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Just like an engine dyno measures horsepower, used oil analysis measures engine wear without having to disassemble the engine. Utilizing atomic emission spectroscopy, used oil analysis reveals the amount of wear occurring within an engine and reports it in parts per million of each element. As such, increasing levels of tin and lead indicate bearing wear. High levels of aluminum indicate piston scuffing, and each SPEEDiagnostix report provides these details in plain English – no chemistry degree required!
Fortunately, used oil analysis does not stop at indicating wear metals. Used oil analysis also reveals contaminants such as water, coolant, fuel dilution and airborne dirt/sand. Contamination levels provide insight into the effectiveness of both oil and air filters as well as the tune up of the engine. High levels of fuel dilution indicate possible injector or carburetor problems, which are common with Ethanol blended fuels. Again, the SPEEDiagnostix reports highlight and provide guidance related to contamination in plain English.
Finally, used oil analysis provides trend analysis which reveals the “health trend” of the engine. When should the engine be rebuilt? Can the engine run another race? Trend analysis answers these questions and more. Once a normal level of wear and contamination for certain engines has been established, it becomes easy to spot potential problems early on before they become much bigger problems. Catching problems early saves time and money.
Been doing oil analysis for decades on fleet trucks.
It'd tell you how much bearing wear and extent you can run them before a rebuild.
Wasn't horribly costly compared to eating a bearing.
Gotta say I've been in the large diesel truck industry for 35+ years. Fleets from 10K to 150K+ units. My experience is oil analysis never told us much we didn't already know on a fleet scale. Certain engines had liners that would start to leak coolant at X miles etc. certain engines had piston delamination issues at X miles etc. We did it for a 5 year period and when we compared the cost of the analysis to the number of engines it saved...it wasn't even close. Not even in the ballpark..and trust me...with 150K units you get the top end analysis very cheap. The concept is good and I suppose you could gain some insight in some cases....but usually it would tell you something like change oil and wait through another sample to see if it still happens. At that point...damage is done.
It DID help us with some units operating in off road conditions to determine if there were leaks in air filtration system that would show up in oil at change time.
oil analysis... interesting
