Total Base Number (TBN)
Often when reading about oil’s composition you will see the term TBN as part of the specification. Total Base Number (TBN) is a measure of the alkalinity of the oil. This is important because of the formation of acids in the lubricant due to the combustion process. One of the ways that Amsoil is able to support extended drain intervals is through a high TBN rating, another reason is the high quality additive package that is put in the synthetic lubricant.
The TBN characteristic of the oil will diminish over time and once the alkaline reserve is consumed, corrosion will start to take place on the engine components. There are oil analysis kits available that allow you to do trend analysis of the condition of your oil. It’s recommended to do this often enough to establish a baseline so you can see when something is changing dramatically and know the life of the lube has been reached. One example details an 18 wheeler truck that was able to go 409,000 miles between oil changes. A tear down of the engine after this revealed no more wear than following the shorter oil change schedule typical of this vehicle. Of course, this was using the superior filtration of a dual-filter setup that uses one regular, full-flow filter and a by-pass filter that takes 10% of oil from the supply and achieves 98.7 percent efficiency down the 2 micron level. Filter changes are crucial to this and the addition of new oil to compensate for the filter helps restore the additives and increase the TBN of the supply.
This sort of testing and filtration make sense for vehicles like over the road truckers or heavy equipment that runs many hours in a year. However, it can save a lot of money for operation of the equipment in lube and labor for maintenance costs. I use the dual-filtration on both my diesel truck and gas powered Jeep because I want the superior protection for the engines. If you are interested in seeing one of these setups just let me know.
