I have been changing my oil myself for over 30 years and have used dino and synthetic. I have never had my oil tested because, imho, it's a waste of money unless you make your living racing cars as a driver or a team owner. Why? Ask yourself this. If the test results come back and one or two elements are higher than normal which would indicate a wearing issue, changing your oil to different brand will not correct the wear - the damage has been done. Now, ask yourself this, how bad is the wear? If the engine is running fine, but the analysis indicates wear, are you going to tear done your engine looking for the fault such as the bearings? Probably not. And if after receiving the negative analysis, do you have access to sophisticated equipment that can do a vibration analysis to confirm the oil analysis and pinpoint the problem? Doubtful. For the non-believers out there, you can pay the extra money after each oil change for analysis and follow their recommendations. Maybe, just maybe, you might squeeze out a few thousand miles more from your engine. But hey, who cares if you can already get 150,000 miles from your engine without any oil analysis'? I don't.
My advice is to save your money doing oil analysis', use API certified oil, change it in accordance to the type of driving you do and most of all............forget about oil debates and go out and enjoy your damn car!
Btw, I performed spectrograhic oil analysis for Canadian warship propulsion systems at one point in my career as a marine systems engineer. When certain elements were reading high, the first action was to direct a VA - vibration analysis. Navy's have the bucks to invest in sophisticated analysis equipment whereas your local tuner doesn't. Guess your stuck with what to do with the results which may not be a concern to begin with. Think about it. My 2/100 of a loonie. Oh, my current oil of choice in all my cars and bikes is Mobil 1.
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"America.... still builds rockets!"
Vette: 355 cid, 400 rwhp
'13 CTS-V Coupe: 6.2L LSA, 556HP
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