So my Oilyzer arrived in the mail today. While it was several months after I ordered it, I must admit their customer service via e-mail was decent. I sent a couple of rather frustrated e-mails regarding the delays and always received a response back within a day or two. Eventually I was informed that the lot of Oilyzers received did not live up to their quality standards and they would refund my money, which they did. I asked them to notify me when they received a lot of Oilyzers that were ready to ship, and about a week later I received an e-mail telling me I could place an order. The Oilyzer arrived within 2 weeks of that order being placed.
I must admit, so far I'm pretty impressed with this thing. It's much smaller than I expected, about 1.25 times the size of an iPod Nano. I started out by checking the oil in my wife's car. Her 2010 Lincoln MKZ has about 1200 miles on the odometer, the recommended oil change interval is 7500 miles. With the Oilyzer correctly set to Synthetic I turned it on then placed several drops of oil from the dipstick on the sensor. Then I pressed the Oil Test button and a few seconds later LED 1 blinked, indicating the oil was in good condition. The Quick reference chart inside the sliding protective cover suggests that LEDs 1-7 are Excellent or Good, LEDs 8-9 is Fair, and a slowly flashing 10 suggests the oil should be replaced, rapid flash suggests there could be a problem with the engine.
I cleaned the sensor and then tried this on my 2007 Infiniti G35S which has conventional oil in it. My car has 11,600 miles on the odometer with a recommended interval of 3750 miles. I changed the oil at 500 miles as recommended by the enthusiast forum, then changed the oil about every 8 months (never hit the 3750 mile mark before feeling guilty for not changing the oil). The oil that's currently in the car has probably 600 miles on it. The Oilyzer lit up LED #2 which seems about right.
I cleaned the sensor and tried fresh from the bottle Mobil 1 0W-20 full synthetic for my Mother In-Law's Civic Hybrid. Expectedly the Oilyzer illuminated LED #1.
Now here's the kicker. I tried this on my 2004 Mercury Mountaineer V8 with about 57000 miles on the odometer. I've only owned it for about 4000 of those and changed the oil to Mobil 1 full synthetic 5W-20 and change it based on the Message Center warnings. The Message Center claims the oil has 33% life remaining. I used the Oilyzer and it illuminated LED #5. I still don't know what "technology" Ford uses for the oil change indication, but if I assume that when the Oilyzer indicates the oil is in Fair condition (LED #8) it's a good idea to change it, that calculates out to the Oilyzer suggesting the oil is 5/8 used, or 62.5%. That would suggest the oil has about 37.5% remaining before it is in Fair condition. That lines up pretty closely with what the Mountaineer is telling me. Of course I'm making SEVERAL assumptions here, and changing the oil at Fair condition, per the Oilyzer literature, would still be overkill. I feel a bit like a statistician here, manipulating the numbers to make them appear to correlate to what I want them to.
So I was very skeptical at first but figured I've spent more money on crazier things. I'm actually pretty comfortable using this as one more data point when thinking I should change the oil just because it's been awhile.
-Rod
