I was reading on a few threads and people were talking about Rotella which is an oil I am not familiar with at all. Then again I have never owned a diesel till now but I do plan on doing an oil change on it asap.

My question is who likes which oil and why? I've used Mobile 1 many of times in gasoline engines and I have loved it.

Now that Rotella has been mentioned who recommends it over mobile 1 and why?

__________________


86 Mercedes 300SDL - 400k+ miles

Only fools use synthetic motor oil!


Waste veggie oil is the best for our cars!

/sarcasm

__________________
-Typos courtesy of my mobile phone.

do a google search and educate yourself about the strengths of each.

you will not get the answers you are looking for here in the form you want them.

__________________

I like mixing methanol with my motor oil to make it extra slippery

__________________


86 Mercedes 300SDL - 400k+ miles

I'm not looking for anything in big detail. Just wondering why some people claim they would use Rotella over Mobile 1. If they believe it's better I'm just curious as to why. If I am convinced I'll gladly pay less money for the Rotella and do my oil change with that instead.

__________________


86 Mercedes 300SDL - 400k+ miles

Just FYI, it's Mobil, no "e".

__________________
'81 MB 300SD, '82 MB 300D Turbo (sold/RIP), '04 Lincoln Town Car Ultimate

Sooner or later every car falls apart, ours does it later!
-German Narrator in a MB Promotion Film about the then brand new W123.

Yeah I know but I'll be damned if my fingers will ever type that. They will hit the E no matter what and I submit before I can even noticed it.

__________________


86 Mercedes 300SDL - 400k+ miles

Rotella has been the staple oil in diesel farm equipment, tractors, and anything else that experiences poor maintenance, long service intervals, or hard service life, for many, many, many years. It's fairly simple as oil goes, and it's always been used because it rarely lets these engines down.

I recommend it over synthetics because there is, in my opinion, no advantage based on the following conditions. I see no value in extended (beyond 5,000 miles) service intervals, because it is my belief that after that interval, no matter what oil you're using, the oil *filter* is probably about used up, and it just doesn't hurt anything to flush the system out every 5,000 miles by changing it rather than running it forever and ever. Synthetic is now almost if not more than twice as expensive as regular oil, and in exchange I do not believe one gets twice the performance. Running it twice as long, although stated to be possible by supporters, makes me nervous and seems rather unrewarding for me as well as the engine. So, if it doesn't truly offer a full 2x the service life, but it does come at 2x the purchase price, they'd have to demonstrate a lot more advantages than have been done before to get me to switch to it.

That being said, I use Rotella in both of my M-Bs, and it is used in all our farm equipment as well. You will find as many opinions on this subject as you will find members on this forum, and oil has started more truly pointless battles among us here than almost any other subject. In the end, it comes down to what you like the idea of and what your engine can withstand the use of. Rotella is one of the better-known and more widely used in rough-service applications among all the "Standard" non-synthetic oils. It has a long history of use in road tractors as well as farm machinery and passenger diesels, and it runs on its reputation as well as any other. At the end of the day, my answer is that when it fulfills my needs beyond my requirements, I see no reason to spend twice as much money on the latest-and-greatest when I have no demonstrable need for such.

__________________


~Michael S.~
Past cars:

1986 300SDL
1987 300SDL
1982 240D
1982 300SD


Current:

1987 300SDL

That's the way I have always felt, well sort of, about the synthetic oils. I have always ran Castrol for so many years in my gasoline engines. It wasn't till a few years ago I started trying out the synthetic oils. Even though the life says over 5000 I have never gone over that just because it doesn't hurt to change it sooner. I really haven't seen a large enough increase in power, or anything else to really make me a believer.

The main reason I have even switched to the synthetic oil is mainly to see what the hipe was all about and I'm really not all that impressed.

Since you mentioned Rotella being used in a lot of farm equipment I am starting to remember hearing about the oil now. I've ran a lot of equipment such as Trackholes, Backholes, Dozers, Bobcats, and such but I have never serviced them but I do remember seeing Rotella before on the gallon bottles of oil the mechanic used to put in them.

Anything that has been ran for MANY MANY years and has never failed is #1 over any new product that claims to be #1. At least in my book you have set the record straight for me.

__________________


86 Mercedes 300SDL - 400k+ miles

maybe he is french???

__________________
1993 Mercedes 300D 2.5

1987 Mercedes 300D 3.0

2000 Volkswagen JETTA TDI diesel 5 speed

2002 Lexus ES300

2006 Lexus GS430

I run Rotella 5w40 synthetic in all of the cars in my signature.....that is 4 diesels and two gassers....they all run great on it. Overall we've put probably 120k or so on that oil, and all the engines still run great. My car has traveled the farthest on it....about 80k so far.....runs great.....and gets driven about 450+ miles per week.

__________________
-diesel is not just a fuel, its a way of life-
'15 GLK250 Bluetec 118k - mine - (OC-123,800)
'17 Metris(VITO!) - 37k - wifes (OC-41k)
'09 Sprinter 3500 Winnebago View - 62k (OC - 67k)
'13 ML350 Bluetec - 95k - dad's (OC-98k)
'01 SL500 - 103k(km) - dad's (OC-110,000km)
'16 E400 4matic Sedan - 148k - Brothers (OC-155k)

On brand-new cars... say, 2000 or 2005 or so and newer -- synthetic oil becomes a possibly real benefit because the engines were actually designed to take advantage of it. Even on a 1998-99 e300 M-B turbodiesel, I *might* consider synthetic, just depending on how it acted. It becomes essential to use synthetic in these modern brand-new engines, that don't even have an oil dipstick built into the engine, because the computer is basing its calculations on when to turn the "change oil now" light on, on the assumption of synthetic oil. Some of the newfangled gassers run 13,000 miles or more on their oil and the interval varies according to the computer.

I'm basing my use of nonsynthetics and predictable short intervals on the fact that our cars are NOT so new as that. By modern synthetic oil and engine construction standards, we really are driving John Deeres with hood stars. I just feel that maintaining them as such is probably better than treating them like something they aren't. Diesel instead of gas means more soot and particulates in the oil. Maybe synthetic *is* better at keeping soot in suspension or whatever it does. But either way... 8.5 quarts is 8.5 quarts and x percent soot particulates is x percent soot particulates no matter what kind of fluid they're traveling around in. Just makes sense to treat them the way people treated them when they were new. To me, anyway. Others' mileage can and will vary.

It was very fairly pointed out by pawoSD in another thread a few minutes ago that the lighter cold viscosity of synthetic oils becomes a huge advantage in cold weather in these diesels. That's a perfectly valid argument; I've used it myself for one oil interval in the coldest winter we've had recently. But I'm in NC and you're in Texas so that's not as much of a concern.

__________________


~Michael S.~
Past cars:

1986 300SDL
1987 300SDL
1982 240D
1982 300SD


Current:

1987 300SDL

Yeah no joke. I definitely don't need to worry about weather. We had a pretty crazy winter here unlike any I have been through but still nothing like you guys had.

I don't plan on taking any trips during the winter up in your neck of the woods that's for sure!

__________________


86 Mercedes 300SDL - 400k+ miles

I'll be definitely looking into Rotella in the near future, and I may even consider the synthetic rather then the regular. I am not sure yet. I think Busted has me pretty convinced on the regular.

__________________


86 Mercedes 300SDL - 400k+ miles

I'm glad I'm not alone in having fingers who insist on ignoring the brain and typing however they please.

__________________
'81 MB 300SD, '82 MB 300D Turbo (sold/RIP), '04 Lincoln Town Car Ultimate

Sooner or later every car falls apart, ours does it later!
-German Narrator in a MB Promotion Film about the then brand new W123.