This is a nice suggestion. We should know better how the oil we are using in our cars is performing in the particular conditions in which we use our Nissans.
I paid for synthetic oil since my 1993 Nissan Sentra was new, but after reading the information from the laboratory web site, I think everybody should conduct or send oil samples for testing before extending the oil change interval beyond recommendations, or stick with the severe service 3,750 miles interval for oil change to be safe.
My sister has a 2001 Nissan Sentra GXE and I also read that the oil capacity is 2 7/8 qts. I was surprised because my 1993 model uses 3 3/8 qts (is the 1.6 lts engine)
But on a funny note, one of the local dealers told my sister that they were use to add 4 qts of oil to the Sentras so they added 4 qts of oil to my sister's 2001 Sentra 1.8 lts.
I checked the oil dipstick and found my sister's Sentra to be overfilled with oil, with the dipstick reading about 1 qt of oil in excess. I went with her husband to this dealer where the car was not bought and found that they were insisting in adding 4 qts of oil as "standard". I personally showed the owner's manual to the dealer's people, where it reads the capacity for the 1.8 lts model is 2 7/8 qts. They said that was wrong!
More than that. I parked the vehicle on a level surface and I took the measure of oil from the dipstick and I showed to them that it was reading way beyond the full mark.
No matter all I did, they said I was wrong and the will not make another oil change to my sister's 2001 Sentra unless we allow them to add the whole 4 qts to the Sentra, even against the owner's manual directives!... I found that so weird, I sent an e-mail to Nissan, but they never answered. Fortunately this dealer was not were the car was bought, and after changing the oil myself a few times I found the 2001 Nissan Sentra my sister owns, a 1.8 lts version, uses nearly the whole 3 qts of oil to reach the full mark on the dipstick, when you include the oil filter too. I read the owner's manual capacities are approximate.
At a local Q Lube Quick Oil Change, they told us: "It took 3.1 qts of oil to fill it" But I understand that the difference is due to the fact they do the job very quickly, and the oil measure from the dipstick is less accurate.
I sent an oil sample from my 1993 Nissan Sentra 1.6 lts to Blackstone Laboratories, the same one suggested by Bror Jace and the results came this last Friday, Dec.19 '03.
The oil was Amsoil 10w-30 synthetic with 5,809 miles of use.
Blackstone Labs. sent me an e-mail with the results and according to them my car is wearing according to the averages of my car and there are no indications in the oil of problems. This is a copy of the comments I received about my car from Blackstone Labs, included with a table with the results of the tests performed to the oil I sent:
"PABLO: This was Amsoil's 10W/30 oil, which explains why the viscosity read high. Amsoil's viscosities often run higher than the "normal" range for other gasoline engine oils. We didn't find any harmful contamination in the oil from moisture, fuel, or coolant. Wear levels read right around average for a Nissan 1.6L engine. The TBN read 6.8, so the oil certainly has plenty of active additive remaining after the 5809 miles you put on it. You could go longer on the oil, and as well as the engine is wearing, the mechanical parts can take it. Try 6500 miles next time."
OIL USE INTERVAL: 5,809 Miles
OIL TYPE & GRADE: Amsoil 10W/30 (Gas)
MAKE-UP OIL ADDED: 0 qts
OIL REPORT
And, the testing costs only $30, $20 if you don't want TBN testing, plus the postage for sending the oil sample. This laboratory provides you free of additional charge the bottles to send the oil sample. I used Priority Mail from the US Postal Service and it took two days for the oil sample to arrive to Indiana, where Blackstone Labs is located.
Pablo14, gonna post your wear metals and other numbers? If you want, I'll comment on the raw data if you take the time to actually post it here.
We do this on that BITOG site all the time. Some guys really get into it ... others couldn't care less.
Amsoil is a very good oil. I don't like the way some guys treat it as a cure-all miracle elixir so I usually prefer other brands.
If you are going 5,000 miles or less in 6 months or less, I don't recommend getting a TBN test. Save the $10 because unless it is a really cheap oil, you couldn't possibly be pushing it past its limits. For those who don't know, TBN (Total Base Number) is the ability of the oil's detegent, dispersant and corrosion-fighting ability. Using Blackstone's new method/scale, any value above "1" is acceptable. Any value above "3" is really good.
If you are one of those Amsoil (or Mobil 1, Red Line, etc ...) customers wanting to push past 10,000 miles between changes, you should use TBN testing to determine the safety of your drain intervals.
Pablo14, gonna post your wear metals and other numbers? If you want, I'll comment on the raw data if you take the time to actually post it here.
We do this on that BITOG site all the time. Some guys really get into it ... others couldn't care less.
Amsoil is a very good oil. I don't like the way some guys treat it as a cure-all miracle elixir so I usually prefer other brands.
If you are going 5,000 miles or less in 6 months or less, I don't recommend getting a TBN test. Save the $10 because unless it is a really cheap oil, you couldn't possibly be pushing it past its limits. For those who don't know, TBN (Total Base Number) is the ability of the oil's detegent, dispersant and corrosion-fighting ability. Using Blackstone's new method/scale, any value above "1" is acceptable. Any value above "3" is really good.
If you are one of those Amsoil (or Mobil 1, Red Line, etc ...) customers wanting to push past 10,000 miles between changes, you should use TBN testing to determine the safety of your drain intervals.
Well, here are the results for my Amsoil 10w-30 after 5,809 miles, according
to Balckstone Labs: (TBN was 6.8, and according to the lab I may try 6,500 miles next time. I wrote them that I change the oil as soon as I notice in the oil dipstick that it is leaving the full mark, so no additional oil was added:
SUS Viscosity @210°F: 73.0 ( values should be 58-66 )
Flashpoint in °F: 395 (values should be >370)
Fuel %: <0.5 ( values should be <1.0 )
Antifreeze %: 0.0 (values should be 0)
Water %: 0.0 (values should be <0.1)
Insolubles %: 0.4 (values should be <0.6)
Those were the results of the first sample I sent to Blackstone Labs.
I don't think that Amsoil is a cure for the problems, but I found that it is a 10w-30 oil that resists better the high heat of this island in Puerto Rico.
The column that says "Unit/ Location Averages" has the same numbers
as the numbers in the second column from the left of the lab report, so I decided not to post them. I think that this is because this is the first time
I sent oil to that lab.
Thanks
Last edited by Pablo14 : Dec 27th, 2003 at 03:16 PM.
I checked the oil dipstick and found my sister's Sentra to be overfilled with oil, with the dipstick reading about 1 qt of oil in excess. I went with her husband to this dealer where the car was not bought and found that they were insisting in adding 4 qts of oil as "standard". I personally showed the owner's manual to the dealer's people, where it reads the capacity for the 1.8 lts model is 2 7/8 qts. They said that was wrong!
People are idiots. I live near Memphis so I get more than my share of stupid. Anyway I do my own oil and the last time I only put about 2 & 1/4 quarts and it still shows normal. They're probably pissed cuz you proved them wrong.. Rejects..
OK, first of all iron wear looks high. Not alarmingly high ... but higher than I would expect a well-maintained 4 cylinder engine using Amsoil to be. It's been my experience that Blackstone's "Universal Averages" are a little on the high side, if anything.
Could it be the climate or the salt air causing a little corrosion? Not likely sea salt. What about condensation? Is it really high in Puerto Rico? Maybe in the mornings?
If you ran this thing really hard, I would expect lead to rise proportionately ... and it doesn't appear to have done so. Lead is a key component in bearing material.
I was really surprised that the oil would be THAT thick. It looks solidly in 40 weight territory and after less than 6,000 miles, I would guess it's NOT due to oxidation. Not Amsoil, not that quickly.
I like molybdenum as an anti-wear additive. A few years ago, it was just Schaeffer, Red Line and a couple others using the stuff in concentrations of 200-600PPM. Now, with reduced zinc and phosphorous levels called for by the EPA, most oil refiners/blenders are using 50-100PPM of moly. Amsoil and Valvoline are the last of the non-moly holdouts but that could change anytime now ... even as I write this.
Just when you think you have the different brands sorted out, they change on you. For now, Amsoil uses more zinc and phosphorous and has yet to add moly.
In short, your results look OK but there is room for improvement. Have you always used Amsoil? Sometimes switching brands can cause a spike in wear metals as a new oil formulation with a different detergent package can churn up old deposits containing old wear metals.
"The column that says 'Unit/ Location Averages' has the same numbers as the numbers in the second column from the left of the lab report, so I decided not to post them. I think that this is because this is the first time."
Correct. When you get 2 or more samples, this column becomes YOUR average.
My 1993 Nissan Sentra started to use Amsoil before the 140,000 miles, just a couple of hundreds of miles before that.
Until that point, my car used many times Mobil 1 15w-50, Castrol Syntec 5w-50, Havoline Synthetic 5w-40 a couple of times, and a couple of times Mobil 1 10w-30.
My car now has more than 167,000 miles, so that means it has been using Amsoil 10w-30 for around 27,000 miles. I decided to try Amsoil after I learned that the other companies are using diffrerent formulas for synthetic oil, which are cheaper and not better, but at the same time they still sell their oil at the same price than before.
That info, appears over the Internet if you search NASD ( division of the Better Business Bureau), Castrol, and Mobil.
I found that Amsoil is a 10w-30 oil that resist better the high heat of Puerto Rico, even after starting to use it when the engine was old with almost 140,000 miles.
Twice, I left the Mobil 1 15w-50 synthetic oil around 10,000 miles. Never again, and during that time I never thought about sending oil to a lab for analysis.
I understand that maybe the 15w-50 oil from Mobil 1 is not the best oil to protect the engine at cold starts, but it was used many times in my car because of the high heat of this island of Puerto Rico. I don't like when the oil leaves the oil dipstick's full mark early within the oil-filter change interval and the Mobil 1 15w-50 was very good on that aspect. The manual of my 1993 Sentra says you can use heavier oils if temperatures for all seasons are above 50 degrees Fahrenheit and Puerto Rico's average temperature for all year is above that by far. Only deep in the mountains area people experience temperatures on the 50's, and it happens usually in December during nights.
But, at the same time the owner's manual of my car says is better to use 5w-30. Now the newer 2000-'04 Sentra talks about using using 10w-30 and 10w-40, and I think I read 5w-30 also, but only those oils.
I also noticed the above average content of Iron on the results I received from Blackstone Labs., but I knew that I was using other oil on my car, different to the Energy Conserving oil for most of the time. As for the rest, well, I will sent another sample of oil to Blackstone Labs but I am not sure about waiting until 6,500 miles to change the oil because I will have to add new oil before that according to my experience. Even if the oil is o.k as Blackstone Labs said, I don't like to do that in my car, which by the way is not using the Amsoil oil filter, but the genuine Nissan oil filter.
My car has a tendency to make above average engine knock when the oil inside the engine doesn't flow very well. I learned that when I, at first, paid for Amsoil 10w-40 oil instead of their Amsoil 10w-30 oil, believing that the 10w-40 will be better for Puerto Rico. But, my car was making too much engine knock with it and then I read that some customers believe that Amsoil 10w-30 behaves like 10w-40 oils in many aspects.
Your comments are backing than opinion too, with the results from the Lab.
I think that the Amsoil oil filter might be better filtering the oil, but at the same time it has, at least in my opinion, to restrict more the oil flow inside of the engine even it is in a very low percent, and I think that will hurt my 1993 Nissan Sentra engine which needs to have the oil flowing better. My 1993 Nissan Sentra has a tendency to "prefer genuine parts" and I think this might be one of those cases. Maybe, I can try the Amsoil filter at least once, but I am reluctant to do it.
Other that that, I never did the engine flush Amsoil recommends before using Amsoil.
I added Amsoil as on any other oil change. My car has an intermitent idle speed problem, in which the idle speed goes up and down softly but sometimes quickly and the dealer and the technicians don't know what it is. Sometimes it doesn't happen. It started around 10,000 miles after I started to use Amsoil and it continues.
I started a thread called "A dealer and an independent mechanic can't eliminate erratic idle, please help, if you can" on the GA16DE engine area.
Thanks
Last edited by Pablo14 : Dec 31st, 2003 at 07:55 AM.
Pablo14, odd that iron would be slightly elevated in a car which had seen a steady diet of Amsoil. If you want more feedback on your results, you might post your results in the UOA section of BITOG. Link at the top of this thread. There are even Amsoil dealers there who will offer insight. I am not the last word on used oil analysis by any means.
You are right about most oil brands and “synthetic” oil. Most are merely highly refined mineral oil at an increased price. I wrote a lot about this in some other (Sentra & SUV) threads here. Try the last two pages of this one:
Mobil 1 is still legitimate as are the higher grades of Amsoil. Amsoil has recently begun to use Group III mineral oil in its cheapest line. Of course, information changes in various regions of the world. If you guys are getting your stuff from the US mainland, OK. If you are getting it from South America, Europe, Pacific Rim or some other place, all bets are off. The formula may be totally different even if it looks like the same bottle.
Red Line, Motul and NEO use an even higher grade of base oil (Group V - ester) but it isn’t as stable in the presence of moisture so I don’t know if I would recommend it for someone in Puerto Rico. I’m using Red Line 5W30 in my Spec-V 2.5L right now and will have a lab sample tested in the spring. I’ll post it in the 2.5 section when I get the results.
I’m currently a fan of Schaeffer Oil which is a highly-developed synthetic blend (a real 15-20% PAO blend and no Group III) but I don’t know if they’d ship to Puerto Rico. This stuff is fantastic and at $3 per quart, it’s cheaper than Mobil 1, Amsoil, etc ... and consistently shows incredibly lower wear.
Anyway, to get Schaeffer economically, you’d have to put together a $250 order and contact a rep. Even on the mainland, it can be a pain and you usually have to get a buddy or two to split an order with you. $250 is a lot of oil & additives and you have to buy in case lots.
Maybe the above average Iron contents in the results means there's too much wear in my car within critical components. They say on the Blackstone Labs web site that the common source for Iron in a gasoline engine is:
"Iron: Cylinders, rotating shafts, the valve train, and any steel part sharing the oil. "
Maybe the problem with the erratic or bouncing idle my car presents frequently is related to too much wear in those areas...who knows, the technicians have no idea of what is causing the problem of my car, and that was one of the things that made me send the oil sample to the lab, to see if there was a clue about what else could be wrong...could that be the answer? I don't know yet. Other than that, my 1993 Sentra 1.6 lts works fine, starts well, sounds and runs strong with no other sign of weakness or excessive wear.
I can post the results in the other web site, but honestly I don't like the idea of dealer people making comments about the oil. I think that an engineer for Nissan would be better, but that is almost impossible to find.
I started a thread in the General area for the Sentras called: "Do you own a Nissan more than 10 years old? You are challenging Nissan...read" in which I found that a Nissan executive says Nissan policy is to avoid "overquality" with the 2005 Nissan Sentra coming late in 2004. I mention this because my Sentra is more than 10 years old...
The Amsoil 10w-30 I am buying costs $7.29 per quart. I hope is not mineral based oil..
Thanks
Last edited by Pablo14 : Jan 3rd, 2004 at 01:58 PM.
I tried to register on the web site you suggest on your first post, but twice they indicated that my Microsoft Hotmail e-mail is banned! Why, I don't know, but I don't like it.....
"I tried to register on the web site you suggest on your first post, but twice they indicated that my Microsoft Hotmail e-mail is banned!"
That's really odd. Do you have a Yahoo or other account? My e-mail for that site is Hotmail. :shrug:
"I don't like the idea of dealer people making comments about the oil."
There are all types of people on that site, certainly not all are Amsoil reps. Each of us has our favorite brands, etc ... and we've come to know each other's biases so we keep each other in line in order to foster free and worthwhile discussion.
Anyway, if your iron components were significantly worn I'd expect loss in compression/power.
I'd attribute idling problems (once you've ruled all basic tune-up stuff and fuel filters) to a vacuum leak or a faulty sensor ... like the mass airflow sensor. I don't know these cars specifically too much, just cars in general.
Water in the fuel can also effect idle. Ever use isoprppyl drygas?
Lab Tested Used Motor Oil 1.8L
... others couldn't care less. 
Anyway I do my own oil and the last time I only put about 2 & 1/4 quarts and it still shows normal. They're probably pissed cuz you proved them wrong.. Rejects..
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