The Road to Higher-Performing Engine Oils

[Counterman]

It was not long ago that

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, the most recent engine oil performance specification that today sets the baseline standard for lubricant performance throughout North America.

But the industry is not resting on its laurels — stakeholders have already begun work on developing the next category, ILSAC GF-8, which will once again elevate the performance standards for passenger car engine oils sold across the continent.

GF-8 is currently anticipated to see first license in 2028, just three years after the current category GF-7, and represents a continued push to enhance performance in passenger cars to broadly reduce emissions. Here’s what automotive professionals need to know about the coming specification ahead of first license.

What’s Driving GF-8?

Why GF-8? To answer that question, it’s worth a refresher on exactly how new specifications come to be.

Passenger car original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are regularly under pressure to meet increasingly stringent corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) requirements as set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). To keep up, they have continued to eke out new efficiencies from every area of the vehicle. Over the past several decades, they have done so in a variety of ways, including the recommendation for higher-performance engine oils. Thus, at the beginning of a new category development cycle — typically in correlation with impending CAFE deadlines — OEMs request a new ILSAC performance category, and release a needs statement, which outlines desired engine oil performance for the future.

As such, GF-8 will likely require — as did GF-7 — that next-generation lubricants contribute to enhanced fuel consumption rates, as well as enhanced fuel economy retention over the course of the oil drain. To the average driver, such fuel economy gains will likely go unnoticed in real time. However, taken across all cars on the road, they will have a major impact on emissions reduction for the American auto population and will help enable OEMs to meet new fuel economy requirements.

Where GF-8 Will Elevate Performance

As noted, fuel economy is one of the drivers for GF-8’s development. Engine oils can contribute to enhanced fuel economy in a few ways. First, lower-viscosity (i.e., thinner) lubricants can directly help improve engine efficiency by reducing resistance between moving engine parts. For this reason, the past several performance categories (GF-6 and GF-7) have included both an A and a B category.

The A category classifies traditional viscosity grades that are backwards compatible for any passenger car on the road. Comparatively, the B category classifies newer low-viscosity grades that are applicable specifically to new-model vehicles, and can contribute to even greater fuel economy gains than their A-category counterparts. It is anticipated that GF-8 will again include both an A and a B category. Importantly, both categories must meet the same performance criteria for durability, oxidative stability, corrosion and wear protection, and more — they only differ in terms of viscosity grade and fuel economy performance. To best measure fuel economy performance across both subcategories, GF-8 is set to incorporate a revamped fuel economy test (the Sequence VI test) to best measure the lubricant’s contribution to efficiency gains.

The other primary way that engine oils contribute to fuel economy is by enabling modern, fuel-efficient engines. For example, much of the passenger car parc in North America has migrated toward gasoline direct injection (GDI) engine technology. These engines have distinct requirements for the lubricant, most importantly their ability to help prevent low-speed pre-ignition (LSPI), a potentially catastrophic form of irregular combustion unique to GDI engine architectures.

Lubricants have been required to help prevent this condition for years, but GF-8 will further push performance to new heights. Specifically, it is anticipated that GF-8 will require that engine oils maintain adequate LSPI performance for extended periods — aged oil should perform just as well as new oil. Category developers are working to incorporate new testing methodologies that will effectively measure this performance.

To those ends, another driver for GF-8’s development is the need to modernize several engine tests that help evaluate performance. Several tests in the current matrix are outdated and are becoming increasingly irrelevant for today’s modern engine population — GF-8 will seek to correct this issue by modernizing the entire testing matrix.

Finally, GF-8 will likely require lower levels of sulfated ash in engine oil formulations. This is a proactive measure that anticipates the likely proliferation of gasoline particulate filters (GPFs) in new-model passenger cars in the coming years. Similar in function to diesel particulate filters, GPFs capture fine soot particles from exhaust to help reduce tailpipe emissions—but they are sensitive to ash buildup from the lubricant, which is why lower-ash formulations are increasingly important. While GPFs are not a common feature today, OEMs are likely to adopt the technology at an increasing scale as early as 2026.

For professionals, it’s worth staying educated on the differences to effectively recommend and supply optimized engine oils for your customers. Working closely with your engine oil suppliers and maintaining ongoing discussions can help you be ready for whatever the future of engine oil technology brings.

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