NOLN.net – National Oil & Lube News Online

Countdown to GF-5:
New Specification Promises Evolutionary,
Not Revoluationary Changes to Motor Oil

Remember riding roller-coasters when you were a kid? The twists, the turns, the stomach-churning loops? If you’re like most people — and if you answer honestly — the scariest part of any roller coaster isn’t the tall initial plunge, the hairpin turns or the loops. Nope, it’s that initial ride to the top of the first “hill.” Remember? The clickety-clack of the cars. That feeling of dread slowly building in your stomach as you ask yourself, “Was this really such a good idea?” It was so much worse than the ride that followed, in many ways.

The fast lube industry has been facing its own apprehensive moments, recently, namely the waiting game that is the next generation of motor oil. Recently approved by the International Lubricants Standardization and Approval Committee (ILSAC) — a group comprised of representatives from automakers, oil companies and additives formulators — GF-5 is set for first license on October 1 of this year. GF-5 is the fifth generation of motor oil, hence its moniker, developed by ILSAC since GF-1 debuted in 1992.

To hear industry insiders tell it, GF-5 — while a significant improvement in motor oil technology versus the GF-4 specification it will eventually replace — is more of an evolutionary step in motor oil development than a true revolution.

“There were three key needs the automakers brought to the table for GF-5,” said Clarence McCollum, director of Automotive Products with ConocoPhillips Lubricants and someone who has been involved in the category’s development from the beginning. “They wanted increased oil robustness, increased fuel economy performance and better catalyst protection.”

According to McCollum, the finalized GF-5 specification will see products that meet those goals. The most significant improvement that GF-5 represents versus GF-4 is in the area of fuel economy performance. Automakers are under extreme regulatory pressure to ramp up fuel economy throughout their lineups, and while motor oil technology can’t provide huge benefits, even incremental improvements can make a big difference when spread across millions of vehicles.

“The automakers wanted a 0.5 percent improvement over GF-4 in the area of fuel economy performance,” McCollum said. “And with the GF-5 specification, we were able to provide measurable performance improvements in the XW-20 and XW-30 grades.”

In other words, automakers wanted a motor oil that would provide initial fuel economy benefits, and retain those benefits throughout the oil change interval. One-half of one percent may not sound like a huge improvement, but even that small percentage can save millions of gallons of fuel each year.

This improvement was also perhaps the biggest headache for ILSAC, which had to oversee the development of a new fuel economy retention test (Sequence VID, pronounced “six-D”) to measure the fuel economy performance of a lubricant in a modern engine, which in the test’s case is a GM 3.6L V6.

The second challenge issued by automakers with the GF-5 specification was improved oil robustness. Specifically, automakers requested a significant increase in weighted piston deposits, which is a key indicator of oil robustness. According to McCollum, automakers wanted to increase the limits as measured by the Sequence IIIG (three-G) test from a 3.5 merit rating to a 5.0 merit rating, a substantial increase. (In the Sequence IIIG Weighted Piston Deposit test, test parts are rated for part cleanliness on a qualitative scale from zero to 10, with 10 being maximum cleanliness.) In the end, ILSAC settled on an increase to a merit rating of 4.0, which still represents a significant improvement.

“Oil robustness helps with extended drains, and that’s something all the OEMs want to do is extend drain intervals,” McCollum said.

In addition to overall robustness, the GF-5 specification features built-in standards of protection for a number of automotive systems like turbochargers and ethanol-fueled engines. Likewise, the GF-5 specification features test limits that measure the oil’s ability to work with new-generation seal materials.

Finally, automakers challenged motor oil formulators to create a product that can better protect automotive emissions systems. With automakers forced by government regulations to warranty vehicle emissions systems for 150,000 miles, catalyst poisoning is a serious issue. When the GF-4 specification was created, motor oil formulators agreed to limit the amount of phosphorus and sulfur — key lubricating additives, but also elements that are harmful to catalytic converters — in motor oil. With GF-5, the same limits were used, but the industry developed a test to determine a “phosphorus volatility” measurement, or the amount of phosphorus that is retained in the motor oil throughout its expected oil change interval.

With motor oil formulators set to meet these new specifications, what will the end product look like? For starters, motor oils meeting the GF-5 specification will use higher quality base oils. Several companies already use a blend of conventional Group II base oil and higher quality Group II+ and Group III base oils to meet the GF-4 specification (in many cases effectively making their products synthetic-blend motor oils). Expect that trend to broaden with GF-5. In fact, many 0W-20 products like those recommended by Toyota and Honda may even be formulated with enough high-quality base oil to characterize them as synthetic motor oils.

“You will see more blenders using higher quality base oils,” said Fran Sciacchitano, an account executive with Infineum, one of the largest manufacturers of motor oil additives. “You’ll see more blenders using Group III.”

McCollum concurred. “It’s not necessarily a requirement to use a synthetic-blend product to meet GF-5, but using a better quality base oil will make it easier to meet the specification,” he said.