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2012 IS350(c). 117k miles total. I drive extremely aggressively, but mostly highway miles (very little stop-and-go) as this is my weekend car, not my get to work and back car. Ran 6500 miles on Mobil 1 Advanced Fuel Economy 0W-30. Unlike earlier IS350s, Lexus didn't say anything about permitting a 5W-20 to be used in this motor. Lexus recommends 5W-30 only, and I ran a 0W-30. Using an Amsoil Ea oil filter (rated for 15k miles) and a Wix air filter.
Thanks for the report. It would almost be interesting to see what the values for new oil are specifically for the additive package for Mg, Ba, P, Zn, Mo, P. The molybdenum number seems real low from a protection standpoint while Zinc is overly high. Both harmful to the o2 sensors and CATs but both extend engine life especially on tappet engines or places with high shear indexes like the HPFP on the camshaft.
Thanks for the report. It would almost be interesting to see what the values for new oil are specifically for the additive package for Mg, Ba, P, Zn, Mo, P. The molybdenum number seems real low from a protection standpoint while Zinc is overly high. Both harmful to the o2 sensors and CATs but both extend engine life especially on tappet engines or places with high shear indexes like the HPFP on the camshaft.
Seems like it's a very low moly oil. Zn number is in line with the VOA, as is the Mo number.
Trinuclear moly? Quantity is not everything
ZDDP looks normal. Toyota's OEM oils don't seem to "go with the times" with regards to low ZDDP & low calcium, anyways.
Why use a 0w-30 semi-synth for aggressive driving? Plenty of full synth 5w-30 and 10w-30 oils with ridiculously good high stress performance and no viscosity modifiers. Full synth "10w30"s tend to be better than most 5w30s too - check out the cold cranking simulator results.
Trinuclear moly? Quantity is not everything
ZDDP looks normal. Toyota's OEM oils don't seem to "go with the times" with regards to low ZDDP & low calcium, anyways.
Why use a 0w-30 semi-synth for aggressive driving? Plenty of full synth 5w-30 and 10w-30 oils with ridiculously good high stress performance and no viscosity modifiers. Full synth "10w30"s tend to be better than most 5w30s too - check out the cold cranking simulator results.
The 0W-30 is a full synthetic and supposedly a pretty advanced formulation. I went with it because it sounded exotic and supposedly uses slightly better base oils. What oils do you recommend? I'm open to trying different stuff.
Recommend...
Aggressive use - xw-30 (anyweight-30) with low tested NOACK (high temperature evaporation test - low evaporation% usually means more thermally stable base oil and lack of viscosity modifiers that break down with stress). The mobil 1 sits at about 11.3, which is... average, for xw-30 oils. Amsoil's 10w-30 (which has better CCS numbers than most 5w30s) has very low NOACK. Redline's 5w30 is even more brutal, but it eats up its anti-oxidation package quickly (or used to - not sure what the formula change did, when it was, if there was one in the first place, so on). Shell's full GTL oils also have low NOACK. Ravenol has a wide variety of oils, including the variety that I just listed. Plenty of others, but I haven't looked too much - too many counterfeits of big brand oils in my country, so I don't bother.
Not going to ask what "extremely aggressively" means, but it's highly unlikely that you'll actually _need_ a very temperature-stable oil, unless you're doing constant WOT - track days and so on. It's still a nice-to-have.
Anyways, reads: https://forums.nasioc.com/forums/sho....php?t=2714154 - good summary, in my opinion.
bobistheoilguy (BITOG) - no need to say more, read the articles on the site. https://www.oil-club.ru/ - use google translate, in the forum section there are very detailed reviews of oils (VOAs). Quite often a lot more detailed than the usual BITOG VOAs - HTHS, NOACK, infrared spectroscopy, CCS, so on. https://oil-club.de/ - likewise.
Plenty of others.
From what I've read, unless the iron numbers on the report are in the stratosphere (think hundreds or thousands or worse), there's little reason to worry. Something to do with the lab not counting particles of all different sizes due to the prohibitive costs associated. If they're stupidly high, it generally means "impending engine failure, tear it down". The elements with extreme wear numbers can then give you a clue about what could be wrong - bearings, liners, rings and so on are generally made of different material compositions (alloys, etc). Notable example - lead in bearings.
Thanks. i actually read Dave's comments about UOAs earlier. I sort of knew that UOAs are pretty much the automotive equivalent of fortune telling going in, but curiosity killed the cat. I guess that UOAs can be useful in some ways. I guess I learned that the Mobil 1 0W-30 I used remained relatively stable over a slightly extended drain interval of 6500 miles versus 5000 miles in hot, summer Florida weather and aggressive driving. It sheared a bit, I guess, but remained at 9.3 cSt, which is the viscosity floor for 30 weight oils, and the ceiling for 20 weight oils. I guess knowing that is helpful. If it had sheared down to a 20 weight, I might have been slightly concerned, and chose a 5W-30 or a 10W-30 next time, and I might have investigated fuel dilution, as this car is direct injected. But all-in-all, it appears that even the combination of direct injection, Florida summer heat, an extended drain interval, and aggressive driving did not faze the oil in terms of viscosity much at all.
Knowing the TBN was still good was nice, but I kinda already suspected that an advanced synthetic formulation by one of the top oil companies wouldn't wear out after just 6500 miles.
I guess the UOA did benefit the environment slightly in this case, as I will be extending my oil change intervals in the future to past 5000 miles. Probably will extend them to 7000-10,000 miles, depending on how I feel, aka how lazy I am that weekend.The car currently has 5 qts of Mobil 1 5W-30 Extended Performance High Mileage and 1.2 quarts of Mobil 1 0W-30 (I just can't stay away from the 0W-30, it's like crack). And I'll probably do another UOA to keep on eye on viscosity, as I wouldn't want it to drop too low, but I doubt there would be an issue unless it dropped to below that of a 20 weight, since the 2GR-FSE is specced to use 0W-20 in the 3IS. And I doubt that a 5W-30 from Mobil 1 (or any oil company, really) would drop that low in just 10k miles. Are there any engine differences between the 2GR-FSE in the 2IS and 3IS?? I know that Camrys used to be specced for 5W-30 (2AZ-FE) but later Camrys got specced for 0W-20 (2AR-FE).
I wouldn't play with the OCI when it concerns vehicles that see the redline often, and I wouldn't trust a VII-filled oil to maintain its HTHS with performance driving, assuming no evidence to the contrary. I wouldn't worry too much about this particular 0w-30 as it is pretty much one of, if not the best 0w-30s on the market, assuming that you can reliably avoid counterfeits... which is a bit of a problem in eastern Europe & Russia ^_^. Still, there are better oils for your application.
That is true, I remember reading that a lot of viscosity index improvers can make oil viscosity behavior quite non-linear. I don't know how much VII the 0W-30 has, but it probably has at least some given the viscosity spread and how rare it is to actually find a 0W-30, as opposed to something like a 10W-30. Perhaps I'll look into Redline, as I believe those have minimal amounts of VII.
Redline's 5w-30 supposedly has no VIIs... at least there are multiple people saying that. Combine this with the high temperature stability (flash point & noack) & best dynamic shear properties, and it certainly looks that way.
I'm using amsoil's SS 10w-30 because redline is not so easy to get here (used to be), plus it's my daily and it doesn't see high loads too often. Haven't seen a UOA of it, but since it's probably their 5w-30 without VIIs, I'm quite content with it. No LSPI or carbon buildup on this engine to worry about (dual injection naturally aspirated yay)
At the same time the engine is specced for a plain old 5W-30 and you can even use conventional if you wish. I'm sure that most synthetics will provide protection beyond that of a conventional in HTHS situations. I just like having a margin of safety if everything goes to hell, like maybe a radiator hose blows on a highway on ramp. Having something like Redline with a thicker fluid film might make all the difference, I don't know!
From what I've read about potential coolant leaks, if that happens (water pump blows, for example), the needle gauge won't move until it's way too late... so let's hope that it won't come to this. I'm going slightly off-topic here
07-08-19, 05:35 AM
2012 IS350 Used Oil Analysis
