This was the first time I had the oil analyzed. They seem to think I can go longer than 10,000 miles between changes. I might take it to 15,000 miles with this oil. My engine is wearing well it seems. Thoughts? I mostly wanted to post my report for anyone who wants to compare sevral MINIs to their own. Oil is Mobil 1 5w30 EP.

 

Thanks for posting this - Is this the MINI-branded 5W-30 oil?

Doesn't look awful overall, but the iron (wear metal) and boron (contaminant metal) concentrations are *way* high. Moly (part of the additive package) is pretty depleted, too.

I really wish I knew how Blackstone did their flashpoint measurements and fuel dilution measurements. I have a hard time believing that the flashpoint has only dropped 25 °F after 10,000 miles (virgin BMW 5W-30 has a flashpoint of 435 °F).

The 100 °C viscosity is the lowest I've ever seen for the MINI oil - it seems to be breaking down with age/mileage.

I also think some of the concentrations might not be valid because you replaced 20-25% of the oil during the 10,000 mile interval. Do you always have to add a quart during 10,000 miles of driving?

I really would have liked to seen the Total Acid Number and Total Base Number for the oil. On my last test of the MINI oil, TAN had overrun TBN after only about 9,000 miles, which is generally a sign that the oil needs changed.

 

Scott, don't you use Dyson? And weren't you going to try BioSyn? Any news?

 

Yes - I use Dyson for my analyses, and I have tried out the BioSyn. The results of all the analyses I've had done are here.

The BioSyn worked really well, even though I'm still fighting a fuel dilution problem. I have MINI oil back in the crankcase right now because another poster was asking whether my earlier crappy numbers with the MINI oil might have been because the car had less than 25,000 miles on it and was still breaking in. So, I decided to do one more interval with the MINI oil and see if it does any better on a higher-mileage engine.

The MINI oil that's in the car now went in at 32,900 miles, and I'm just about to hit 40k, so in another month or two I'll change the oil and pull a sample. At that point, I think I'm going back to BioSyn for good.

 

Oh, the oil was Mobil 1 5w30 EP.

A bit of history for my engine:

It survived a rollover - I turned the engine off while I was upside down before comming to a rest on the driver's side. But it still made bad noises before I could shut it off.

My first oil cooler broke catastrophically and I was down to about 1qt of oil.

Adding 1qt of oil over 10,000 miles is not uncommon for me. My oil level did not get below the minimum mark, but I wanted to bring it back to the middle range. I don't want to risk oil starvation on the highway ramps or fast 90º turns. Also, some of my aeroquip fittings leak a fine mist of oil that shows up after a few thousand miles and I have an oil catch can. Over the whole interval these things add up I guess.

 

well thats decent news for me then i have heard alot of bad things about the mobile 1 so i havent used it, but for 23 dollars for 5 quarts vs the $40i pay for the royal purple that i change every 5k i could save a little money

 

I've used mobil 1 extended performance for every oil change since the car was new. I forget when I got rid of the factory oil. Records from this time are sketchy.

 

This is great for extended use oil, but if you are planning on more frequent oil changes don't bother with the more expensive oils out there. Just stick with a top tier oil (Mobil, Castrol, etc) and you will be fine.

 

And what is the cost for the analysis?

YD

 

As ScottRiqui pointed out, there are analysis elements omitted in the report; so the cost question becomes relevant, because “you get what you pay for”. This is not a criticism of Blackstone Labs just a comment about their price point. Any pro analysis is better than amateur speculation or blind internet acceptance.

This is the first MINI oil analysis report I’ve seen without fuel dilute issues which raises the question about the diminished viscosity; is it totally due to shear? This oil’s additive package is very weak compared to RP which may be the answer for that. Boron can be used as an additive, so I don’t know if that affected its high number, but I wonder why the elevated Iron didn’t raise a red flag in the comments; perhaps because ring and other bearing alloys were ok.

 

I paid them extra for whatever the optional test was. They left that out?

At anyrate, I think I'll keep doing what I'm doing - Mobil 1 5w30 EP every 10k with a new filter every 5k, plus daily Italian tune-ups.

 

What's an 'Italian tune-up'? Sounds like something I'd like.

 

I respectfully ask how much the analysis cost?

YD

 

An "Italian Tuneup" is when you drive a car in a spirited, high-revving fashion in order to get carbon deposits in the combustion chamber to break loose. In cars that have been driven gently for tens of thousands of miles, you can actually get pretty thick deposits, leading to "hot spots" in the combustion chamber that can cause pinging/pre-ignition. You frequently see the Italian tuneup used in conjunction with Seafoam or another combustion chamber cleaner.

Here's Blackstone's price list. The standard test is $22.50, and TBN/TAN analyses are $10 extra each.

If you just want a very basic test, I'd use Blackstone, but if you include more than one or two additional tests, it makes more sense to go with Terry Dyson. His reports are $60, but include everything that the standard Blackstone test includes, plus TAN, TBN, 100 °F viscosity, viscosity index and the Karl Fisher Water test. To get all of those same tests from Blackstone in addition to the standard test would run $144.50.

Also, Terry uses gas chromatography to directly measure the amount of fuel present in the oil, whereas I believe Blackstone estimates fuel dilution from the viscosity and flashpoint measurements.

 

Thanks, I had a good idea of what the cost for an analysis was but just wanted to see what people were paying. I'm a die-hard 5K person myself. I just don't personally see the wisdom in spending $25K on a car that I intend to keep until it is no longer desirable to drive and then push how long I go between oil changes. To me it appears that I would be spending $30 or so dollars on an analysis to prove I didn't need to spend $30 or so dollars on an oil change. I just doesn't make sense to me in my case.

I realize that some people pay to have theie oil changed and the cost is much, much higher than what I pay, but thinking back to the original price of the car, I would still do more frequent changes even if I paid the high prices at a dealer or garage.

A lot of posts have been done here talking about oil change intervals and the appropriate life of various oils and it seems that the consensus is the average life of oil in our MINIs is about 7-8K miles. Some higher, some lower.

I'm not trying to start a debate or argument here, but 5K miles works great for me, I'm just trying to understand the logic of pushing the oil change interval to the edge.

Thanks for your consideration

YD

 

I would recommend "elf" fully synthetic oil. My cooper is very happy with that oil.

 

Well, only speaking for myself, the oil analyses make a little more sense for me because my wife and I have two identical MINIs, and we tend to keep our cars for a *very* long time. So a half-dozen analyses early in the cars' lives isn't that much of an expense if I can find an oil that lets me go 10k miles between changes without sacrificing protection. I also like to know what's going on inside the engine, and the analyses give me a good picture of that.

Obviously, if I only had one MINI and was planning on selling it before I hit 75k miles, then the analyses would make less sense.

 

I just wanted a cool sheet with numbers on it...

 

I like it and I think it will be helpful...once I get my MINI and can eventually compare (despite the generation difference).

 

At 19.4k I just put in Castrol Fully Synthetic 5w30. I'll change it out in 5k. That will allow me time to get BioSyn shipped in.

BTW, my SERVICE minder is still 1,200 miles from due. (This is my third oil change (Mobil 1, Royal Purple, now Castrol FS).

R

 

So is your OBC-recommended service at ~20,600 the *first* service that it's recommended, or the second?

If it's the first, MINI must have changed something with the R56, because with the R50/52/53, the first service typically came due in the first 10-12k miles. Subsequent intervals were usually much longer than the first, though - mine have been 21k or 22k since the first recommended service at 12.5k.

 

That is my first service call. I do mostly highway driving maybe 80%. I don't know the algorithm, but there has been a steady countdown (once it actually started counting down from 15k) and I've finally got to 1.2k left.

I take it that this is unusual.

Also, judging from your Castrol results, maybe I don't want to wait 5k.

 

That's probably not that unusual. Looking at various R56 threads, it seems like their first service doesn't come due until much later than the first service in the earlier cars.

I think you'll be fine with the Castrol FS in the next 5,000 miles. My results are for a supercharged R52, so I don't know how well they'll translate to a naturally-aspirated R56. And even though my MINI-branded Castrol looked pretty bad by 9k miles, I don't think it will get trashed in 5k miles in your car.

 

Hey guys, about oil.

I just used Castrol Magnatec 5W40. Is there a problem if i did not use 5W30 instead ?

Thanks, Daniel.