For anyone that cares I’ve started documenting the maintenance minder % and doing an oil analysis for that oil change. My goal is to find the right balance between maintenance minder % and a decent TBN # to determine oil changes. The first oil change was at 70% with the factory file with a total of 1931 miles. I decided to change the oil since I was getting low and didn’t want to contaminant with adding oil. Below is that oil analysis which they say was a good time to change the oil even though the TBN was relatively high at 5.3.
I’ve done my 2nd oil change this time at 15% on the minder and 5499 miles on the odometer. As they projected the highlighted metals (Aluminum and Silicon) declined. The TBN was a bit lower but then it’s a different type of oil. Next sample I’m might send in some virgin oil to determine true TBN reading, I’ve been running Castrol GTX 5w-30 and plan to continue to use it. According to the report the motor is still breaking in. The majority of my driving is city with about 20miles round trip to work daily with the occasional trip of about 200miles. I vary my driving from the causal shifting between 3k and 5k and when I’m dogging it its 8400rpm shifts.
I just thought I would share my findings to date.
Christopher