Got a race car? Something for getting a long way off the beaten track? A highly strung road weapon? Or just want to know what the hell is going on with your engine, how long will it last, are you doing enough/too much maintenance?
An engine oil analysis, is a cost effective way to get peace of mind (or not!).
These are the result for my 105 series Land Cruiser. Yep, seems a bit baffling if you don’t have a chemistry degree. Luckily the company that does the analysis has a good breakdown for the layman of what each test relates to in terms of engine wear, etc.
http://techenomics.net/wp-content/upl…
Obviously this test was done in Australia, although I’m sure most countries with established heavy industries that require engines have something similar. When you have large engines that require 10's if not 100's of thousands of $ for a rebuild, you want to know if you have problem coming up. If you want to get serious, you can do these reguarly, and monitor the levels of bearing material, etc, so you know if you have a problem coming.
That way you can do a strip and rebuild before, I don’t know, you have a conrod poking out of the side of your engine block.
This kit came with a syringe and tubing to extract the oil. However I just kept my old oil after the last oil change and gave it a good shake before taking the sample (for residue/sediment that may have settled).
If you are reading this in Australia and want to use this company, just a heads up that the whole process took longer than I was expecting. Receiving the kit and then receiving the results once I had sent of the sample, maybe 6-8 weeks in total. Not quite the slick service you get from most on-line companies and probably not so geared up for dealing with Joe Public. As most of their customers would be mining/heavy industrial, I got the feeling it’s not really a retail business. However the report coupled with the website, told me what I wanted to know. Which is the main thing.