Thread: What Oil are you putting in Tdi's

Originally posted by drooby
Am I right in assuming Penrite is the go? :?:

on a 10000k schedule penrite is definetly the go IMHO

memory....

i cant find my e-monitor oil sample reports at the moment (i had a tidy up the other week, sigh) but from what i remember there was a significant drop in the oiliness of the oil, i cant remeber the way they termed it on the report dam it (something and viscosity i think) and it had nothing to do with fuel contamination, all the metals were also well within acceptable levels.

hopefully find the things soon.

they (E-Monotor/ALS) measure viscosity (@ 100*C) and it shouldn't thin or thicken appreciably from a virgin sample.
Soot causes thickening, and thinning is either fuel dilution (which by the souns of things yours wasn't) or shearing (usually) of the viscosity index improvers.
I had Valvoline XLD collapse on me in a Jeep 4.2 six fifteen years ago on a hot summers day. The oil pressure crashed as if I'd spun a bearing)Penrite HPR 30 fixed that, although these days I'm not a believer in high viscosity oils.

I wouldn't have thought a Tdi would be very hard on an oil, shear wise, unlike a common rail diesel.
This is interesting, as in the US, Delo 400 uses a very good base stock (Group II+) which I believe is a partialy hydrocracked/highly refined mineral oil. Maybe they are using an Oz sourced base stock (like Castrol use for RX-Super) and more VII's to make it work ???
It (Delo 400) is such a highly regarded oil, I would have thought it could go 20,000km safely.
The Fuchs Titan Universal HD we used to use in the Patrol is a pretty basic oil, but it returned excellent results, and could easily go 10,000km, even though Nissan specify 5,000km oil changes, but it does do lots of highway miles and hardly any town work.

Did you do a couple of tests to establish a trend ?

Thanks for the feed back, and if you can find the tests would be great, as this sort of thing can more accurately establish what actually works over, "a mate of a friend's sister said...." :wink:

cheers.

BP refinery in Brisbane installed a new hydrocracker a few years ago. As far as I know the lube oil blending plant is across the river at Caltex refinery, they blend most local brands there except for Penrite etc, or at least they did when Dad was at BP. There is some stuff that is made at Beenliegh I think called PM oils I think. I've never used it but believe it is pretty good from what I've heard. Supposed to have a pretty robust additive package, part of the deal is you send them a sample and they tell you if it needs changing.

Found the link

http://www.pmlubricants.com.au/pm_home.htm

We're back from our trip and the car has 6.5k on it. I phoned a guy from Shell, and he reckoned to change it after we got back from our trip. I was intending to use Shell helix Ultra (full synthetic) 15w/40. I phoned Land Rover and confirmed that this oil exceeds their requirements (as many oils do).

Any thoughts?

when I had my tdi Disco I generally used Castrol RX Super or BP Vannelus Global. If you are changing oils at 5000km intervals on a tdi any of the oils metioned and a lot more would be suitable as they will not have a chance to break down. If you are going out to 10,000km intervals then you should look at a full synthetic. I changed my tdi oil every 5000kms and an oil and filter change every 10,000kms. The good thing about RX super and BP Vanellus is it is now down to about $85 for 20 litres. I now have a TD5 and still change every 5000kms but use only synthetic 5w oils. I have been using BP Visco 5000, but have just changed to Castrol Synthetic R (both made by BP anyway) and will see how that goes. I was intending to use Penrite HPR 5 diesel but on reading the details found that it is only semi synthetic not full synthetic oils so gave it a miss. I have run Castrol synthetic R in V8 Holdens with good results.
I have also found that getting a suitable oil for the gearbox (manual 5 speed) instead of atf fluid is difficult to locate. On trying to get Castrol one of the store told me that what I was after did not exit and offered me the type suitable for the transfer case GLD spec. No one in this area stocks the castrol GL4 required oil. I found almost by mistake that Valvoline have a suitable oil their Duragear 75W 85 which is comparable to the Castrol 75W 85 and within spec of the factory MTF 94, so will try this.