Will Synthetic Motor Oil Cause Engine Seal Leaks? Let's find out! - YouTube

Is it true that synthetic oils will actually cause harm to the seals in an older engine causing it to leak engine oil? Today

we're gonna find out we're gonna do a test on a tractor that's forty five years old and has never tasted synthetic oil

So let's put some synthetic oil on that tractor put to hard work and then come back and see if the engine is leaking oil

This is the front of the engine and as you can see, there aren't any oil leaks. This is a look from the bottom side looking up.

This is the back of the tractor where the engine mounts to the back half of the tractor and you can see there isn't any

oil leaking. The nuts that hold the engine to the rest of the tractor are very clean

I don't believe this tractor has ever been split in half.

I went and cleaned up this oil collection container we'll be using some of the oil for some testing

so I'm gonna collect some oil in this container about midway through the drain cycle.

♫ Twangy Music ♫

I wanted to drain the oil that we had in this container into a quart jar that we could use later for testing.

I'm gonna go ahead and open up this oil filter.

When I remove the filter, I crushed the filter just a little bit and it's got the filter media trapped inside.

So I'm have to use a little bit of force to get it out.

I'm going to go ahead and cut out the filter media and we'll put it in a press to squeeze all the oil out and

then we'll take a closer look at it.

All right, that should be pretty good I think we got most of the oil out of this filter media,

so let's take it out and take a look at it

I'll be using the neodymium magnet inside this plastic bag

We're going to sweep it across the filter media and see if we can pull up any sort of metal

The filter media actually looks pretty clean

I don't see any metal on this magnet. Since a magnet is unable to collect

non-ferrous metal and engines use a lot of non-ferrous metal in them

the only way to get a good idea as to whether or not there's a lot of wear taking place inside the engine is to

send the used oil in for an oil analysis and look for both ferrous and non-ferrous metal contamination.

Shell Rotella T4 promises to provide triple protection. It's supposed to help control wear deposits and oil break down.

This is an SAE 15W-40 motor oil that's designed for a diesel engine.

But what exactly does triple protection mean? Triple protection includes significantly improved resistance to breakdown under high temperatures;

we're gonna test that; enhance shear stability performance, proven aeration control to ensure optimal oil performance

It meets API classification CJ4 and SM

So Shell Rotella T6 is a synthetic that's designed for extreme temperature

It's SAE 5w-40, which is slightly lower viscosity than the conventional oil. We'll be testing.

So T6 claims to provide better fuel economy performance

excellent extreme high low temperature protection and engineered to control turbocharger deposits.

So the reason I'm comparing T4 against T6 is first off

a lot of people have asked me to compare the two I've been using

T4 instead of T6 in the wintertime and on those really cold days that oil light seems to stay on for about eight to ten

seconds, so I believe T6 is gonna float much better not just because of its viscosity rating but also because it's a synthetic motor oil.

I've already added four quarts of T6. I'm going to go ahead and add engine restore

I've used it in the last two oil changes and I want to continue using it just because it's really helped the compression on this

old tractor.

♫ Twangy Music with Electric Guitar♫

*Tractor Engine Noises*

Before putting the tractor to work

Let's do some testing on T4 and T6 to see how they compare. Before we do our testing

let's send the new oils to an oil testing lab and we'll take a look at the results near the end of this video to

assess anti-wear additives

detergents and dispersants and total base number. In the first test

we'll see which oil tolerates the heat the best both coils claim excellent protection against heat and that's exactly what we're going to test next.

We'll first measure out 200 grams of oil into each of the oil containers then expose them to 410 degrees

Fahrenheit of heat for 2 hours.

I'll rotate the oil containers every 10 minutes just in case one burner is hotter than the other.

I'll also monitor the temperatures of both oils throughout the tests to make sure that they're very close to the same

Both oils will experience an equal time on each burner

So why this test?

High quality oils resist evaporation and thermal breakdown. The Noack

volatility test exposes oil to even more heat than this test to simulate engine operating conditions

around the upper piston ring area of an engine.

At the end of this test we'll see exactly how much evaporation has occurred with each type of oil.

We'll also be using the cooked oil for two additional tests to see how they perform once they've been exposed to heat

It's been right at two hours

I'm gonna go ahead and take the oil off the burners and when we come back, we're gonna weigh this oil to

see how much evaporative loss occurred with each type of oil. Shell Totella T4 weighed 404.68 grams

before heating it; it now weighs 296.06

that's a loss of 8.62 grams. T6 weighed 430 grams before the test it now weighs 423.76

.That's a loss of 6.24 grams

Since the oil needs to be in the freezer for 24 hours for the cold oil flow tests, let's place both new and cooked oils

In a freezer that set to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit and we'll come back to this test later in the video.

In the next test, we'll be comparing the lubricity or 'film strength' of each product.

We'll begin by adding 40 milliliters of oil of each product into the test cups.

The test will last right at ten minutes after the test

we'll compare the size of the wear scars on each of the bearings to determine if T4 or T6

offers the best protection against engine wear while the lubricity tester doesn't simulate engine operating conditions perfectly. It'll provide us with some great information.

♫ Twangy Music Playing♫

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T4 on the left and T6 on the right: It's obvious that both oils have very good anti wear properties with that said T6

definitely won this showdown showing a little bit better film strength than T4.

The oil has been inside the freezer at -40 degrees Fahrenheit for nearly 24 hours.

New T4 is in lane one; cooked T4 lane two; cooked T6 lane three; and new T6 lane four and the race is underway with

T6 at the gate very quickly and cooked T6 in a close second. New T4 is in third and cooked T4 is in a distant

fourth. T4 has a lot of ground to make up and it's going to have to hurry up if it's gonna catch up with T6.

T6 is heading down the homestretch and a big hurry while T4 is still trying to get up to speed.

This race isn't even close!

It's new T6 for the wind with cooked T6 two inches behind and new T4 nine and a half inches behind.

T6 seems to have better anti wear properties; handles the heat and cold better but doesn't actually cause old seals to leak?

Let's go log some hours on this 45 year old tractor and see if it's gonna leak some oil.

*Tractor Noises*

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*Tractor Noises*

*More Tractor Noises*

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*Tractor Noises*

*Really it's just tractor noises.*

♫ - ♫ "Yellow Jello" - Audio Hertz ♫ - ♫

♫ - ♫ "Yellow Jello" - Audio Hertz ♫ - ♫

*Back to tractor noises*

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Okay, I'm not seeing any sort of leaks up front it looks like the front seal is doing just fine.

The back of the tractor is dry as well, so the rear seal is holding up.

Synthetic oil is not causing a leak on this 45 year old tractor. The oil analysis results are in and it's very interesting.

According to oil testing lab the Rotella T4 is in good condition

the T4 actually had a TBN of 11.4

which is rather impressive as far as anti-wear additives the T4 has a thousand and 30 parts per million of phosphorus and

1133 parts per million of zinc, which is a pretty robust anti-wear package. The primary detergent and dispersant is calcium at

2118 parts per million. The T6 additive package looks very close to T4

It has slightly less detergents and dispersants and just a little bit less as far as anti-wear additives

The TBN was only measured at 7.5.

I was really surprised if I'd be a little bit higher than that closer to 11 or 12. As far as the testing lab comments

nothing surprising the oil looks like it should work well So does synthetic motor oil cause motor oil leaks in older engines?

Well, not in a case of my 45 year old tractor, but that's a sample size of one.

I'd really like to know your opinion.

Have you had synthetic motor oil cause a leak or have you seen it happen in someone else's vehicle?

If so, what's your opinion on the cause? I really enjoy reading your comments on future video ideas.

Thanks again for watching it. Please take care and I look forward to next time