“The Clean Energy Scam” by the TIME Online

A very interesting article about the clean energy scam everybody who thinks ethanol driven cars are the future should read:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725975-1,00.html

The Swedish government should read this article as they feign care for the environment by subsidizing these ethanol driven cars for being “environmental green cars”. The only reason for doing so is to save the Swedish car manufacturers as Volvo & Saab from suffering for their lack of high-tech engine alternatives - true communism…

I’m feeling sick of all this environmental hypocrisy and “little Sweden saving the world” populism.

Single- and Multi-Grade Motor Oils

Fortunately, we have the time of single-grade oils long behind us. A single-grade motor oil is like a much too short bedspread. You must decide whether the bottom or top is covered. For the engine this means; either it has reasonable cold starting characteristics or a good wear protection at high temperature. Both simultaneously is not possible to accomplish with a single-grade motor oil.

A 10W single-grade oil has only a kinetic viscosity of approximately 5mm2/s at 100 degrees Celsius. The HTHS value of a “W” single-grade oil is not identified but for a 10W oil it would be at 2.0 mPas as max, more likely somewhat lower.

Because of that you had to decide which oil to use and change motor oil quite often accordingly to the outside temperature. At temperatures below 0 and shorter journeys e.g. a 10W, for the transition period in spring e.g. an SAE20 and for the real warm months an SAE30 or 40.

If an SAE30 would’ve been used at temperatures of e.g. -15 degrees Celsius, the engine wouldn’t even have started, accordingly the engine would have been broken by using a 10W oil in the summer at high temperatures. The first multi-grade oils were still a bad joke compared to todays high-performance multi grade motor oils but a significant step forward.

A multi-grade oil is a multi-grade oil only if it meets the requirements of a “W” class oil in cold state and of a class without the “W” at 100 and 150 degrees Celsius. If we take a look at a 10W-40 oil for example, this oil behaves as a 10W oil at -25 degrees Celsius and like an SAE40 at 100 and 150 degrees Celsius. Furthermore it has to have a kinetic viscosity of 12,5 - 16,3 mm2/s and an HTHS of minimum 3,5 at 150 degrees Celsius if is classified as an ACEA A2/B2 or A3/B3. To accomplish this a VI of about 150 is necessary which is unreachable for a single-grade mineral based oil (they have about 90-100), that’s why multi-grade oils were not possible in the past.

Wintertime the average oil temperature during engine operation is lower, how much lower depends on the outside temperature and how much load is applied to the engine. It’s nearly no difference if it has +5 degrees in the winter or +15 degrees in the summer, if it differs from -15 degrees to +30 degrees makes already a difference for the oil.

Did you have a 10W in your engine and the temperatures rose significantly over zero degrees Celsius you had to drive very carefully and change your motor oil as soon as possible - something we fortunately don’t have to think about anymore.

Why did I change to summer tyres 2 weeks ago?

Why did I change to summer tyres 2 weeks ago?, originally uploaded by mezga.

Lysekil

Lysekil, originally uploaded by mezga.

“Mapodo” - or: I’ll buy my motor oil online from now on

“Mapodo” - or: I’ll buy my motor oil online from now on

I recently made my first experience with Mapodo, an online shop for motor oils and lubricants. As most of the high quality motor oils are quite expensive here in Sweden I’m always looking for cheaper alternatives. Mapodo was discussed on various automotive forums such as www.autopower.se or www.bmw-treff.de and the people were always very satisfied with their buying experience.

Normally I shouldn’t care about such things as motor oil changes as the bimmer has this 3 years / 80.000 KM free service agreement such as all new BMW’s have. But the oil change intervals are quite “extended” which means that they’ll change oil first after every 30.000 kilometers. As you might have recognized I read a whole lot of stuff about motor oil in the nearer past and came to the conclusion that I will from now on devide the intervals in two 15.000 KM changes instead. This means that I’ll have to pay for every second oil change myself.

That’s were the money comes into the picture, my E87 needs motor oil with the BMW LL-04 specification as it is equipped with a diesel particulate filter and these require “low SAPS” oils. What “low SAPS” stands for and why cars equipped with a diesel particulate filter benefit from these oils will be clarified in a later post, that’s part of my oil mania. Unfortunately my favorite oil (Mobil 1 0W-40) is not LL-04 classified but LL-01 because of it’s not “low SAPS” and I will go oil conform at least as long as the bimmer is in it’s guarantee period.
I chose the ARAL Supertronic 0W-40 this time because of it’s nearly exactly the same oil as the Castrol EDGE Formula RS 0W-40. Castrol and Aral are both subsidiaries of BP and if you take a close look on the technical specification for these two oils then you’ll see how similar they are. The ARAL Supertronic 0W-40 is LL-04 classified as well so there will be no problem with the guarantee.

But it was not only motor oil for the car I bought this time, I bought some 2-stroke oil (~4€ / L is quite cheap) as well. Now you may ask why did you buy that for, but the answer is easy - for the 120d also. It’s a good idea to blend some 2-stroke oil, in relation 1:250, into each tank of diesel in order to lubricate the common rail diesel pump. More on this in a later post about this issue.

Back to topic then, BMW LL-04 oils are quite expensive ~22€ / Liter for Castrol Edge SLX 0W-30 are quite a normal price at your local BMW dealer. Mapodo currently takes only ~9€ that’s less than the half of the price at the bimmer shop. This immense price difference relativizes the cost for my extra oil service tremendously.

The order process and the delivery from Mapodo were both very satisfying and their customer service is lightning fast. All product questions where answered almost directly and the goods was packaged safely.

Thumbs up for Mapodo - highly recommended!

Motor Oil Viscosities - Or “What are that weird codes on the cans? E.g. 5W-40″

The details of, e.g. “5W” and “40″ alone don’t say much about the oil. The first number is the dynamic viscosity, how the oil behaves at a very low temperature. Especially interesting is to what temperature the oil is still flowing to the oil pump by itself.
E.g. “5W” means that the oil is still fluently at minus thirty degrees Celsius.

The “W” stands for “winter” (not weight!) and that was from the beginning as the SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) started to classify the kinematic viscosity of motor oil with a range of numbers 0, 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 or 70. The higher the SAE number is the higher is the viscosity of the oil. Single-grade motor oils were only operable in a very narrow temperature range, e.g. SAE5W was only usable in the winter and an SAE40 only usable in the summer. The modern multi-grade oils have a much wider usable temperature range and their classification consists of 2 numbers paired such as 0W-40 or 5W-50.

The second number of e.g. 40 refers to the kinetic viscosity at exactly 100 degrees Celsius. Anyway this value doesn’t say much about the practical usage scenario in an engine. As for the wear protection at very high oil temperatures, it’s solely the HTHS-value (High Temperature High Shear) which is of interest. The HTHS-value describes the viscosity of the oil at 150 degrees Celsius measured under a shear load treatment which comes pretty much closer to what happens at the pistons due to normal use in an engine.

There is a dependency of the HTHS-value and the kinetic viscosity, e.g. it’s not possible that an oil has a viscosity of 10 mm2/s at 100 degrees Celsius and an HTHS of 4 at the same time, or that it would have an HTHS of 3 and a viscosity of 14 mm2/s at 100 degrees Celsius.

That’s why e.g. not all 0W-30 oils are equal other 0W-30, such with an lowered HTHS of 3,0 have only a viscosity of 9-10 at 100 degrees Celsius whereas the “normal” 0W-30 oils with an HTHS of 3,5 still have around 12. E.g. the Castrol Formula SLX 0W-30 has an HTHS of 12,4 at 100 degrees Celsius, from 12,5 it would have been a 0W-40.

The HTHS value is especially significant for the pistons because at no other place in the engine normally reaches a temperature of 150 degrees Celsius. It was originally introduced to ensure that multi-grade motor oils containing V improver additives (VI = Viscosity Index) fulfil the requirements for a sufficiently stable lubricating film not only at high temperatures but also with high shear force applied.

The ideal situation would be in an oil would have the same viscosity at any temperature, unfortunately that’s not possible as even the best oils become much thinner while temperature is increasing. A 0W-40 comes a little closer to this ideal oil other than e.g. a 15W-40 or even just a single-grade oil. The less an oil becomes thinner with increasing temperatures the less viscous it can be at low temperatures without becoming too thin at the higher temperatures.
The wider the viscosity range of an oil the less thin it becomes with increasing temperatures the best performing oils in that area are 0W-40, 5W-50 and 10W-60 motor oils.

As for the wear protection at very high temperatures, there are differences even for oils with the same HTHS value because that’s where the wear protective additives come in, this is not considered within the HTHS value. The other important thing to think about is the viscosity- and shear stability, an oil should not only be provide good wear protection in the beginning it should provide these capabilities over the whole oil change interval, it’s not of any use if an oil has a HTHS of 5 in new condition and after a short time nothing of this is left.

Or, in short: the technical data including the HTHS value provides an overview but the quality of a motor oil must be determined in extensive tests.

Concerning the viscosity there is no car manufacturer which requires a special viscosity, viscosity is not to equate with quality. That’s why the car manufacturers require a minimum quality and not a special viscosity, the requirement can be a specific ACEA definition or a manufacturer approval such as BMW’s LL-98, LL-01, LL-01FE or LL-04. In some cases the manufacturer advises the customer to use a certain viscosity for specific temperatures. A top quality 5W-40 which has the right approvals can be used in the most engines from -30 degrees Celsius up to over +35 degrees Celsius, only looking at the viscosity a 5W-40 is an ideal compromise for the most engines. They are fluent at cold starts in the winter and still adequate fluent and stable at very high temperatures in the summer (This applies at least for the fully synthetic 5W-40). Therefore a top quality 5W-40 with an ACEA A3/B3 profile can be used in almost every engine whether entirely new or older.

A “0W-60″ would be a nice idea, unfortunately it’s not possible to extend the viscosity range that much, that’s why this oil doesn’t exist and probably never will. The highest possible VI for motor oils is nearly 190 (the best of the 0W-40 reach this) But even a VI of 190 is not enough for a 0W-50 but only for a 0W-40, a 5W-50 and a 10W-60.

Type of oils and the viscosity, first of all it is not true that all 10W-40 oils are partly sytnthetic and all 5W-40 are fully synthetic. In the 10W-40 oils are even the biggest differences in quality, there are solely mineral based oils, HC (Hydro Crack) oils and only a few of them really are partly synthetic, they usually are the best of the 10W-40 oils. Even of all the 5W-40 the most of them only are HC oils, fully synthetic 5W-40 are just a few in fact I only know 5 fully synthetic 5W-40 oils, as there are:

- Motul 8100 X-cess
- Mobil 1 - 5W-40 (only available in France?)
- Meguin - Megol Super Leichtlauf SAE 5W-40 (aka Liqui Moly High Tech)
- Kroon-Oil Emperol 5W-40
- Valvoline SynPower 5W-40

the oils above are all based on “Class IV” base oils, all others are based on HC oils or partly synthetic, most of them are HC based. The same applies for the 5W-30 oils there are just a few which are really fully synthetic.

The 15W-40 oils are always mineral oils just as all 0W-?? oils always are fully synthetic oils. Even the fully synthetic oils are based on mineral oils (except synthetic esters) but these are completely disassembled and re-built at the molecular level, the oil molecules look quite differently afterwards and just as they should be. This makes them much more temperature stable, where a mineral oil already starts to coal out and misbehave the fully synthetic still lubricates and manages temperatures up to 350 degrees Celsius quite easily.

Moreover, these oils have a higher VI, which means that they will not thin out that much when the temperature increases. If a robust VI improver additive is added to these oils an even higher VI can be reached, that’s why these oils can be quite thin even in “cold-state” without thinning out at high oil temperatures. (e.g. 0W-40)

A real top notch oil is born first when a correspondingly powerful additive package is added to a high base oil, the amount of additives in modern motor oils is about 15% - 30%! Since the HC oils perform better than mineral ones but are much cheaper than the fully synthetic, we have an increasing trend into this direction. As I said before, all 0W- oils are fully synthetic and only a few of the other viscosities are as well, most of them are HC oils.

The best oil is still a modern fully synthetic base oil with a powerful additive package, such as the newer Mobil1 oils, but of course there are other very good oils as well which are not quite so expensive.

Words such as partly synthetic or fully synthetic are not protected, therefore the oil companies may write on their cans exactly what they want without any legal consequences. That’s why it’s often very useful with a closer look on the ACEA profile.

more to come…

Types Of Motor Oils

A refinery ALWAYS produces mineral oil which consists of many different molecule forms. These oils are available in various qualities better ones and worse. E.g. hydro-crack oils (HC) are oils which are refinished in the refinery, the oils used for the HC oils are already of the better qualities. The oil molecules get cracked (hydro-cracked) in a special process to gain an approximate uniform molecule structure of the oil.

The fully synthetic oils get totally disassembled and re-assembled, the structure of the molecules looks totally different compared to the base oil. The oils used for synthetic oils have basically the highest quality and the structure of the molecules is most likely the finished lubricant.

Part synthetic oils are oils where synthetic oil has been added to the base oil. The worst oils are the solely mineral based and best the fully synthetic, the HC- and part-synthetic oils are somewhere in between. If HC or part-synthetic oils are better is hard to say as this more or less is dependent on the additive-package and so it’s the actual product which has to be analysed.

The manufacturing price of a motor oil depends on the base oil, or the base oil mixtures, where the fully synthetic base oils are by far the most expensive and the additive package added which determines if it’s going to be a good or an extraordinary motor oil.

Another fact that increases the price for the motor oil are the car manufacturer approvals which will be sought for the product. Each manufacturer approval on the oil can makes the motor oil more expensive, as each of them cost the the oil company lots of money.

2nd selection mineral base oil and a simple additive package = cheap DIY superstore motor oil
High class fully synthetic base oil and a modern high performance additive package = top quality motor oil

If this top motor oil then has many car manufacturer approvals it can’t be sold that cheap otherwise the oil company would be losing money on it.

It’s important to know though that the price for motor oil at your local car dealer or gas station is by far too high. If we take a look on the pricing for e.g. the Castrol oil for my bimmer the price for the Castrol SLX 0W-30 LL04 is about 23 € the same oil can be purchased on the internet for about 9 € and these internet guys make some profit too so there’s still a lot of money to make with motor oils. It’s much better to buy first class fully synthetic motor oils on the internet for the price of crappy motor oil from your local DIY superstore.

Another important thing to take into consideration is that the lubricant companies are not required to fullfill any regulations for the mixing ratio of their part synthetic or HC oils as ther are no such regulations. This means a part synthetic oil could consist of 95% mineral oil and 5% synthetic oil and it would still be as part synthetic as an oil based on 50% part synthetic and 50% synthetic components. Usual mixture ratios are 50%-50% up to 70%-30% whereas the bigger amount always consists of the cheaper mineral oils. To protect yourself from these doubts about what base oils are used it is much easier to buy a fully synthetic motoroil and be safe.

more to come…

What’s That Oil Thing All About?

I’m currently extremely hungry on knowledge about lubricants & motor oils. This may sound completely insane as most people don’t care about this at all but I found this a very interesting field of technology.

I have read a whole lot of stuff on various forums and other sources on the net and thought it might be a good idea to post some of my findings here on my blog, mostly to have it saved somewhere and easy to find for myself. There are some serious oil-geeks out there and it would be plain stupid not to summarize their knowledge. I believe the best procedure is to post the stuff in shorter portions instead of one long post which may be a bit boring to read.

Most of my colleagues at work seem not so interested in the “oil-thing” so they get quite bored every time I try to lead conversations into that direction so I have to move it to the blog instead and hope there will be a whole bunch of comments on them.

Anyway I should inform you all that I’m an absolute noob in this area and everything I write about it should be enjoyed with caution, don’t hold me responsible for anything written here as the information in that area is provided on a “to the best of my knowledge and belief” basis.

Cars reach higher mileages and the trend is showing that our cars extend their life-cycle more and more, they live longer than in the 70’s or the 80’s. It’s also becoming increasingly important that the engine technology in the cars lasts that long. Therefore you should not buy crappy oil, as it eventually will turn out to be very expensive in the long run.

Each car manufacturer does a whole lot of engine testing for many hours, even a cars whole life-cycle will be tested with different motor oils. The result is more or less the same each and every time, if simple oils are used you’ll see significant wear beside strong deposits which also lead to many problems, in some cases the motor could be even leaking oil were it would be still almost like new if high-quality oil would have been used.

The amount of money a simple motor oil would be cheaper than a high-class one is relatively small and a predictable investment. If we assume that one would spend ~18€ for a 5L canister of cheap motor oil it just would be the double of that price for a really good one instead of the low-tech oil. Guess you would change oil every year the surcharge for the better oil would only be a 180 €, that’s peanuts compared to a engine overhaul due to crappy motor oils.

more to come…