LSjr Tests VOA of 20 yr old Valvoline & 40 yr old Mobil 1 Oil. HPL tests Anti-Foam in Gear Oil.

[High Performance Lubricants]

Does all the HPL oil have that same lack of foaming? Even their cheapest PCMO?

Yes. If it foams it does not ship. These devices also have a camera. Every batch of oil has a video recording documenting foam or lack there of that is associated with the batch number.

We helped the manufacturer of the equipment, develop debug and perfect these devices. They were originally programmed per the method, which is pass or fail. It had 10 minutes To dissipate the allowable 50 mL of foam. All we would get was pass and the instrument would hang. They rewrote the software to give us the amount of foam in the amount of time to get to zero in seconds, not 10 minutes.

David

 

[High Performance Lubricants]

ASTM D892. Pass and pass. I don't have pretty pictures of all oils and lubricants in the foam tester.

Of the Amsoil products we have run I don’t ever recall seeing them foam.

 

[Invisible]

Yes. If it foams it does not ship. These devices also have a camera. Every batch of oil has a video recording documenting foam or lack there of that is associated with the batch number.

That is Six Sigma level quality control.
(image removed - MOD)

Of the Amsoil products we have run I don’t ever recall seeing them foam.

Thank you for this information.
(image removed - MOD)

 

[OVERKILL]

Thanks. Feel the same way about you.

Thank you, really appreciate that!

 

[TiGeo]

Already done. 50-55 ml vs 0-1 ml

View attachment 206890

Brotella is foam-a-rama!

 

[OVERKILL]

Brotella is foam-a-rama!

Bye bye Ms. American Pie
Took my Brotella to the metal and then the foamy got high
Then a good rod bearing said "peace" and went bye
And that's how my Camaro died

 

[4WD]

And to think T6 used to be recommended for everything here …
Cars, trucks, boats, colds, molds, and sore toes …

 

[Invisible]

 

[c502cid]

I have some 0W-20 Mobil 1 Annual Protection purchased a couple of years ago on clearance. Been stored in the garage. I think, if I decipher the code correctly, the oil is about six years old.
Now I'm conflicted about using it.

Send it to me, I'll use it in something easy!

 

[TiGeo]

Bye bye Ms. American Pie
Took my Brotella to the metal and then the foamy got high
Then a good rod bearing said "peace" and went bye
And that's how my Camaro died

It's straight trash* but folks love it.

*to me vs. Euro 40 grades

 

[High Performance Lubricants]

Although the Rotella did foam in this instance I would tend to believe that this is an exception not the rule. I would think that if we were to test multiple batches it would probably not foam like that consistently. I’m not implying I will do that. We spend our time on our own products to be sure they don’t go out the door like that. Shell has millions and millions of miles driven on rotella so it would not be fair for me to imply it is a bad product.

David

 

[TiGeo]

Although the Rotella did foam in this instance I would tend to believe that this is an exception not the rule. I would think that if we were to test multiple batches it would probably not foam like that consistently. I’m not implying I will do that. We spend our time on our own products to be sure they don’t go out the door like that. Shell has millions and millions of miles driven on rotella so it would not be fair for me to imply it is a bad product.

David

My comments are really more about folks that swear by a diesel oil in gas engines for whatever reason - I've never understood the mystique surrounding it in the tuner world. Better options for small turbo cars out there.

 

[RDY4WAR]

My comments are really more about folks that swear by a diesel oil in gas engines for whatever reason - I've never understood the mystique surrounding it in the tuner world. Better options for small turbo cars out there.

I've never understood why people would spend a ton of money to build a 700+ HP RB26 just to cheap out on the oil. They either think "This oil is good enough for a diesel so it's good enough for my gas engine with 1/4 the sump capacity and 3x the rpm" or "Oil is oil, use what's cheap." What's more sad is many of these guys are quite educated and experienced in engine building and racing, but think the "W" in an oil grade stands for weight. The oil is the blood of the engine. The healthiest heart will be weak if the blood is anemic.

 

[TiGeo]

I've never understood why people would spend a ton of money to build a 700+ HP RB26 just to cheap out on the oil. They either think "This oil is good enough for a diesel so it's good enough for my gas engine with 1/4 the sump capacity and 3x the rpm" or "Oil is oil, use what's cheap." What's more sad is many of these guys are quite educated and experienced in engine building and racing, but think the "W" in an oil grade stands for weight.

I believe it's mainly the obsession with "5W40" is really it combined with not knowing about the Euro 40s that are available. And yes, "don't use that 0 weight bro, it's like water." - litterally a daily comment in some groups/pages.

 

[dnewton3]

I've never understood why people would spend a ton of money to build a 700+ HP RB26 just to cheap out on the oil. They either think "This oil is good enough for a diesel so it's good enough for my gas engine with 1/4 the sump capacity and 3x the rpm" or "Oil is oil, use what's cheap." What's more sad is many of these guys are quite educated and experienced in engine building and racing, but think the "W" in an oil grade stands for weight. The oil is the blood of the engine. The healthiest heart will be weak if the blood is anemic.

I tend to agree. Let's keep the product's intended market in scope here. T-6 isn't meant for all applications; it's targeted to diesel engines, which are historically low-rpm. Oil rarely gets whipped into a froth at 1600 rpm, or even lower. Rotella's products are intended for mass-market applications, not racer specific one-off experiments. I'm confident that Shell is capable of making a lube for high-rpm, high-power-density engines, but it's not anything in the Rotella lineup. It's not their fault that uninformed people use their lubes in the wrong applications. It's not that T6 is a bad oil; it's that some folks don't use it as it was designed. In no way do I believe that T6 is as good as HPL or Amsoil products, but it's not junk, either.

 

[Invisible]

Although the Rotella did foam in this instance I would tend to believe that this is an exception not the rule. I would think that if we were to test multiple batches it would probably not foam like that consistently. I’m not implying I will do that. We spend our time on our own products to be sure they don’t go out the door like that. Shell has millions and millions of miles driven on rotella so it would not be fair for me to imply it is a bad product.

David

Unfortunately, the image below humorously depicts how these things usually tend to unfold:

 

[Pablo]

Has anyone interfaced with a person using Rotella in a motorcycle?

 

[Invisible]

Has anyone interfaced with a person using Rotella in a motorcycle?

About 3 years ago I met someone while waiting, and he told me that "why pay the big bucks for 4T motorcycle oil when Rotella is so much cheaper" and works just as good in his Harley. Save a few bucks now to spend thousands later. I never understood that mentality. SMH

 

[RDY4WAR]

Has anyone interfaced with a person using Rotella in a motorcycle?

Yes, in a friend's GXR 600. Tons of foam in the sight glass. He switched to Amsoil's Motorcycle oil and foam dropped substantially. It also cleared up a case of clutch chatter after a long ride, something he'd attributed to the bike just having a lot of miles.

 

[subyski]

I believe it's mainly the obsession with "5W40" is really it combined with not knowing about the Euro 40s that are available. And yes, "don't use that 0 weight bro, it's like water." - litterally a daily comment in some groups/pages.

Pretty much. I became exposed to T6 5w-40 from the Subaru world as it was an alternative to the oem spec'd 5w-30. At the time, the talk was how 5w-30 sheared and burn off, so the simplest, easily available alternative was T6. If you were really into Euro oil's, it was the green savior of Castrol 0w-30. I ran T6 in my Subaru and never had a problem. But today, I would just pick one of the many flavors of 0w/5w-40 available everywhere.

I tend to agree. Let's keep the product's intended market in scope here. T-6 isn't meant for all applications; it's targeted to diesel engines, which are historically low-rpm. Oil rarely gets whipped into a froth at 1600 rpm, or even lower. Rotella's products are intended for mass-market applications, not racer specific one-off experiments. I'm confident that Shell is capable of making a lube for high-rpm, high-power-density engines, but it's not anything in the Rotella lineup. It's not their fault that uninformed people use their lubes in the wrong applications. It's not that T6 is a bad oil; it's that some folks don't use it as it was designed. In no way do I believe that T6 is as good as HPL or Amsoil products, but it's not junk, either.

T6 being intended as a mixed fleet oil (at least the S rated versions) it has its purpose in gas engines too. But really comes down to application. These mixed fleets are primarily used for work where there's idling, normal driving to work sites, hauling, etc.; applications that don't usually see high rpms. And of course there's the added benefit to the operators of simplified maintenance/costs within the fleet.