Got mine for Ultra back today. Quite an improvement for me. Even though I ran a shorter interval. I put Ultra in again this time so I will probably go about 4-4.5K on this one then send it in again.

 

Trends look good. What oil had you been using, wakeboardr?

 

Mobil 1 5W/30

 

Hmm there are plenty that show it runs fine. Maybe something wrong with your car itself. I wouldn't assume it's the oil yet.

 

I was on my second oil change using PU, about 4k miles into it. I started hearing some valve noise and start up noise that didn't sound good. I went ahead and changed it out, and saved a sample to send off for analysis. I know color isn't an indicator of oil condition, but this stuff was black, couldn't even see through it when held up to light. I'm waiting to get my sample kit from blackstone and then I'll send it off for testing. After I changed the oil(used PU again), startup/valve noise was gone and sounded back to normal. I do drive fairly aggressively, so maybe PU can only hold up for about 4k miles with my driving style? Who knows, but after this next oil change I'm going to switch to something else(redline, motul, or eneos).

 

That just means PU was doing it's job and cleaning the deposits out of your engine. Reason why it turned black. Your previous oil probably didn't clean well and now PU is cleaning it up. Might be a few oil changes before it isn't dark anymore like that.

 

Where? PU is a relatively brand new product so we haven't really seen that many yet. Or at least I haven't.

 

My car has 16k on odo. I changed the oil after break-in using M-1, and have had PU in since 6k miles. I can't imagine my deposit levels are very high at this point.

Like I said, I know color isn't really an indicator of anything. But combine that with the unpleasant sounds I started hearing from my valve train at start-up, and I wasn't getting a warm-fuzzy feeling. I don't care what color it is, or what an oil analysis says, if I begin hearing those noises then I'm changing my oil. The noise went away when I changed it(using PU again), so I can only suspect that the oil had stopped performing adequately. I expect more than 4k miles out of a synthetic oil. I'm not a motor-oil aficionado. These are just my observations.

 

hey, i'm new to this site but not to oil. i work in the quick lube industry and there is a big misunderstanding that has been going on for a while with full synthetic oils. people have the notion that you can go beyond the manufacturer's recommendations between oil changes if you go with full synthetic which is not true. that's not what synthetic is designed to do. it's for harder working engines to help better protect them but not extend what your manufacturer recommends. looking at the results from the two people who used pu and posted their findings, you have two different result that could be from numerous things. like someone said earlier, the color of the oil shows how dirty your engine is, doesn't mean the oil is bad. but notice the person with the worse results went longer in between oil changes. it wasn't crazy over the 3,750 miles between changes that nissan/infiniti rec but it was still over by a good amount. just something to keep in mind.

 

The only real way to know how long to run your oil between changes is to have a UOA performed and recommendations are made based on the results. Synthetics can typically go longer than the traditional 3,000 oil change interval based on what I've seen with the results of numerous UOA's.

 

Adhering to manufacturer recommendations during warranty is usually a good idea, afterwards UOA and whatever you want to do. Just be informed.

Some folks base their decisions on the facts presented, UOA and # of changes with same oil and then UOA some more. And then there are others that piece meal information together and run with it. For instance someone might hear my 3 series doesnt need an oil change till 15K, but it uses 5w-30 synthetic. The person that hears this calls up BMW service and has it confirmed and thinks my non-3 series car can go up to 15K oil changes with synthetic.

Or buying premium priced synthetic without any reason except thinking their engine will perform better when in fact it maybe no different than regular oil at recommended change intervals.