Thread: Oil colour after service?

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.

haha good on you Frank..... thats all I was looking for, some actual real world experience and not just a comment from another arm chair mechanic.

I'm aware of and agree with the need for a break-in or run-in oil, everytime I do a small diesel engine rebuild I use a low spec diesel oil (for the benefit of others, a small diesel engine is anything in a 4WD, Land Rover or a light truck, Isuzu etc). The industry I came from originally is the Crane, Mobile Elevated Work Platforms, Generators. We had the flexibility to change oil specs on engines to suit different load environments, this was especially useful with diesel generators (upto 600Kva). Doing exactly as you mentioned, a different oil for run in hours.

Unfortunately owners of light vehicles dont have that option, if they want to keep their warranty, they have to use an oil that meets the manufacturers specs. (a manufacturers spec is generally an easy requirement for an oil company to meet or exceed, unlike ISO standards).

With all due respect, as a tradesman I am aware of the need for detergent oils in diesel engines. Where I can I use a semi synthetic diesel oil (Penrite HPR Diesel 5 semi synthetic) for most vehicles I work on (I pretty well only do diesels), Jeep, Land Rover a like, and only go to a full synthetic when the semi synthetic doesnt meet the required spec, such as DPF/DPD equipped vehicles. As it meets numerous Ford specs its perfect for use in new Defender TDCi models. Diesels Ive been servicing from new that have been running on semi synthetic engine oil are the ones with high km's on them now and run better than new ones that have had servicing done using a full synthetic.

To further what you have said and in agreement, I've had engines come in where they have had many km's running on full synthetic and gotten a bit blue smokey on idle, I've changed them over to Penrite HPR Diesel 5 5W40 and have come good by the next oil change.

I'm in full agreement to what you have said, except the "its a waste of oil" but did add that 10,000km servicing is perfectly acceptable and pointing that 20,000kms isnt so good.

just as a side note for the odd customer that gets all funny about me putting a "semi synthetic" into their Jeep or Land Rover because "they only use the best fully synthetic by royal oil company bluh bluh bluh" .....

The oil you buy thats labeled "full synthetic" if it doesnt have "PAO or Ester base" on it..... then its Mineral oil, same goes for "semi synthetic", its mineral oil. Its a loop hole in legality that allows oil companies to label products as such. Saying that modern engine oil is so far from the oils of old with regards to offering outstanding protection, heat, mechanical shear resistance etc etc.

I also find it odd when people/repairers say things like "oh that oil is too thin for our conditions" and want to put in a 10W40, 15W40, 20W40/50 etc etc. As an example a multi grade semi synthetic oil such as a 5W40 will have the flow characteristics of a SAE 5 oil at that oh so important cold engine start up (where as your base thicker oils wont), but at that hot engine running temp of 100 deg C will have the protection of a SAE 40 oil. Some of the additives (polymers/plastics) they put into engine oil are heat reactive, as in they swell up and make the oil thicker as it heats up. (thats an incredibly basic explanation though).

Regards
Daz

Originally Posted by Tank

Total waste of oil, and no way do I believe that your oil is till clear after 5000klm, Regards frank.

It depends how you see it....

I have invested a lot of money into my Landy, i want to keep my Landy for a long time and want to enjoy driving it hassle-free for as long as possible.

Im in the transport industry and although we dont change the oil every 5k we do change the smaller trucks around 10k.

Why? Its a cheap insurance policy as i see it.

My egr has been switched off and blanked, i have an intercooler, decat straight through exhaust and remap.....

So YES my oil is still clean!

Daz,

That's some real good info you posted up there.

This is something I pulled off another post that another member had posted as the recommendation for a Puma 2.2

"OIL. Penrite HPR5 full synthetic. This has the requisite specs (WSS-M2C913-B or C) for the 2.2 non DPF"

Daz what is your recommendation for an oil for the Puma 2.2❓

I wasn't planning on sticking with the manufacturers 20k service intervals and am planning on dropping oil every 10k. I hadn't thought of doing all filters but after reading your comments I will be doing all filters every 10k.

👍👍👍

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CaffeLatte who did you go to for the service ❓

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Originally Posted by Babs

CaffeLatte who did you go to for the service ❓

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Main agent in Townsville.
Chris

Originally Posted by MrLandy

Chris when did you check oil, at dealer as soon as you picked it up? Or after youve driven home? From your dipstick pics it looks like it's been driven a bit since change. It doesn't take long for remnant old oil to colour new oil a little, especially if not 100% drained. That's what it looks like from your pics. To me it doesn't look black enough to be 12,000km old oil.

The oil pic was taken after a drive home from Townsville and a 60k round trip also. The oil was very clean for a long time and IMO no worse than the pic after 12k. Anyone here service Puma Defenders?
Chris

Originally Posted by cafe latte

Any chance of a pic just curious?
Cheers
Chris

Happy New Year Chris,
I could post a photo of the 2.2 oil on the dipstick but it would look identical to your photos that you have posted.

The 2.4 Transit oil has been in the vehicle for 7500km and has way more deposit in suspension, in other words is very black without any translucence. The oil gets changed every 15000km on it and to be honest seems too long. As I don't get to use the Defender as much as I would like, I won't have to worry about the distance change requirement as it will be changed every 12 months without getting near the 20,000km standard change.

I might add that when they changed the oil last time on the 2.2, they did the oil pump so the oil would have been completely drained from the vehicle and a new sump fitted. I do know that with the 3.2 Ford 5 cylinder engines, there can be problems if the oil is left to drain for more than around 10 minutes due to the oil pump design, and left too long can cause oil starvation and resultant engine damage. I don't know if the same problem might occur with the 2.2 engine but they might not be letting the oil drain too long just in case.

Originally Posted by 4wheeler

Happy New Year Chris,
I could post a photo of the 2.2 oil on the dipstick but it would look identical to your photos that you have posted.

The 2.4 Transit oil has been in the vehicle for 7500km and has way more deposit in suspension, in other words is very black without any translucence. The oil gets changed every 15000km on it and to be honest seems too long. As I don't get to use the Defender as much as I would like, I won't have to worry about the distance change requirement as it will be changed every 12 months without getting near the 20,000km standard change.

I might add that when they changed the oil last time on the 2.2, they did the oil pump so the oil would have been completely drained from the vehicle and a new sump fitted. I do know that with the 3.2 Ford 5 cylinder engines, there can be problems if the oil is left to drain for more than around 10 minutes due to the oil pump design, and left too long can cause oil starvation and resultant engine damage. I don't know if the same problem might occur with the 2.2 engine but they might not be letting the oil drain too long just in case.

Thanks, if this is fresh oil I am more convinced about 10k oil changes, 20k would be very black.
Chris