Long Term Oil Consumption Experiment

[old guy]

When I purchased my A5 I only considered the B8.5 because at the time the assumption was that the oil consumption issue had been corrected. As we now know this is not true.

Changes were made to improve the situation such as a PCV system that creates higher block vacuum and a small change in the oil wiper rings. The oil return slots were made slightly larger in an attempt to reduce clogging.

At some point the oil wiper rings were replaced with the new waffle design but I am not exactly sure when that happened. Maybe not until the Gen 3 engine?

Once I learned that the B8.5 rings were still susceptible to clogging I decided to see if I could do anything to help keep the oil wipers open. I have a thick hide so feel free to fully express your opinions.

For the past 20k miles I have been adding a 5oz bottle of Lucas Upper Cylinder Lubricant to every tank of gas. I purchase it by the gallon and refill the 5 oz bottle, so the cost is $1.25 per tank. I can envision three different outcomes.

1) The stuff is Snake Oil and I am just wasting an extra $1.25 with every tank of gas.

2) This stuff is burning in the combustion chamber, fouling my plugs and adding to the oil wiper clogging issue.

3) The Upper Cylinder Lubricant helps to reduce the carbon build up on the oil wiper rings thus reducing (or eliminating) the onset of oil consumption.

I have been closely monitoring my oil consumption by measuring what I drain out at every oil change. I am maintaining a 5k OCI. For the past four oil changes the most I have consumed has been .3 Liters (10 oz). I am approaching 70k miles which seems to be the onset of where owners begin to report oil consumption issues.

At some point in the future, I will update this thread, good or bad, as to the results of my experimentation.

Thoughts? Comments?

[bb-tt]

When I purchased my A5 I only considered the B8.5 because at the time the assumption was that the oil consumption issue had been corrected. As we now know this is not true.

Changes were made to improve the situation such as a PCV system that creates higher block vacuum and a small change in the oil wiper rings. The oil return slots were made slightly larger in an attempt to reduce clogging.

At some point the oil wiper rings were replaced with the new waffle design but I am not exactly sure when that happened. Maybe not until the Gen 3 engine?

Once I learned that the B8.5 rings were still susceptible to clogging I decided to see if I could do anything to help keep the oil wipers open. I have a thick hide so feel free to fully express your opinions.

For the past 20k miles I have been adding a 5oz bottle of Lucas Upper Cylinder Lubricant to every tank of gas. I purchase it by the gallon and refill the 5 oz bottle, so the cost is $1.25 per tank. I can envision three different outcomes.

1) The stuff is Snake Oil and I am just wasting an extra $1.25 with every tank of gas.

2) This stuff is burning in the combustion chamber, fouling my plugs and adding to the oil wiper clogging issue.

3) The Upper Cylinder Lubricant helps to reduce the carbon build up on the oil wiper rings thus reducing (or eliminating) the onset of oil consumption.

I have been closely monitoring my oil consumption by measuring what I drain out at every oil change. I am maintaining a 5k OCI. For the past four oil changes the most I have consumed has been .3 Liters (10 oz). I am approaching 70k miles which seems to be the onset of where owners begin to report oil consumption issues.

At some point in the future, I will update this thread, good or bad, as to the results of my experimentation.

Thoughts? Comments?

So mine had oil consumption when i bought it at 61k miles, it was so bad it failed on 3rd day of test. So i would say the 70k is a misnomer, as far as the lucas stuff my brother who worked as first a tractor trailer , then auto, then motorcycle mechanic swore by it. said it increased fuel mileage in every vehicle he tried it in he put it in my dads car and my dad said fuel mileage increased also. So while it may be snake oil it may also have some benefit. For the record i am at 88k now and until my oil leak developed appeared to have no oil consumption since the rebuild. I dont think it will harm anything not sure if it will help.

Has carbon cleaning done at 61k mile also. Going to do a bunch of maintenance hopefully this week, will also do carbon cleaning if needed will take pics when i get the intake off.

[Theiceman]

i think your summation is pretty accurate Old Guy. I have even been hearing rumblings of Gen 3 engines having high oil consumption so............

[cuda2000]

I saw a comment on a youtube video for A4 oil consumption that Anti-Carbon XADO treatment when used by the directions effectively removed the carbon deposits on the piston rings. The person said oil consumption went from one quart every tank of gas to no burning in a tank. Someone please give it a try and report back!
It comes in a spray can or a tube. The tube you need one tube per cylinder, the can treats up to 20 cylinders.
https://xado.us/chemicals-and-fluids...ent/anticarbon

2010 Audi A4 Quattro, Check out my upgrade and maintenance videos Cars and Coding here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...4DHrYwEPid0aZb

[silver_tt]

I am also closely monitoring my consumption and doing something similar. I have a 2014 CPMB with 87K miles on it. I bought it CPO from Audi at 45K miles and used the dealer for oil and changes to not void the warranty. As soon as the CPO expired I switched to Driven DI40 (an oil born from Joe Gibbs racing) 5K OCIs. I run a bottle of Techron before my oil change. Just curious, why did you choose the Lucas product?

My car burned no oil up until around 80K miles. On the most recent oil change it used about 1/4 quart in the 5K miles. I'm currently 2K miles into my current oil and have only added about 250ml to keep the oil level on max (since this engine's oil capacity is so low at about 4 and a half quarts, I like to keep it closer to max than min for heat transfer). The MMI can play head games with me at times. Sometimes it looks like I'm down a bar or two but then while driving it goes back up to max. I believe the oil sensor is a thermal acoustic device so it is pretty accurate but probably has a reasonable margin of error. I also notice that when you check the oil level in the MMI it's not actually checking it -- rather it appears to poll the measurement periodically. So for example if the computer took the measurement after you had been driving the car under load, you could have more oil up in the head or elsewhere in the engine rather than sitting in the sump. So I have learned to ignore short term noise and only focus on it longer term which really means over the course of a 5K OCI.

[beatsageo]

I like the experiment, but I think you are funding making the problem worse. Adding a lubricant (oil based) to the fuel is adding an additional carbon source to the fuel and excess oil already present in the combustion chamber. While this is necessary for a 2 stroke, your 4 stroker may start to foul plugs sooner. Luckily your dilution ratio of 2000(oz)(15gal) / 5(oz) is 400/1 is really low and you wont notice the additional build up. I would suggest increasing the ratio, a lot , at 50/1 you are in 2 stroke premix territory.

To get rid if the carbon, an oxygen source is really effective. This could come from alcohol fuels like methanol and ethanol or from nitrous oxide. Hydrogen also works really well but is hard to get a cheap and safe source (H2So4) (HF) that wont also corrode the engine and kill the catalytic converter.

As you know excess oil film is getting left on the walls of the cylinder and getting burned. Could be the oil weep hole is clogged, or excess clearance between cylinder and oil rings. Not a lot of non invasive options to remedy that. Can try running a lower viscosity oil to let it flow through the weep hole easier. Keep oil fresh and new no matter what.

[old guy]

I am also closely monitoring my consumption and doing something similar. I run a bottle of Techron before my oil change. Just curious, why did you choose the Lucas product?

Techron is a great product but Techron recommends using it no more than twice between oil changes. It is primarily a fuel injector cleaner.

I went with Lucas because it doesn't contains any solvents and can be used with every tank of gas. I use it more for the (supposedly) upper cylinder lubricant properties than as an injector cleaner. My logic is trying to prevent the carbon from building up on the rings in the first place rather than cleaning it off every 3k miles.

But as beatsageo pointed out it is possible that I am simply accelerating the ring clogging by adding an additional carbon source to the combustion chamber.

From Lucas:
"The Lucas " Upper Cylinder Lube/Fuel Treatment " is a powerful blend of oils and additives that is designed to increase power and fuel mileage and also lower exhaust emissions. This is a blend of super slick oils and additives with a high detergent action that allows the engine to operate at maximum efficiency."

It could just be Hype and Snake Oil. Who knows for sure? I guess I'm hoping that the "high detergent action" actually works to help keep the oil wiper rings clean and open.

Time Will Tell....

[silver_tt]

Yes, I run it only once an oil change and I do it just before the change oil to minimize adverse effects. I use high quality name-brand gas with a good detergent package. In this sense, yes, it is different than your experiment.

Probably goes without saying but for outcome #2 recon why don't you just pull the plugs? You're 20K in and it takes 20 mins to pull all the plugs. Then you can see how fouled they are.

It is just my opinion but using high quality gas with a very high quality oil and short OCIs can take you a long way. The DI40 I run is a low calcium, high ZDDP and Moly oil in a 0W-40 for turbo-charged direct injection. It's formulated to prevent LSPI and prevent soot formation. Again, just my opinion and I'm also very thick skinned but I believe soot formation is the root cause of all of this. When I dump my DI40 in it looks clear like water......... when it comes out it looks like india ink.

Does Lucas offer any more information on the active ingredients or what exactly is doing the "upper cylinder lubrication"?

[silver_tt]

Watch this if you have 3 minutes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdR_Whn3IpA&t=2s

[old guy]

Interesting video. I have been using Motul Specific with a 5k OCI and I only use Top Tier gas. I plan on replacing the plugs during my next oil service so I will get a good look at any build-up over the past 20K miles. I'll add a pic to this thread when I pull them out.

Amsoil also makes an upper cylinder lubricant. Clicky click® that claims to be better than Lucas but it is only available at $5 for a six ounce bottle. As I mentioned the Lucas works out to be $1.25 per tank. The Amsoil link discusses what an "Upper Cylinder Lubricant" is supposed to do.

Does it really work? I dunno, but I will continue using it for now.

[silver_tt]

Yes please add a pic of the plugs. I would add the pic of my plugs 10K miles ago at 75K (I follow the service schedule but do it myself) but I didn't take a picture because they looked great and there was nothing to see really.

I have read several of your other posts and I am on the same page as you on just about everything I have read. I like the fact that you are willing to experiment but aren't married to the idea that you've found Jesus and the holy grail. So many people take one or two data points and extrapolate it to the entire universe.

FWIW, I think running a "good" oil is probably the single most important thing you can do. If you get an oil with low volatilization tendency and low levels of sodium and calcium it's going to keep your fuel diluations down and minimize the amount of soot and carbon build up. Like I said soot and carbon build up are, in my opinion, at the crux of the oil consumption issues on this engine. I was buying DI40 by the case on Advanced Auto Parts using a 30 or 40% off coupon and getting it for about $9/quart all-in. Not bad considering the engine only takes about 4.5 quarts. I see people on other forums bragging they are running an oil for only $2/quart. Good luck with that. If there's one thing I wouldn't want to be cheap about it's oil. That being said the Motul oil analysis I have seen have been better than others like Mobile1 0W-40.

[morris39]

When I purchased my A5 I only considered the B8.5 because at the time the assumption was that the oil consumption issue had been corrected. As we now know this is not true.

Changes were made to improve the situation such as a PCV system that creates higher block vacuum and a small change in the oil wiper rings. The oil return slots were made slightly larger in an attempt to reduce clogging.

At some point the oil wiper rings were replaced with the new waffle design but I am not exactly sure when that happened. Maybe not until the Gen 3 engine?

Once I learned that the B8.5 rings were still susceptible to clogging I decided to see if I could do anything to help keep the oil wipers open. I have a thick hide so feel free to fully express your opinions.

For the past 20k miles I have been adding a 5oz bottle of Lucas Upper Cylinder Lubricant to every tank of gas. I purchase it by the gallon and refill the 5 oz bottle, so the cost is $1.25 per tank. I can envision three different outcomes.

1) The stuff is Snake Oil and I am just wasting an extra $1.25 with every tank of gas.

2) This stuff is burning in the combustion chamber, fouling my plugs and adding to the oil wiper clogging issue.

3) The Upper Cylinder Lubricant helps to reduce the carbon build up on the oil wiper rings thus reducing (or eliminating) the onset of oil consumption.

I have been closely monitoring my oil consumption by measuring what I drain out at every oil change. I am maintaining a 5k OCI. For the past four oil changes the most I have consumed has been .3 Liters (10 oz). I am approaching 70k miles which seems to be the onset of where owners begin to report oil consumption issues.

At some point in the future, I will update this thread, good or bad, as to the results of my experimentation.

Thoughts? Comments?

Good luck with your experiment, it's an interesting idea. I like it and I like your skepticism. With only one sample it will be hard to conclude additive effectiveness whether consumption rises or not. But it is a good topic for the forum and should the bring out both the thoughtful and the yahoos.
Understood that an inclination to the additive can be justified just as why not try it and is something for old guys (like me) to do.

[Depthcharge]

Old Guy, when you posted this a few years ago I decided to follow your regimen as well. I fill up with lucas oil hoping for less carbon build up. It hasn't seem to help my oil consumption issues but every once in awhile I do kick out some extra black smoke out of the exhaust. I'm not quite ready to do the pistons and rings but I'm tempted to see if the additive has done anything for carbon build up. Will let you know when I finally get to that stage.

[old guy]

Updates as promised. Just hit 70k miles. I changed the oil and filter (5k interval). I also replaced the spark plugs.

Oil consumption was .1L (3.4 oz). This is slightly less than my past few 5k intervals at .3L (10 oz).

The plugs have been in for 30k miles. Gaps were between .029 →030. They look great and could have easily gone another 10k. Absolutely no sign of fouling or build up.



The CCT is still in the 7th notch and the cam phase adjustment at -2.66°. This has increased slightly from the 65k cam phase adjustment of -2.63°





Measured the block vacuum at -2.8 inHg and the intake manifold at -21 inHg.

Everything appears healthy with minimal oil consumption.
I’m happy 😁

[Theiceman]

All looks great ...

Sent from my SM-G973W using Audizine Forum mobile app

[silver_tt]

Plugs look like new! Great update, thanks for posting it

[old guy]

Time for another update:

Oil and filter changed every 5k miles, so there have been 5 oil changes since the last update. Current mileage 95k.

Oil consumption for the past 5k miles was 2oz.

Cam chain phase adjustment: -2.86°. Up slightly from -2.66° @ 70k miles. Still very reasonable.

So far I am happy with the outcome. I guess I will continue adding the Lucas until I see a reason to do otherwise. I started adding a bottle to every tank of our 2024 Tiguan since new. Currently has 35k miles with no issues.

More info:

Amt Drained
OCI 60k 4.5 liters Motul Specific
OCI 65K 4.3 liters Motul Specific
OCI 70k 4.5 liters Mobil 0w-40 fs
OCI 75k 4.5 liters Mobil 0w-40 fs
OCI 80k 4.45 liters Mobil 0w-40 fs
OCI 85k 4.46 liters Mobil 0w-40 fs
OCI 90k 4.48 liters Mobil 0w-40 fs
OCI 95k 4.54 liters Mobil 0w-40 fs

[lhlan]

Great to hear it works.

How much is the cost for your treatment per tank or per mile now?

[old guy]

Great to hear it works.

How much is the cost for your treatment per tank or per mile now?

I purchase it by the gallon for $32 and refill the 5 oz bottles. So it works out to be $1.25 per tank.

Does it really work or am I just lucky? Don't know. But currently, at 95k miles, I'm only burning a few ounces of oil between changes, so I will continue adding this stuff and monitoring my oil consumption between changes.

[JLAllroad]

I purchase it by the gallon for $32 and refill the 5 oz bottles. So it works out to be $1.25 per tank.

Does it really work or am I just lucky? Don't know. But currently, at 95k miles, I'm only burning a few ounces of oil between changes, so I will continue adding this stuff and monitoring my oil consumption between changes.

Have you ever borescoped your pistons/cylinders? Would be interesting to see what kind of carbon buildup you have, if any.

[old guy]

Great idea! I do have a borescope. I will take a look first chance I get and see how the pistons check out.

Pulled the plug on #1 cylinder. Looks pretty good for 55k miles.



Cylinder #1 piston at BDC. I think it looks pretty clean for 95k miles.



I was able to pull back on the scope enough to see part of one of the valve faces. Looks OK.



All in all, I think I will continue to spend an extra $1.25 per tank and continuing monitoring my oil usage at every oil change.

[JLAllroad]

At 30k cylinders 1&4 were spotless, this looks a bit better than my 2&3, they seem to get the brunt of the PCV residual, I plan to update the PCV and B12 soak them all to get a new baseline.

[Chillaxin]

FYI the mobil 1 5w-40 euro has lower viscosity at 100C than the 0W40. Patiently waiting for 0w40 Valvoline Restore & Protect.