Oil analysis is forensic, like dusting your engine for prints. But instead of looking for clues on whodunnit, Blackstone monitors your engine’s health. Send off a quart or so of oil for analysis, and you’ll learn a ton.
Which is great, because an internal-combustion engine is something of a black box. It’s a precision-manufactured device with a ubiquity that hides its inherent complexity. With basic maintenance and frequent oil changing, an engine shouldn’t present any problems for tens of thousands of miles, but how do you know that’ll be the case? On-board vehicle diagnostics will alert you to bigger problems, but only when they’re really obvious, or after it’s too late. Looking at the microscopic particles in your oil will tell you more, and much sooner.
“The practice itself goes as far back as the 1940s, when oil analysis really came about to help the railroad industry,” says Joe Adams, an analyst and social-media manager with Blackstone Laboratories, the most prominent oil-analysis firm in the US. “But as time has gone on, it’s expanded to literally every application that relies on oil to do its job.”
Photo by: Blackstone Laboratories
If you work on cars, you might be familiar with Blackstone and its kits. The Indiana company sends out a little black plastic container with a prepaid shipping label taped to the front. Inside, there’s a bag with some insulation and a vial for the oil sample, plus paperwork for the customer to fill out. When you’re doing an oil change, collect a small sample while the pan drains, package it away, and send the whole kit to Blackstone. A few weeks and $40 later, you get a nice sheet detailing all the elements present (or not) in your oil and information on its properties. It also does analysis on more than engines—basically it’ll look at anything that uses oils.
A data sheet with just raw numbers probably doesn’t mean much to anyone outside of an oil analyst. So Blackstone includes data on how your oil sample compares with other engines of the same type, and a paragraph putting the report into context.
“When people think of Blackstone, I think their mind probably goes to the way in which we help the common man, the person who is wanting to understand this in layman’s terms,” Adams says. “Of course, the business goes to every angle, people who understand, who have a background in chemistry, that’s there too, but it’s the way in which we can communicate it no matter what your background sets Blackstone apart.”
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The standard analysis process is fairly involved. Adams explains that Blackstone technicians run a spectral analysis, which detects the presence of wear metals and elements that indicate unwanted coolant or dirt in the oil. They then check the viscosity at operating temperature to make sure that’s within spec, and they measure flashpoint—the lowest temperature at which the oil ignites—to determine if there’s unwanted fuel. You want as high a flashpoint as possible, because a lower flashpoint indicates a greater presence of fuel. Finally, they check for insolubles, “solids present in the oil,” which Adams says can indicate the health of an oil filter, or if the engine is running too hot.
“From there, an analyst like myself is going to pull up the data,” Adams says. “We’re going to look at where this data is coming from, as far as you know, the sample, who sent it, what are they looking to learn. Any context clue I can latch on to is important as an analyst. That could be helpful in just not only helping you get the answers you want. But so often we have to fill in the blanks by way of folks forgetting to fill out paperwork, or sometimes they’re intentionally coy.”
Over 40 years, Blackstone has collected a lot of data on engines of all sorts. If it’s an engine the company hasn’t seen much of, Adams says he’ll typically reference whatever similar is out there, whether it’s another variant or something that’s manufactured similarly. And there are also some things in oil you just don’t want to see, no matter what. So even if there aren’t many points of comparison, you can still learn a lot. Chromium, for example, is used in piston rings, and if you see an abnormal amount in a low-mile engine, you might be looking at premature ring wear.
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“I’ve learned that problems truly crop up before anything is evident on the owner’s end… like for example, often we’ll detect coolant contamination in a motor. Before I started at Blackstone, all I would’ve known to do was to see an obvious drop in the reservoir, or see an odd visual appearance that would suggest water.
“Well sure, those two will come to pass when a problem is really bad, but you can catch it way before it gets to that point by looking at the elements that are present.”
What’s also interesting is what your oil sample says about you. And not just your maintenance habits, but big shifts from one sample to another can indicate life events. Say you send in two oil 5,000-mile oil samples, but the second one has a lot more metal in the oil. Adams says that could be either an indication of a problem, or maybe a switch in how the driver is using their vehicle.
“If it’s a truck, maybe they did start towing or hauling during the run. Maybe if you’ll see when people move, maybe there’s a difference in the daily driving, a lot more stop and go,” Adams says. If the balance of metals in the oil shifts, that’s more likely a problem, but if it’s just more metal in the same proportions, that probably indicates a change in usage.
Blackstone has also learned about oil itself. One important takeaway for a consumer is that you might not need to buy the absolute top-shelf brand. Adams says he recently looked at a study on Walmart-brand Super Tech, Costco-brand Kirkland, and AMSOil and said they all looked identical in terms of additives. Each is certified by the American Petroleum Institute (API), and it shows that at least in terms of additives, you don’t need the expensive stuff.
What Blackstone does is really like forensics; Its process sheds light on the mysterious. For a lot of people, a Blackstone analysis is probably overkill, so long as you’re proactive with maintenance. But what if you buy a used car? How good was the previous owner? What if you do modifications, change your lifestyle?
Think of oil analysis like insurance, too. A $40 kit every 5,000 miles could prevent a big, expensive problem much further down the line.
