Pennzoil Ultra Supplementary Data

This post is in reference to my original post comparing my personal experience with Mobil 1 Extended Performance against Pennzoil Ultra.  Due to my infrequency of oil changes, it has taken a few years to accumulate the data to further substantiate my hypothesis that Pennzoil Ultra outperforms Mobil 1 Extended Performance.  Unfortunately, in the meantime, Pennzoil has reformulated the Ultra brand that I was testing here and so the data has become quite a bit less relevant for new readers.  Nevertheless, science isn't science without supporting data and so I'm writing this as a conclusion to my current study on Mobil 1 Extended Performance vs. Pennzoil Ultra. 

The good news is that this study will in fact continue on as I have switched my oil choice to "Pennzoil Platinum with PurePlus Technology."  As I previously mentioned, Pennzoil did reformulate the Ultra brand which is now called "Ultra Platinum with PurePlus Technology."  I chose not to switch to this oil yet for two main reasons.  First, there is a lot of buzz over the value of the NOACK volatility of 11.5% which is considered by many to be very high.  This was concerning to me because I don't change my oil very often and its long-term stability is of extreme importance.  Second, just like when the original Pennzoil Ultra was released, I couldn't find the stuff anywhere.  After researching the new Pennzoil Platinum formulation and discovering that its base oil too is manufactured using the same gas-to-liquid process of creating synthetic oil from natural gas, I decided to give it a shot. 

Below is my last analysis concluding the current study of Mobil 1 Extended Performance vs. the original Pennzoil Ultra.  For people looking at oil reports for the first time, please read this description from Bob the Oil Guy. One thing to notice is that the analysis on 7/20/2013 doesn't differ appreciably from that of 7/14/2012.  I actually tried quite hard to make the conditions of these two analyses nearly identical except for one thing: I switched from the Mobil 1 M1-110 filter to the K&N HP-1010 filter.  Needless to say, the filter has no measurable affect on the results.  Finally, the last result (11/15/2014) is just more data that looks very similar to the previous analyses of Pennzoil Ultra, in which the K&N filter was again used.  However, one thing to note is that I actually drove a few hundred less miles but the interval actually included 4 more months than the previous analyses.  This shows that the oil is actually stable over time and puts my "how long is too long" worries to rest.