Interesting interpretation, and I agree. All oil changes at 5k miles for me.

 

Interesting. I think I'll sample it after 5,000 and see what the report is. Then decide whether to change it.

 

Hi,
After about 7730 miles on my car (R56) and 6260 miles since the last oil change (changed after break-in), I had the oil analyzed by Blackstone and here are some of the numbers:

Alum - 33
...
Iron - 58
Copp - 19
...
Moly - 75
...
Mang - 10
...
Boron - 10
Silicon - 21
...
Calcium - 1219
Mag - 1130
Phosp - 845
Zinc - 1120
...
SUS Viscosity @ 210f - 63.5 (should be 65-78)
cSt Viscosity @ 100c - 11.20 (should be 11.6 - 15.3)
Flashpoint (F) - 385 (should be >375)
Fuel % - <0.5 (should be <2.0)
....
TBN - 3.7

They basically recommended that I stick with changing every 6K miles (the only reason I changed after 6K miles was to get on schedule of changing every 7.5K miles, starting with 7.5K on the odometer), then go longer once wear settles down.

The next oil change will probably be in Oct, at my car's first birthday, and I estimate I'll drive 7.5K additional miles by then, so it'll be interesting to see how the oil turn out at that time.

I don't drive too hard, mostly highway with some city driving, and I like to take advantage of the supercharger. Overall, it looks pretty good, and confirm my thought that one shouldn't rely 100% on the OBC (which is still saying to change oil around 17K miles on the odometer ) if one want a long living engine.

Motor on!

 

Thanks for posting. Interesting comparison to my results. What oil were you using? What did you tell them on the form? Was this from Blackstone, or another lab?

Yours has a lot more metal. Also note that they used different "Should be" values for the following. My SUS and cSt are very similar to yours, but mine are in the range they gave me and yours is not. I wonder if this could have something to do with what they expect from the oil you were using.

SUS Viscosity @ 210F: 63.7 (56-64)
cSt Viscosity @ 100C: 11.26 (9.1-11.6)
Flashpoint: 400 (>365)
Fuel dilution: <0.5% (<2.0%)


Small point, but unless you have a Cabriolet, you have a turbocharger, not a supercharger.

 

I used Blackstone Lab to do the analysis, and I believe I specified that I was using Motul 5W40 oil (which Funktion Autos use). I must have gotten the "superchrager" from the report, because that's what they said in their report--all I told them was I have MINI Cooper S 2007 and other info I already mentioned above (miles on car and oil, what oil I used, etc). I assumed they'd know which kind of charger which year of MINI use, if it matters for their analysis? Yes, they did say that the metals were high, but that's because most of them are from new parts being broke in.

 

I'm in! Ordered two kits today from Blackstone, and will run analysis on my new 08 mcs (6-speed w/ 1250 miles) and Amy's 07 mcs (auto w/ 4000 miles).

Picked up a nifty little siphon from Autozone with a very narrow long tube so I'll use that to get samples from the oil dipper thing when it's nice and warmed up and transfer the samples to the Blackstone containers once they get here.

I'll post the results once I get them back.

 

Anybody ever have Castrol actually do the check since it seems to be thier oil? They have a lab service here:

http://www.castrol.com/castrol/gener...tentId=6005538

They actually contract it out to a company called Analysts, Inc. That has 5 labs across the US.

 

at least my first test I took cold from the dipstick. I don't recall how long I warmed up the engine for the 2nd. Is there a recommendation? Of course it would help to have an oil temp gauge.

BTW, I don't know what size tubing you all are using when taking from the dipstick, but what I've got gets stuck part of the way down. What I've found however is cutting the end of the tube at about a 45 degree angle helps that.

 

Motul 5W40 would explain why the "should be" values were different than for the MINI oil. Interesting that they actually ended up with such similar values for SUS and cSt after use.

Both our cars had a first oil change at around 1,500 miles and the second at about 5K-6K later. So, I thought it interesting to see the differences in metal numbers. Mine are in red, yours in blue:

Aluminum: 6 33
Iron: 28 58
Copper: 11 19
Molybdenum: 159 75
Nickel: 2
Manganese: 5 10
Potassium: 3
Boron: 56 10
Silicon: 9 21
Sodum: 11
Calcium: 2240 1219
Magnesium: 54 1130
Phosphorus: 1060 845

 

I took the sample during an oil change. I drove the car over 30 miles on errands, then took the sample mid-stream as it was draining. That followed their recommendation for that kind of sample.

For dipstick extraction, I would guess that it would be best to run the car long enough to really stir the oil up, but there is the danger of melting the plastic tube if it is too hot.

 

Thanks for the tip! I hadn't really thought that the plastic might melt just from hot oil. I managed to get a kit from autozone yesterday that's quite narrow - so I'm reasonably sure it will manage to get done - I'll go w/ your recommendation and give it an angle and watch out for the temp.

 

I'm using 1/4" outside-diameter refrigerator water line for pulling samples, and it works fine, even with the oil at normal operating temperature. I think I tried 9/32" or 5/16" O.D. line once, but it was a *really* snug fit in the dipstick tube, so I went back to the 1/4", since it works. I don't have to cut the tip at an angle, but I somtimes have to wiggle the tubing to get it all the way into the pan, though.

 

I have a Mityvac, and it uses a fairly stiff white plastic tubing, similar to refrigerator line tubing. I've never had an issue with the plastic tubing melting, even with very hot oil. It's also easy to get the tubing snaked down the dipstick tube, but hard to tell when you're at the bottom. I marked the tubing using the same length as the removed dipstick as a guide to when I'm at "bottom". I would not recommend any type of clear vinyl tubing, which I think melts very easily.

 

It is the same tubing for icemakers. It's 1/4" polyethylene tubing and can be bought inexpensively at Home Depot or Lowes. After using it for one UOA it's best not to reuse it for another UOA to prevent sample contamination.

 

Hi folks,
I had my car's oil changed by MoS (MINI of Sterling) for free on the car's 1st anniversary and got a sample of the used oil (Motul 5W40) for analysis by Blackstone Laboratories. Since my last oil change (and analysis), I've driven ~7900 miles, including a ~3800 miles highway (95%) trip out to Colorado and back in 2 weeks in August. Basically the metals are going down and that wear still improved. I also had TAN done this time around and they said it was 7.3, which seems high, but they didn't know if the virgin Motul oil starts at TAN 0.0 and would like sample of the virgin oil so they can run TAN test for free. Also they suggest that I can run the oil up to 9K miles this time around (although right now I'm using the oil from the dealership, which is probably different from Motul). I've got another service coming up in 2.5K (according to OBC), and I'm not sure whether they'd change the oil or not--they didn't do the whole service, only oil change, when I came in for the annual free oil change. To summarize up, they think the engine's on right track and is pretty much past wear-in. My plan is to keep going until about 6 months or 9K miles later, whatever comes first.

Here are some numbers, in ppm (along with numbers from previous analysis):

Aluminum: 13 (33)
...
Iron: 39 (58)
Copper: 13 (19)
...
Molybdenium: 22 (75)
...
Manganese: 7 (10)
...
Boron: 8 (10)
Silicon: 10 (21)
...
Calcium: 1364 (1219)
Magnesium: 850 (1130)
Phosphorus: 739 (845)
Zinc: 954 (1120)
...
SUS Viscosity @ 210f - 65.8 (should be 65-78, was 63.5 in last analysis)
cSt Viscosity @ 100c - 11.83 (should be 11.6 - 15.3, was 11.20 in last analysis)
Flashpoint (F) - 380 (should be >375, was 385 in last analysis
Fuel % - <0.5 (should be <2.0, unchanged since last analysis)
....
TBN - 3.7 (was 4.0 last analysis)
TAN - 7.3

Just a little data point. Discuss among yourselves the meaningfulness or nonmeaningfulness of this data point.