Challenge

“I became familiar with LE products for a special equipment design that posed an unusually severe lubrication challenge, and after contacting numerous potential lubricant suppliers, only LE would provide any assurance that their products would perform satisfactorily in this duty,” Charles said. “The selected LE lubricants did perform superbly in this very demanding application. Most of the other potential lubricant suppliers recommended against using their products in this application.”

This positive experience led him to use LE engine oils for his personal vehicles.

LE Solution

In 2005, Charles started using LE’s Monolec® SPB™ Engine Oil (8530) – a blend of high-quality synthetic and paraffinic base oils – when the Ion had 12,490 miles and the Vue had 81,554 miles. In 2012, LE replaced Monolec 8530 with Monolec Syn Engine Oil (8531). Charles made the switch to Monolec 8531 when his Ion had 215,510 miles and his Vue had 202,914 miles.

Monolec Tetra-Syn Engine Oil is a 100 percent synthetic gasoline engine oil that outperforms many commercially available passenger car engine oils and exceeds the minimum standards set by American Petroleum Institute (API) and most OEMs. LE incorporated a premium additive package in 8531, including its proprietary Monolec wear-reducing additive, to deliver fuel economy, protect emission systems, keep engines clean and keep deposits to a minimum.

Results

“I was pleasantly surprised by the reduced engine mechanical noise levels in each vehicle when I first used 8530,” Charles said. “I was further surprised by even lower engine mechanical noise levels in each vehicle immediately after changing to 8531. No such reduction in engine mechanical noise levels have ever been noticed (by me) following other oil changes.”

As of December 2012, the current mileage is more than 227,000 miles on the Ion and 210,500 miles on the Vue. Neither vehicle has ever had any indication of measurable oil consumption based on the quantity of oil drained at each change.

“I always change my own oil and pay attention to the volume of oil drained,” Charles said. “It has always been a matter of recovering slightly less than 5 quarts, with the deficiency being consistent with oil retained by the filter elements. Each engine requires 5 quarts of oil at a change, and I always change the filter element along with the oil.”

Charles continued: “I maintain detailed logs of fuel consumption and maintenance on all of my vehicles. This, combined with my familiarity with the actual vehicle operating experiences, permitted me to draw an inference of fuel savings on the order of 2% – apparently due to the change to 8530. The experience with 8531 is not yet sufficient to infer whether any additional fuel savings may result from this change.”

“Having considerable confidence in the protection provided by the LE oils, I changed from oil change intervals of nominally 3,000 to 5,000 miles with the Valvoline oils to intervals of 8,000 to 12,000 miles with the LE oils,” Charles said.