Interpreting Oil Analysis Results

[clansing1]

I was looking at purchasing a John Deere excavator on Iron Planet and saw that it had the following results. The motor is a factory reman with about 7000 hours on it. I was wondering if these are normal results.

Thanks in advance.

Oil Sample Analysis (Engine)
Item Assessment
date of analysis Jul 02, 2010
Silicon 0 PPM
Lead 0 PPM
Tin 0 PPM
Copper 1 PPM
Aluminum 1 PPM
Silver 0 PPM
Nickel 0.6 PPM
Chromium 0.2 PPM
Iron 12 PPM
Glycol NEG
Water NEG
Fuel <5%

Oil Sample Analysis (Hydraulic)
Item Assessment
date of analysis Jul 02, 2010
Silicon 0 PPM
Lead 2 PPM
Tin 0 PPM
Copper 26 PPM
Aluminum 1 PPM
Silver 0.1 PPM
Nickel 0.3 PPM
Chromium 0.9 PPM
Iron 10 PPM
Glycol NEG
Water NEG
Fuel <5%

 

[CAT793]

I would question the accuracy of the LAB that tests this Oil........
0 ppm of Silicon.............Almost all Engine oil use silicon as a Additive (part of the Add Pack) READ Silicon NOT Silica! Cat DEO is 3-4 ppm BRAND NEW and BP Oils are 12-14 ppm of Silicon. Makes Dusting challenging to pick unleass looking at combination of Wear Metals.
Very unusual to get 0 ppm of lead and Tin as well. Big End and Main Bearings are mostly "Tri Metalic" READ Lead/Tin Overlay with Steel Backing. Engine under Load for 250?? Hours doing 2000??rpm and NOT 1 ppm of wear??? Very Unlikely.

And on the Other extreme I would consider IRON at 12 ppm HIGH.

No Test Result on Soot (Carbon ?)is ODD. Usually a good indicator to Engine Load, Condition and Quality of the Oil used to suspend it back to the Filters.

And a TIP:- Cut a Filter.........It will also tell you things that Oil Commander never will!

Just my 2 Cents!

 

[daman]

I would question the accuracy of the LAB that tests this Oil........

as do i....


12 PPM of FE isn't bad but a few things are not right,too many 0's in the engine report your going to have some wear always.

how many running hours on this report? and Silicon will NEVER be 0 that's dirt getting by your air filter,you'll always some of that.

and why on earth was the hydraulics checked for fuel and Silicon?? something is wrong here,scam?? wrong report!!

i think somebody just threw that in there to make it look good thats not a true report from that unit.

 

[John C.]

If I were to guess, the owner of the machine knew the inspector from Iron Planet was coming over. The owner then changed the oils before the inspector got there and didn't operate the machine for more than a couple of minutes. When the inspector got there he only ran the machine to pick up a little warmth so the oil would flow better and then took the samples.

I know the procedure the Iron Planet people used to go through and it didn't usually produce a lot of results like this. I would consider the source of this a little suspect. Did you get this of the Iron Planet web site?

At any rate I agree with the posts. Those sample results don't look right.

 

[Squizzy246B]

One important thing, there is no total Carbonaceous Content reading.

Also, Fuel Dilution at <5% tells you nothing. You can get a crankcase explosion at 5% fuel dilution.

Its very difficult to get anything definitive from a one off test. Engines have some characteristics and you need a history to see what the trends are.

 

[clansing1]

Oil Analysis

Thanks for the replys and info.

The machine was at a dealer and I would agree that the oil had been recently changed. The oil analysis data was taken off of their website.

We ended up purchasing the machine for $40K. It was only 30 miles away from us so the transport was less than $500.

It is a JD450LC with 13,000 hours. It has reman hyd. pumps with less than 1,000 hours and a factory reman engine with 7,200 hours on it. It has a good CF 72" bucket with CF quick coupler. Counter weight removal system.

There had been 2 previous owners and the machine was well maintained.

Needs new sprockets, and a couple of bottom rollers and one cylinder packed.

We need it for a couple of demo jobs and the price was right.