Thread: What Oil are you putting in Tdi's

Just my opinion, so only take it for that, but from long experience with 2 300tdi engines, i have found that both the castrol gtx 'd', and more-so the rx diesel, to be very poor, and had my friend who is workshop foreman of a large large trucking company confirm this from his own experiences with a wide range of diesel applications.

I have been using a fully synthetic Castrol 'R', specifically the 0-40, for over 2 years now, and have found a few things to praise, particularly, increased (IMPROVED) Economy, and marginally quicker spool up time on the turbo....(and this is on an automatic model) so manual would be partially better! Also...with regards to samples etc, i found that with shortish journeys, a conventional mineral oil in the tdi could break down at as little as 2800 k's, which was a worry, considering this vehicle is tip top in maintenance eg, fuel system mixtures and EGT!.

With the synthetic, the average start of breakdown is just over double, closer to 6000-6500 k's minimum, and you can feel safe to leave it for the 10,000 k's that a lot do, but i still like to drop it at 5000k's just from a cleanliness point of view and reducing acid deposit build up.
The cost of this oil when first released was anywhere up tp $80 for 5l, and this was hard to swallow, but has reduced significantly now and can be had for around $58, from various places locally, and just out of interest....is the only oil recommended for the new pfv fords namely the v8!

.......Just one small point, to agree with above comments,.....the TD5 Does Need a different oil, namely a 5-30, which is NOT suitable for the TDI, AND THAT WAS FROM castrol themselves.

Anyway, sorry to rant, but there's my .02c worth anyway.............not used from anyone else, but my own experiences, ta. Wayne.

Zook, Castrol's synthetic gear oils are excellent. A trucking operator I know has had great success with Syntrans, Syntrax, SAF-XA, Transmax Z, etc, pretty much eliminating drivetrain wear over the life of their rigs. (BTW, he uses Mobil Delvac 1 exclusively in his engines, 100,000km OCI !, Mann-Hummel centrifugal filters like used on a TD5 and Donaldson ELF full flows, also there for 100,000km. MTU Detroit stripped one of his engines recently @ 1,000,000km and all measurements were within new specs 8O )

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>i would NOT use the delo 400 on a 10000k schedule as it seems to lose the plot at about 7000-8000k in my experince.
[/b][/quote]

G'day Incisor, what was happening with the Delo around those km ?
TBN dropping badly ? viscosity increase ?
I'm interested, also type of driving engine experiences.

cheers,

Rick

Seems to be a common theme here. I'm also using Penrite HPR Diesel15, and change the oil every 5,000 km. But then for me it's not a daily driver, so an oil change every 5,000 still isn't that often.


Paul [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif[/img]

I have never had any issues with castrol diesel oil 15w-40. Have done 138k and change every 5k incuding filter. I buy it in 20l drums from supercrap for $84. What problem can there be?? the oil collects contaminants and the filter filters it. When the filter is full of contaminants it just by passes anyway. Been doing this with the farm tractors and trucks since Adam was a boy. The Allis 4wd tractor has a cummins 300hp turbo six in it and has done over 8000 hours on this oil and method. No smokey startups and full compression and no rebuilds. Just change regularly. Thats my tuppence worth.

Dad runs the normal Penrite diesel oil in his not the 15 and it seems ok. He drops it somewhere between 6k and 10k. I noticed earlier this year when we did a tip and it had done nearly 10k it started to get noisy. Prior to dad owning the car it had full LR service history so it got what ever they use at the normal service interval. I dropped the sump of it about 6 months back to stop it leaking(fitted a gasket instead of the factory glue) and the engine was spotless inside, the sump wiped clean with a rag no need to degrease, it had done 160k at the time. So I reckon these engines don't have a sludging problem that we need to worry about.

I used Catlex Havoline Semi-Synthetic for the first 3 changes, when that oil ran out i have now swapped to Catlex Delo 400, the same as Inc, it seems to be fine, i havent done the full 5k yet, will see what it looks like at the end. Matt

I ran my TDi from new on Penrite HPR. Did 140,000 klms prior to selling it. Changed oil and eng oil filter and air filter every 10,000.
Regular changes are the key to longevity of any engine.
Trev.

IMHO, if using synthetic oil, then 10,000km changes, if using cheaper normal oils, then 5,000km changes.

That's the basis on what I do, but I run a 93 Tdi Defender though!