PUP beat Driven

[GW’s JL]

Real quick, when viscosity modifiers get chopped up, can the detergents hold them, or they end up becoming varnish? I'm asking this because I read somewhere that Toyota oil uses a stupid amount of viscosity modifiers, and the engines end up with a lot of varnish.

TGMO does use a lot of VM’s because they use crapy base oils. The VM’s are also low quality and the oil shears quickly. Low quality base oils that can’t handle high heat are the major contributors to varnish. Here is a more technical explanation.


"What is varnish?

Varnish is a thin, insoluble film deposit. It is a high molecular weight substance that is insoluble in oil. Varnish insolubles are more than 75 percent soft contaminants that are less than 1 micron in size and are not measured by traditional particle counts. Insoluble compounds have polar affinities and, over time, begin to migrate from the body of the base oil to machine surfaces, based on system and oil conditions. Initially, the surfaces start to show a gold/tan color building to darker gum layers that develop into lacquer.

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