refined base oil. These fleets have been using our synthetic blend oil for a long time, and using our oil analysis program, so I will have good used oil analysis data from the project to be compared to regular oil. It should be interesting. The formulations guys think it's going to perform very well, at least as good as what they are currently using. We shall see.

 

Speaking of reclaimed oil... What does happen to the used oil we recycle these days? Assuming we don't have a waste oil burner to keep the garage hot through the winter.

 

Maybe you should drink the oil and put the extra strength pain relievers in the engine.

 

I've always used Valvoline 10W-30 in my VW. My backup generator uses 5W-30 full synthetic. My OT Prius uses 0W-20 full synthetic. Until I bought it, I had never known they made such a thin oil. I'm told it's because of the tight tolerances in today's engines.

 

Never been in a Dollar General or Dollar Tree store in my life and don't plan to ever go

 

I think it gets sold to restaurants for frying, if the taste is any guide.

 

With the tolerances in the older engines that most of us have, some oil is better than no oil. I have never heard of a 60 year old engine complain of what grade it got, but I feed all of mine with the 20W-50 that is on special at the time. The family's newer stuff gets the recommended grade, but not the $15 per litre stuff. NASA can use that .

 

I can remember the "economy" oil they sold at 7-11 in the 70's, a buddy used it in his VW- and it was jet black- a quarter a quart