Snap, Crackle, Pop: Why Hire Out Your Motor Oil Testing?
This is #2 from a series of six very useful, and no cost, oil tests that you can perform in your very own garage.
If you would consider yourself to be one of those people who owns a vehicle that is driven infrequently, is commonly driven on low mileage trips and/or is driven or stored in a humid place or one that often has wide temperature swings, then performing the crackle test would likely be a good idea. This is a simple test which will clearly indicate if condensation is causing water build-up in your oil.
Of course, you might wonder why you would need to check for water ingression, and the answer, to put it simply, is that, water build-up leads to acid build-up. Acid build-up leads to corrosion, and pitting is caused by corrosion. Pitting is BAD, and, even a premium, extended drain synthetic oil like AMSOIL can eventually be overcome with water/acid build-up. So, you should perform a crackle test to find out if water is building up in your oil BEFORE acid build-up depletes the acid fighting additives in your oil and corrosion begins.
It is worth noting that fuel in your oil can cause some confusion in the results of this test. Performing the blotter spot test (business card test) beforehand will indicate whether you have fuel dilution. If you do, then you probably don't need to worry about water ingression and the crackle test is likely unnecessary. You already have a problem that likely will have you wanting to change your oil.
To use the crackle test, you place a very small quantity of oil onto a hotplate of some sort which is set to a temperature high enough to boil off any water in the oil. Since most engine oils are not volatile until they gets up over 350 degrees or more (synthetics much higher than that), you could set the plate to a temp anywhere between 250 and 300 degrees F.
At that temp, when you place the engine oil on the plate, you'll hear a crackle as the water boils off. The crackling should occur very quickly as long as you don't use much oil. Of course, if there is no water in your motor oil, you will hear no crackle.
Of course, this is not a very precise test, and it will not provide any detail as to the AMOUNT of water in your oil, as a professionally performed oil analysis will, but, it can provide you with some useful, free info. - 21396
If you would consider yourself to be one of those people who owns a vehicle that is driven infrequently, is commonly driven on low mileage trips and/or is driven or stored in a humid place or one that often has wide temperature swings, then performing the crackle test would likely be a good idea. This is a simple test which will clearly indicate if condensation is causing water build-up in your oil.
Of course, you might wonder why you would need to check for water ingression, and the answer, to put it simply, is that, water build-up leads to acid build-up. Acid build-up leads to corrosion, and pitting is caused by corrosion. Pitting is BAD, and, even a premium, extended drain synthetic oil like AMSOIL can eventually be overcome with water/acid build-up. So, you should perform a crackle test to find out if water is building up in your oil BEFORE acid build-up depletes the acid fighting additives in your oil and corrosion begins.
It is worth noting that fuel in your oil can cause some confusion in the results of this test. Performing the blotter spot test (business card test) beforehand will indicate whether you have fuel dilution. If you do, then you probably don't need to worry about water ingression and the crackle test is likely unnecessary. You already have a problem that likely will have you wanting to change your oil.
To use the crackle test, you place a very small quantity of oil onto a hotplate of some sort which is set to a temperature high enough to boil off any water in the oil. Since most engine oils are not volatile until they gets up over 350 degrees or more (synthetics much higher than that), you could set the plate to a temp anywhere between 250 and 300 degrees F.
At that temp, when you place the engine oil on the plate, you'll hear a crackle as the water boils off. The crackling should occur very quickly as long as you don't use much oil. Of course, if there is no water in your motor oil, you will hear no crackle.
Of course, this is not a very precise test, and it will not provide any detail as to the AMOUNT of water in your oil, as a professionally performed oil analysis will, but, it can provide you with some useful, free info. - 21396
About the Author:
Interested in knowing what the other 5 DIY oil analysis tests are and how to perform them? Take a hop over to my BestSyntheticOil.com website and finish my "Poor Man's Oil Analysis" article to determine your proper oil change intervals............
posted by X - Men @ 4:40 AM
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