Well, since you work in research, you are familiar with all the BS that can be done by adjusting confidence intervals, Alpha, and all that jazz. I'm thinking Nissan did just a little of that...

I have no personal stake in this, I just happen to know a bit about how it works.

If you have access to the Tribology International journal, you'll be able to read the methodology and results for yourself. Hell, they even spell out the name of the chemical compound and the base oil composition by wt.% so you can tell yourself whether or not the the components that make the ester oil effective are in whatever flavor of oil you like to run.

JSME has reviewed the work and recognized Nissan and the researchers behind this.

PM me for publication information if you'd like to read about it for yourself. I can't post articles online, as it is protected information.

Are you referring to this paper? http://www.sfplayers.com/blog/dlcPap...ernational.pdf

We've seen it before.

You are entitled to your opinion, but I respectfully disagree. This isn't some fly-by-night lab run by a snake oil salesman. This is credible, published information, and recognized by professional societies the world over.

And it's not like Nissan is flaunting the science behind this to the public. It's not something the average person would care about, or even be able to understand.

http://www.sfplayers.com/blog/dlcPap...ernational.pdf


http://www.sfplayers.com/blog/dlcPap...ernational.pdf


http://www.sfplayers.com/blog/dlcPapers/de-Barros


Apparently they are now in the public domain...

Those are some good ones, there's more out there depending on how deep you'd like to dig. Without the requisite tribological background, I imagine it'd be a snooze-fest for most folks.

A question for you: In general reading on the subject I found that Red Line Synthetic oil (I have some on the shelf in preparation for my first at-home oil change in February) was classified as an ester oil, as such would it be an appropriate alternative to Nissans ester oil? On previous vehicles I haven't worried a great deal about which oil I used other than to make sure that it met the appropriate SAE spec. The Z if a different animal and I don't want to screw it up as I plan to keep the car a long (6-10 years) time.

Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Let's see the publication numbers then. I still have access through NASA.
Go ahead and shoot them up. Pm me if you prefer.

Well, getting down to the nitty gritty, it comes down to this: the basic paper I linked earlier says their testing was on a PAO-based oil that used 1% of an ester called "glycerol mono-oleate" to get their lowest frictions w/ the DLC coating. Quality ester-based synthetics like redline/motul have largely mysterious makeups, but best guesses are anywhere from 20-40% of some sort of esters in e.g. Motul 300V. Motul says they use two different esters in their oils, but they don't state which ones. You can get MSDS for the oil, and MSDS for the glycerol mono-oleate, but seeing as the glycerol mono-oleate isn't dangerous, it's not listed on the MSDS for the oil whether it's there or not.

So, barring someone doing expensive testing or getting Motul or Redline to provide a straight answer on whether 1%+ of that specific ester is in their oil, we're in unknown territory going by the specs. Still, I'd place good money if they got their awesome friction numbers on a generic PAO + 1% of this specific ester, that a quality racing oil known to be 20%+ of at least two kinds of unknown esters, that Nissan even uses in its own race cars (the 300V), probably achieves the same effect. Doubtless several other quality synthetics do too.

The big practical flaw in the PDF report is that they showed comparison of DLC + their PAO +1% glycerol mono-oleate versus a reference of just plain old motor oil. It would have been nice to compare it to well-engineered ester based oils already on the market...

They don't compare it because it gets beat by other oils.

So . . . tribology has nothing to do with tribbing? Damn.

False, this isn't about commercialization or a competitor's product. The reason for base oil comparison is the purpose of the testing is to isolate the specific additive that improves the frictional behavior.

It's not to say that "our oil is better than competitor X." It's to gain scientific understanding. You must keep that in mind when reading a scientific journal entry.

Nissan's commercial ester oil they sell very well be outperfromed (depending on metrics) over a given oil change interval by a premium synthetic, a higher quality base oil, especially if it also contains the specific compound that makes this friction magic happen. No arguments there. But without that compound, you don't get that breakthrough in friction reduction.

Thanks for the condescension. I've read a scientific journal or two....



Like all companies, Nissan has a marketing team controlling anything that gets published in a prj or goes into a white paper. It's just good business.

Still waiting on those articles...I'd imagine that something so ground breaking would be saved....and there'd probably be some follow up research.

Is this real life?