Originally Posted by
Tank
50+ years in diesel engine service and rebuilds from ride on mowers to container ship engines, but mostly long distance road transport and lately, since retirement light truck and 4WD vehicles.
I have noticed and had personal experience with manufacturers using light weight synthetic oils to run in todays multi OHC engines and I have seen many engines that fail to "Bed in" and switched back to Mineral oils for the Bed in period, about 15K then change back to Synthetic.
Diesel engines require a detergent type oil to "clean up" the extra soot created by diesel ignition, I had some considerable trouble with Rimula M back in the early 80's, was noticing that the oil was staying "clean", most of the engines using this oil (under my care) required total rebuilds after 300,000 klms, where my Mack running Rimula X had no problems at 480,000 klms.
As far as I'm concerned clean oil in a diesel is a sign that the oil is not doing it's work, the engines with clean oil had a lot of sludge inside the engine when torn down, Regards Frank.