That Tony Athens quote is probably edited or taken out of context. I find it hard to believe a knowledgeable fleet engineer would say that.
OTOH I have encountered the occasional engineer that had me beating my brains out on a bulkhead.
Before one's knickers get in a twist, I've been involved with tens of thousands of oil analyses on fleet and genset engines. I'm a believer. Oil sampling when done on a regular programmed basis is a key tool for determining engine rebuild time, measuring metal wear and monitoring lesser issues when speaking of real workhorse applications. We used dummie samples, different labs to compare, referees, fleet history and OEM advice to insure what we saw was really an event rather than a random spike. On a 100 + unit fleet ranging from sporadic use forklifts to 24/7 haulers it takes a real pro (I'm not one) managing the data and systems to monitor what was going on.
But an oil analysis every now and then on a few hundred hour per year (at most) toy boat engine is not as important as how the real things have been taken care of to prevent the oil from showing baddies.
Oil analysis does no harm for us on trawler forum. But does it do any good? For those of you who detected and prevented a problem or justified a rebuild, in advance of failure, due to an oil analysis done in the fall or spring each year, please post about that event. I don't recall seeing one on TF and very seldom on boatdiesel. Everything I have seen on TF includes the following areas:
- I'm losing coolant
- My engine temperatures are up
- Where did my RW pump impeller vanes go
- How do I use Ridlyme
- I have bubbles in the fuel
- My filters are plugging with gunk
- I have visible water in my oil
- My oil smells like diesel
- I have visible oil in the coolant
- I have soot in my coolant
- I have black, white or grey exhaust
- I have rust all over my mixing elbow
- What causes hydrolocking
- I heard a noise and then an hour later my engine stopped
- I'm burning 1 gallon per hour of oil in my 35 year old DD
- ETC
If ever on TF (not in a commercial seafaring journal where oil analysis discussions are common) someone has stated their oil analysis, regular not random, showed a gradual buildup of metals indicating a piston, rod or crank is going I'd be very surprised.
Oh, Tony Athens you say. Go to his posting #49252 with the last entry made on Feb 3 titled "
MTU Oil Analysis Opinion"
Part of his comment is, "put a random oil analysis where it belongs - at the bottom of the list of things to worry about."