I am looking for a list of wear metal ranges for motor oils, transmission fluids, and power steering fluids. What is everyone using?

Not easy as each engine builder and each transmission manufacturer will have different max wear metal guide limits.
These limits will be for a normal oil drain period.
Anyway trending usually more important than fixed limits to pick out potential wear problems

Manufacturer does have their own limits but not always. However, quite often, these limits does not apply at 100% to current customer application. This can be caused by differents factors, like for instance difference in sampling frequencies but also particularities from process and working environnement.

As Mr Davies said, tis wil not not help you picking potential wear problems.

Thus, the best would be to make your own limits based on the data you have obtained in the past. For each element, the new limits should be set by applying the following rule.
(this is proposed in Oil analysis basics by Drew Troyer and Jim Fitch)


Abnormal = Average + standard deviation
Crticial = Average + 2 standard deviation

Variation higher that standard deviation between each analysis should be considered suspicious.

I have applicated this rule in my companie this is working great.

I hope this helps.

Hi Shane

When commencing this work it makes it easier to understand the results if you benchmark test all the new lubricants you are applying at the start.
We have a useful oil sampling advice booklet and if you and anyone else who interested email us at lab@rttech.com.au and request a pfd of "How to oil sample" we will attach a pdf of the info booklet on oil sampling and send back.
The booklet will get you commenced with the suitable analysis for the application type, this booklet will also assist with setting the duration before resampling as well.

Noria have a very good system on this site for oil sampling highly critical machinery and for normal work the simpler system in our booklet has proven itself across numerous different types of applications.

Once you have new lube results and applications results in front of you to compare you will get an idea and if you want further info repost the test results back on this board and the experienced readers and writers here will have good advice,

Keep in mind bad sample useless results waste of time and money

Regards

Rob S

I agree with Mr Roger Davies. Limits are only useful if used for specific oil drain intervals and even then that does not take into account operating conditions or application. It is not unusual to see different wear patterns for identical machines operating in different environments / applications. These limits can be used as rough guidelines but trending is a far more useful tool when wear results are adjusted for the period the oil has been in use. This is one concept that is not always agreed upon, especially by manufacturers who like to give their customers limits to use. If it is additive package levels that you are looking for though, you should be able to get these by sending in new oil samples to a lab for spectrographic analysis.