This is pretty neat - Oil analysis

**theveed** · July 21st, 2006 07:48 PM

http://www.e-monitor.com.au/

The use of lubricating oil analysis as an indicator of component wear is a technique that has been employed for many years, and has gained almost universal acceptance by heavy equipment manufacturers, oil companies, transport companies, and most mining and construction contractors.

Benefits of e-Monitor

• Stop costly abrasion and wear.
• Spot coolant leaks.
• Detect and measure fuel dilution.
• Verify warranty problems.
• Spot operator abuse.
• Spot oil degradation.
• Monitor air filtration systems.
• Determine your best oil change intervals.
• Extend equipment life.
• Increase equipment trade-in value.
• Stop progressive damage and breakdowns.
• Peace of mind when buying a used vehicle.

e-Monitor offers many advantages to all vehicle owners and operators whether they are off road, light truck, high performance or every day passenger vehicles.

What is e-Monitor?

e-Monitor is a low cost predictive maintenance service that detects problem causing contaminants and out-of-line wear rates in engines, transmissions, rear-ends, hydraulic systems, and other oil lubricated mechanisms.

The purpose of e-monitor is to provide a reliable method of monitoring the trend of wear on moving parts within vehicles. This allows you to spot small changes from the normal wear patterns enabling you to avoid progressive damage induced failures.

How can sampling the lubricating oil in my vehicle tell me what's wrong?

Most parts of a vehicle have surfaces that move and contact each other. Lubricant such as oil is used to minimise the wearing of these surfaces.

This lubricant is normally circulated around the components to ensure that all surfaces are well lubricated. As the oil passes through the lubrication system it picks up sub-microscopic particles of metal from wearing parts and holds them in suspension. The tests conducted by e-Monitor identify what these particles are made from and how much of them is present.

By comparing the results obtained from your vehicle with thousands of others just like it, it is possible to identify any abnormalities and to determine, in most cases, the actual cause of any abnormal wear.

What do you get when you purchase e-Monitor?

e-Monitor is only $24.95, this includes sampling kit, delivery to you, full analysis of sample, interpretation of results, and reporting to you by email or fax

The sampling kit contains:
Sample Bottle
Syringe
Tubing
Postage Pack (Postage not included)
Sample Information Form
Complete Instructions

e-Monitor will run two groups of tests on your oil sample.

One series of tests is referred to as "Physical and Chemical" where we look at the condition of the oil and the presence of contaminants such as water and fuel.

The other tests are performed on a highly specialised instrument called an "ICP Emission Spectrometer" that analyses 8 wear metals, oil additives and metallic contaminants such as Iron, Aluminium, Copper, Chromium, Lead, Silicon, Tin, and so on.

**greasey** · July 21st, 2006 08:48 PM

hmm, this can be done locally. the big 3 offers this type of service to their customers. for private motorists however, if you really like to have used oil analysis, you can course it thru their customer service and i'm sure they'll help you. extra revenue yun for their labs.

**saabulba** · July 23rd, 2006 10:41 AM

Originally Posted by greasey

hmm, this can be done locally. the big 3 offers this type of service to their customers. for private motorists however, if you really like to have used oil analysis, you can course it thru their customer service and i'm sure they'll help you. extra revenue yun for their labs.

Anyone tried this suggestion? What was the cost and how informative were the results/interpretation?

BTW, who are the Big 3 ... Toyota? Honda? Nissan?

In US, http://www.blackstone-labs.com/ does testing for $20.