500K mile comparison between Synthetic and Conventional Oil on EcoBoost engine

[Blitz-Hacker]

This video compares running 2 Ford explorers side by side for 500K miles. They have the 2.3L Ecoboost. I have been running full synthetic in my Maverick since 500 miles but my difference is I change at 5k miles and not the 10K they did. This is about as good as you can get for real world comparison. Surprisingly they did not suffer more failures which is kind of surprising to me. I never considered Ford EcoBoost to be a 500k engine.

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[Tbone289]

I never considered Ford EcoBoost to be a 500k engine.

It likely isn't under real-world conditions with cold starts, condensation, temperature extremes, dirty/dusty environments, etc. that these engines didn't experience.

 

[WNYEscapee]

Anything is possible under ideal laboratory conditions. That which happens in real-world conditions is often different. Do I doubt the EB engine can go 500k, no. Is it likely to happen the way most people maintain and operate their vehicles these days, rarely.

 

[2lbgill]

They did this type of tests 50 years ago and never changed the oil for 200k miles only filters and no problems all highway mileage.

 

[801Maverick801]

I would imagine most modern engines will do 500k miles on a test bench. It is a great test to show how the oil holds up, not really a test for engine durability. Real world engine use like varying power load, exposure to elements, Engine warming and cooling, ect. There is a reason the oil change intervals go from Normal (10,000 miles) to Severe (5,000 miles) to Extreme (3,000 miles) for different conditions.

 

[zach57x]

I would imagine most modern engines will do 500k miles on a test bench. It is a great test to show how the oil holds up, not really a test for engine durability. Real world engine use like varying power load, exposure to elements, Engine warming and cooling, ect. There is a reason the oil change intervals go from Normal (10,000 miles) to Severe (5,000 miles) to Extreme (3,000 miles) for different conditions.

Maverick manual only calls for 5k for extreme right?

 

[olman]

Wonder how much of a difference there is with semi synthetic instead of conventional oil.
Do any new cars nowadays even call for using conventional oil instead of synthetic ?

 

[CajunMick]

Oh well, this sorta reinforces my intents to switch to full synthetic at next oil change.

Had oil sample reads at approx 1,500 miles since new. No surprises, expect metal n silicone so got oil change then, using blended Motorcraft oil. Now have ~4,000 miles on truck or approx 2,500 miles on this blend oil. Plan to let truck go to 5,000 miles on this oil. Pull sample, get results. Then next oil change, switch to full synthetic. I’m hoping to see less metal in the 2nd sample before switch to synthetic.

i purchased this truck Oct 2023. Coming up Oct, it be a year of ownership, and today, just turning 4K miles. Hardly used, huh? Longest road trips was couple round trips of ~650 miles, otherwise mostly local driving (Lowes, Home Depot, Sam’s, garden center stuff, lol).

When weather cools , plan to reorganize garage, get this truck inside out of weather. Can you say “oh hail yea”!

 

[801Maverick801]

Maverick manual only calls for 5k for extreme right?

3-5k miles

 

[OneAlienBoi]

They did this type of tests 50 years ago and never changed the oil for 200k miles only filters and no problems all highway mileage.

Impressive, engines, especially as time has gone on, are a lot more robust than many people give them credit, myself included. Not that I would ever want to tempt fate by waiting 5, 10, of God forbid 20 thousand miles between oil changes, but it's interesting to see for sure.

 

[OneAlienBoi]

I would imagine most modern engines will do 500k miles on a test bench. It is a great test to show how the oil holds up, not really a test for engine durability. Real world engine use like varying power load, exposure to elements, Engine warming and cooling, ect. There is a reason the oil change intervals go from Normal (10,000 miles) to Severe (5,000 miles) to Extreme (3,000 miles) for different conditions.

True, most of our drives are under 5 miles stop and go. Which is why we change our oil every 2,000 miles or less. Don't really have to do that, but I like taking care of things. Having worked at an oil change place as my first job, seeing all the terrible things people did to their cars pushed me hard in the other direction of obsessively maintaining things. We'll see if it works out for me or not.

 

[fossil]

Not Baja but not a test bench either

 

[Bwicka]

Hard to believe 1 wastegat failure and 1 leaky seal on each over 500k miles for both engines.
What no walnut blasting of valves needed every 80k miles , no injector pump failures, trans or axle failures ?
Are the forums wrong about frequency failure rate?
Or is it big oil hiding combustion drivetrain issues to keep us hooked?

 

[Montana]

So they admitted to at least fixing the engines multiple times in the videos, mainly for leaks. But overall pretty cool to see. I'd like to know more about the way the tests were done. Because I get the feeling that under their conditions, 500k is like 150k normal daily driving/starting/restarting etc etc. Especially considering temperatures which I'm sure were also optimal.

I'd like to know more than the marketing video for their brand of oil, but I'm not surprised in ideal conditions during lab testing that engines can be pushed twice as long as they would normally last for daily drivers without having issues like compression loss.

 

[Guv]

I worked as a lab technician, definition; welder, machinist, fabricator, mechanic for 38 yrs. I had been around some oil testing but most of my time was spent in R&D testing.
We had a small 4 cylinder DOHC turbocharged, GDI engine that I had to do frequent piston swaps on, it was in a test cell, not in a car on a chassis dyno.
In order to keep things as repeatable as possible, each ring pack would be reused in the cylinder it came from. This eliminated honing the cylinders and re-seating the ring packs (break-in).
Engine friction was a very important component of our reported data.
We started out using the specified non-synthetic oil and as mentioned in the video, some rings would be stuck in the ring groves at the end of testing. I always managed to get ours out but at the expense of much more time and labor.
I suggested to the lead engineer that we try M1 and he said go for it.
The first thing I noticed upon EOT teardown was how much cleaner the top of the cylinder head was. It was as if I had disassembled it and sent it through a cleaning vat, very impressive.
When I removed the pistons I found ALL the rings still free and easy to remove. Now we didn't test for a lot of hours but we ran a high power conditions at least 70% of the time. Our goals were increased efficiency and lower emissions. We never went back to conventional oil.
I always figured that in that case of a large coolant loss leading to an overheated engine, full synthetic might be the difference between a cooling system repair or complete overhaul due to stuck piston rings. I had used M1 for some yrs prior to this on my personal vehicles and these findings made the added cost seem worth every penny.
My 2006 GTO and 2005 SRT 300 both listed Mobil 1 as the preferred oil in the owners manual and on the oil fill caps. I even use it in my lawn mowers.

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