[00:04] oil has changed and in this video sponsored by Mobil 1, I'm here to explain what you need to know. You see, on the back of a quality bottle of oil, you're going to see a bunch of industry certifications. And one of the most
[00:16] certifications. And one of the most critical ones to look for is ILSAC GF-6. But, we're done with GF-6 as the industry has moved on to GF-7. No more industry has moved on to GF-7. No more six, now seven.
[00:29] >> So, GF-7 is the new standard with more before it. And there are four major revisions when it comes to testing. Those four test revisions involve low-speed pre-ignition, piston deposits,
[00:45] chain wear, and fuel economy. So, these newly rated oils need to be able to better protect your engine, keep it cleaner, prevent more wear, and improve efficiency. So, for each of these four categories, we're going to discuss
[00:59] what's the problem, what's the test, and then how have the requirements changed from GF-6 to GF-7? Let's start with LSPI, where certain engine oil additives have been shown to promote this problem in engines. All right, so what is
[01:14] low-speed pre-ignition or LSPI? Well, as the name somewhat suggests, it's when you have pre-ignition occur, typically when the engine is at a low rpm and at a high load. And so, what's happening is your piston is moving up during the
[01:27] compression stroke and you have a hot spot that ignites the air-fuel mixture before your spark has fired. And so, as that hot spot ignites, you start to have that flame propagation, the pressure within the cylinder rises, and then you
[01:39] can have other pockets that auto ignite as well. And so, this can cause a really high pressure spike and it can cause destructive engine damage. So, you don't want it to happen. Now, to characterize this, if you look at a graph of the
[01:52] cylinder pressure versus the crank angle, you can see how LSPI differs from normal combustion. So, normal combustion, you'll have your spark top dead center. Then, as that piston's moving down, your flame starts to
[02:05] increase, burn up that air-fuel mixture, and you have a pressure spike within your cylinder. But with LSPI, you can see your pressure starts to rise before your spark has fired. And so, in that scenario, you have this chaotic, really
[02:18] high pressure spike and it isn't controlled and so, it can cause damage with your engine. So, how do you test for this with motor oil? Well, they have something called the sequence nine test. And in this test, they use a 2-liter
[02:31] turbocharged gasoline direct injection engine and they run it over four iterations, measuring 170,000 valid ignition cycles for each cylinder. And so, in each cylinder, they are measuring the pressure and they're
[02:44] seeing, "Hey, does that pressure spike early and is that pressure spike really high?" And if so, if it's both of those happening, then they know it's LSPI and they can have a maximum of eight LSPI events per iteration of these four
[02:57] iterations and on average, they cannot exceed five LSPI events. So, what has changed in testing? Well, previously, only new oil was tested, but now used oil has to pass the same test. Now, this
[03:12] brings up an interesting question. Why test used oil? Well, I found a fascinating study published in SAE where they looked at a GF-5 oil as a baseline, which never had to meet these LSPI standards, which is for GF-6, and they
[03:28] measured this baseline oil against three different additive packages. And what's so fascinating is that all three additive packages were able to beat the GF-5 oil when new in terms of LSPI performance. However, once used, only
[03:44] one of the three additive packages performed better than the new GF-5 baseline oil. So, the study shows that oil additive packages can degrade as they're used by the engine. And so, it's critical in terms of LSPI performance to
[03:59] not only test the oil when new, but also when it is used as well. So, the new test requires the same oil to undergo an aging process and then it is tested again in this sequence nine test. All right, let's move on to piston deposits.
[04:13] So, what's the problem? Well, in an engine, of course, as it ages, you can start to have deposits form on the piston. And the problem with this is that those deposits can eventually cause your piston rings to stick. And so, if
[04:26] you can have excessive blow-by. So, you've got air from the combustion chamber that's passing by the pistons and contaminating your oil. So, not only your oil, but it also means you're losing power. You don't want this to
[04:41] happen. So, how do you test for this? Well, there's the sequence three H test. This is done on a 3.6-liter port injected V6 gasoline engine and it is run under really harsh conditions. So, it is generating 137 horsepower, it's
[04:57] it is generating 137 horsepower, it's revving constantly at 3900 rpm, the oil temperature is held at 151°C. This is super hot. For reference, in your day-to-day driving, your engine's oil temperature probably doesn't go much
[05:10] above about 100°C. So, this is very hot and then it is run at this condition for 90 hours. And then after this, you look at the deposits on the piston and they are rated on a scale out of 10, 10 being
[05:23] the best. Now, the requirements for this test have changed over time. So, for GF-5 oils, which were from about 2011 to 2020, the requirement was a minimum rating of 3.7 for the piston deposits. For GF-6 from 2020 to about 2025, that
[05:39] For GF-6 from 2020 to about 2025, that was 4.2. And now for GF-7, the rating minimum is 4.6. You also cannot have any hot stuck rings while the engine is operating, and you cannot have a viscosity increase in the
[05:55] oil of over 100%. Okay, let's move on to chain wear. All right, so what's the problem? Well, anytime you have incomplete combustion of fuel droplets, you can have soot formation. So, whether that means, you know, your engine was
[06:08] running rich because you're running at high boost, whether that's just rich chamber, or if you have fuel, for example, hitting the cylinder walls and cooling and not completely combusting. So, in these scenarios, you create this
[06:21] soot and this soot can then get into the engine oil through blow-by. So, then you have these hard particles within your engine oil that are circulating within your engine. And if those little soot particles get in the pins of a timing
[06:35] chain, they can cause wear within those pins. And as they start to wear within these pins, you start to have chain elongation. And of course, this timing camshafts. So, if you have any chain elongation, it changes your cam timing.
[06:49] Not good. So, how do you test for this? Well, you have the sequence 10 test. We're using that same 2-liter turbocharged gasoline direct injection engine that we used with our LSPI testing. And we've increased the piston
[07:01] ring gaps so that we now have excessive blow-by. So, we're introducing lots of soot into that engine oil. And we're doing this through alternating between two different phases. One of those phases, this engine is running rich and
[07:13] it is running at low coolant temperature. So, a lot of opportunity for soot formation. It's a 216-hour test where you alternate between phases of then running standard with modern coolant temps. Then at the end, you
[07:27] measure the difference in the length of that timing chain. So, previously with GF-6 oils, you could not have a length increase of that timing chain more than 0.085%. So, very tiny percentage change. And now
[07:42] So, very tiny percentage change. And now for GF-7, that cannot exceed 0.080%. economy. So, the purpose of the sequence six E engine testing is to understand the fuel saving capability of engine oils. So, this is using a 3.6-liter V6
[08:00] gas engine. It is different from the V6 used in the sequence three H testing. It is using six varying engine conditions. So, we're varying our engine rpm from So, we're varying our engine rpm from 695 to 2000, our engine torque from 20
[08:13] to 105 Newton meters, our engine oil temperature from 35 to 115°C, and our coolant inlet temperature between 35 and 109°C. So, with these six different conditions that are testing, we are comparing the
[08:26] fuel consumption versus a 20W-30 baseline oil. And so, for example, with baseline oil. And so, for example, with a GF-6 0W-20, you would need a 3.8% improvement versus that 20W-30 baseline oil. Now, with GF-7, you would need a
[08:42] 4.3% improvement versus that baseline oil and you can see the improvements required across the board. Now, it is worth mentioning that just because the test requirements have changed, doesn't
[08:54] necessarily mean all of the oil formulations have changed for products with the GF-7 label. Right? Because brands like Mobil 1, for example, are trying to create a product that exceeds the industry requirements. So, the GF-7
[09:09] label doesn't necessarily mean it's a new formulation, but it does mean that you can trust it meets these new test requirements. So, you can be confident it can help protect your engine from LSPI, piston deposits, chain wear, and
[09:23] improve fuel economy. And there are a few other small changes with GF-7, but this is really the bulk of the testing differences. A huge thank you to Mobil 1 for giving me time with their experts and thank you all so much for watching.
[09:35] If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below.