Oil testing for cars (free test offered)

[dkmech]

Are you doing diesels as well?

Yup

[megah0]

I have a Rover 111 with 72k on the clock and also a Merc E300 diesel which is currently being run on vegetable oil if they would be of interest?

[dkmech]

One more thing, if you have changed your oil very recently we shouldn't see much wear or deterioration in the oil. So if you had an oil change in the last month or two you may have to wait a bit prior to sampling so that there is something meaningfull to look at.

[Howard]

Trying to think what I can use to extract through the dipstick hole at the mo, how much is 25ml? In real terms

[Lowe]

Hmm, I changed my oil last month, so I don't mind waiting

[dkmech]

Trying to think what I can use to extract through the dipstick hole at the mo, how much is 25ml? In real terms

We'll supply you with a length of tubing and either a vampire pump or a syringe to draw the sample with. We will also supply a bottle for the sample.

25-30ml in real terms is a couple of table spoons. To quote google: "1 US tablespoon = 14.7867648 ml"

[Howard]

If you supply all that lot that's generous and would be very interested, I had my oil changed 5-6 months ago though

[CocoPops]

How about some 9,000 rpm VTEC oil?

Been in the S for about 2months, done 2 or 3k miles since oil change.

[Fox]

Dont know how useful mine would be - BMW 530i Sport - Inspection 1 Service in August.

[GoNz0]

i would love to have a sample taken, i change out my oil with at least 1 light left to go, it will be a good indicator if i can leave it longer, or if i need to change it sooner

its a straight 6 2.8 BMW lump, the car forums would jump on this if you went commercial on this, advertising would be cheap if you did your homework and targeted uk car fansites

[hitman67]

Whens the date going out on this? Also will it matter that my truck uses 15-40 and so is like treacle compared to what some on here will use.

Still more than happy to put the Landie in for it, Oil was changed around march last and has a good 6-7k on it since then.

[joshwa]

I could provide you with 3 sets of oil (from a PD TDI with 135k on the clock):

- Long life oil (castrol?) that's been in a TDI for 12months / 10,000 miles (I can literally see the specs of dirt in this when I swill it round in the container when they cling to the side)
- Flushing oil, used in the TDI for 5 - 10 minutes of idle
- VW 505.01 Spec PD oil, used in TDI for ~200 ish miles

If you're interested?

[dkmech]

A lot of interesting suggestions so far, I was right, Hexites have a lot of funky cars, each funkier than the last one in some way

I now need to get another stock of sampling syringes in and prepare the sampling kits. We are swamped at work at the moment so this may take a little time.

In the meantime could everyone so far who wanted a test done send me an email with their real and forum name, postal address (for sampling kits), info on the car and approximate time since oil change. The email address to use is on the leaflet here. I'd rather not spell it out in the post to save me all the spam, spam, spam, egg and spam.

I will try to sort everyone out, and I am also allowing for a few more entries from particularly interesting high powered or heavily used cars or bikes.

Just a note of warning to everyone. We may find your engine in perfect order. We may find you need a new gasket. We may find you need a new engine. So if you'd rather not know you may not want to take the sample

[Howard]

I'm definitely interested. Mine gets medium ish use, 30 miles a day commuting.
As long as you are happy to give one to me, owner of a "boring normal" car, then I'll send you my info, if not just say so

[dkmech]

I am planning to offer this to everyone who signed up before post 29 and will be a bit more selective about cars from then onwards. So you can have yours tested.

Those who have mentioned pots of old oil to be tested for comparison please mention this in an email and I'll include some extra bottles in your package.

Once we start doing the actual tests I will be fitting them in between other work that we get so the turn around time will not be reflective of our typical turn around. Hate to keep you in suspense but we do get swamped sometimes

[joshwa]

Will you send the results to us? (ie rather than publishing them publicly?) Or if you do publish results will they be anonymous?

edit - email sent