Thread: Which Oil

I must ask myself if the ease of pouring from a 5 litre container is worth the 100% price increase on that Delo each oil change,,

Originally Posted by cockie55

[snip]
(which belies the fact it looks like a heavily refined clear/light coloured product compared to say the heavier looking Delo 400).

That's only dye mate, they are all dyed...

A blender told me years ago that pound for pound the dye is the most expensive part of the oil
It's just that they use stuff all in a blend to colour it.

[edit] Forgot to add that Valvoline make some excellent oils, it is the factory and service fill and the prime recommendation of Cummins.

Originally Posted by Pedro_The_Swift

I must ask myself if the ease of pouring from a 5 litre container is worth the 100% price increase on that Delo each oil change,,

I've only bought 20's for the last nine years.

Unscrew the bung at the bottom, cut the hole and screw in a drum tap and just swap the tap from drum to drum.

I just sit the 20 on top of the engine when filling up. (and use a 1/2" copper pipe cap to seal off the tap outlet to keep it clean)

Once upon a time the 20 litre drums came with a new tap in the lid, those days have sadly passed

Rick I hear what you say on Valvoline’s diesel status with OEM’s/Cummins however I find some of the things Valvoline do in the gasoline engine oil arena very confusing.

Many fans of Valvoline may be using their MaxLife a 20w50 with seal conditioners, extra detergents etc. However this is a SM rated oil with around 1/3 less zinc/phosphorous than desirable in flat lifter motors, yet they make no mention of any high end EP aditives being put in to compensate for that reduction??? Price seems to suggest nothing too exotic?? A VOA may allay ones fears.

Another example is VR1 Racing being a 10w40 SJ (with ZDDP even marketed as a special additive) looking on face value as being tailor made for RV8’s and it also gets rave reviews OS with the flat lifter crowd. Trouble is the VR1 Racing blend available in Australia has far less zinc/phosphorous than available OS or purported. Again no mention of compensatory EP additives?? Go figure???

I say this reluctantly being a fan of Valvoline for a long time…..such as their XLD mineral range (albeit only available in 20w50 and I think Group 2 back then ….not too sure today).

However most companies seem to have the same approach to limited disclosure on gasoline only dino oils. For instance “all fleet” dino oils seem to have full info on base stock and additives etc used compared to gasoline only blends with little info???

Interestingly I have noticed recently the packaging and marketing of some diesel engine oils becoming more overt about their dual diesel CH-4/CL-I and gasoline SJ/SL ratings ie...as opposed to being less older engine friendly CJ-4/SM brews.

I hear what you say about VR1, I looked at it a few years back as we had this discussion on LR4x4 and the boys there that run the V8 love the English version.
The Aussie/NZ version didn't appear to be the same oil

You'd have to ring the companies tech lines and ask will it be OK and hope like hell the person on the end of the phone understands the issues, you only see so much in a VOA, usually not much at all.

The only way to know for sure is a a series of gas chromatograph tests and the only time I've ever seen that done was a few years back on BITOG where a whole bunch of fellas threw a lot of dollars into a kitty and had the testing done on a Castrol brew (roughly equivalent to the old SLX 0W-30 that was sold here)
That was a trick brew, and you could only see how trick by that sort of testing.

The other thought I just had was the backwards compatibility of a lot of blends, you will see SL and sometimes SM and also a number of older specs including SJ.
Whether this means that they have equivalent additive levels I'm unsure........

Re the CJ-4/SM rating, the SM spec is easily achieved due to the lowered ash levels in the CJ-4 oils, but I've been told they have shown up very well as 'premium' petrol oils on paper and in testing.
Again you'd have to check with the blenders and maybe stick with a CI-4/CI-4+ oil for the time being to ensure the add levels are adequate for a flat tappet cam but this is where i was told a few years back that the newer boron esters, etc would come to the fore as the ash levels were dropped.