STOP! Cease work and turn off the engine when you see these red flags on an oil analysis report

摘要

Oil analysis can show you trends in the health of your engines and oil. It can also tip you off to eminent catastrophic failure. If you catch these problems early enough, you can fix the underlying problem, drain and refill the crankcase with new oil, and monitor the results with further oil analysis, saving thousands of dollars in emergency repairs and possibly prevent a ruined engine. Severe contamination. "A large amount of coolant - ethylene glycol - in the engine oil would be pretty high on my list," says Stede Granger, OEM technical service manager for Shell Lubricants. That means a leak somewhere between the parts of the engine containing lube oil and the parts of the engine carrying coolant. Today's engines have multiple cooling systems - the main radiator for engine cooling, but also oil coolers and EGR coolers as well. A leak in one of these from a gasketor fitting requires an immediate fix. If not, the slow drip of coolant into the lube oil could contaminate the oil, resulting in overheating, corrosion or damage to the engine.