Rotella T6 turned into jelly

I agree with the above. Something doesn’t add up. It was very low and it sludged up.
This polymerization process can happen rather quickly.

Let's say a small amount of glycol leaked into the oil from a head gasket problem. or a third party additive or a vegetable oil was used which caused a lump of gelled material to form in the pan.

The polymerization process accelerates under heat and oxidation and the lump grows. So how did it grow? It kept gathering its material from the bulk oil in the engine, reducing the oil volume over time, so when checked, it would be low.

I saw this once in an OTR Truck fleet. Every time a unit came in, the oil was checked and "topped" off, while all the time this cancer was growing in the sump and wasn't found until, at the next oil change, when the oil came out in lumps and the sump pan was removed to determine why.

Some of the causes were attributed to aftermarket additives added by the truck drivers themselves, and some were head gasket leaks--glycol intrusion.
 
That is caused by diesel contamination of the oil.

Was fairly common on the early DPF equipped vehicles like the Mk2 Zafira 1.9 CDTi Auto, they all had a DPF.

It would cause camshaft wear if you were lucky and wreck the bottom end if you were less lucky.

No, it isn't an oil issue.
 
That is caused by diesel contamination of the oil.

Was fairly common on the early DPF equipped vehicles like the Mk2 Zafira 1.9 CDTi Auto, they all had a DPF.

It would cause camshaft wear if you were lucky and wreck the bottom end if you were less lucky.

No, it isn't an oil issue.
Fuel dilution doesn't cause the oil to polymerize.
 
You state your father is 80 years old. How is his mental condition. No offence intended with this question. My fathers mental condition deteriorated at that age and he would try to add chemicals to the car in places it did not belong. I sincerely hope this is not what is happening in your case. It was very sad to watch my dad go downhill.
This could possibly be your answer !
My dad not paying close attention to what he was doing put power steering fluid in the master cylinder.
 
This could possibly be your answer !
My dad not paying close attention to what he was doing put power steering fluid in the master cylinder.
I’ve done that. Front brakes would stay locked at times taking off from a stop sign or stop light. Eventually just bought a couple big bottles of brake fluid and just flushed brakes. Never a problem after that
 
Fuel dilution doesn't cause the oil to polymerize.
Right IIRC in 05 or 06 I worked on a few cummins in Rams that had the injectors physically leaking into the oil. Like take the valve cover off and run it and see the fuel spray from the body of the injector

Those had the cleanest oil after that happened

Looks like maybe glycol with likely a long history of too long OCI indicator or not followed
 
Right IIRC in 05 or 06 I worked on a few cummins in Rams that had the injectors physically leaking into the oil. Like take the valve cover off and run it and see the fuel spray from the body of the injector

Those had the cleanest oil after that happened

Looks like maybe glycol with likely a long history of too long OCI indicator or not followed
But those were old enough not to have a DPF and possibly not even EGR, so most of the excessive soot created would've blown right out the tailpipe, a plugged DPF with an EGR creates a double whammy, the exhaust flow out becomes poor, more soot will be force back through the EGR, more soot will be force past the rings into the oil, and the oil will likely run at severely elevated temperatures, also ULSD doesn't store as well as LSD that would've been sold up until mid-2006 , so I can imagine when it's mixed with hotter running oil and soot ULSD may have a greater tendency to varnish than older LSD.
 
Hey guys, my father has a 2013 TDI golf with approx 324000km(201324 miles). Oil used in the car is Rotella T6 and oil changes have been completed every time the counter in the car indicates the vehicle is due. Recently he ran into a no start situation which was diagnosed as a clogged DPF by VW. The DPF was changed under warranty at the dealer and when the tech started the car he claimed that the oil light came on so he checked the oil and found it was down roughy 2 quarts. Tech decided it would be better to just change the oil completely. So tech pulls the oil plug and oil leaves the pan very slowly, and is stating he believes the engine is heavily sludged up and wants to pull the oil pan for further inspection. It’s at this point that I instruct my Dad to have the car towed to my place as this wasn’t adding up, I performed the last oil change on the car and noticed no issue at all with the oil draining. So car comes to my place and I pull the oil pan off and find massive amounts of this jelly sludge. It has a rubbery texture and breaks apart fairly easily in your hands. I was able to clean out the oil pan fairly easily as it doesn’t appear to stick to aluminum very well, the windage tray and oil pickup(plastic) however is a different story. I’m currently soaking these parts in varsol, which has helped with loosening the deposits however deposits do no appear to be dissolving, rather it looks like a bunch of permatex silicon floating around in the varsol. In doing some google searches I saw that coolant in the oil can cause this sort of thing, however we haven’t had to add any coolant to the car. Car had some front end work completed a couple of months ago, I’m concerned someone may have sabotaged his engine figuring him has an easy target(he’s 80 years old) . Would love any and all feedback!! Thanks!!
So the oil is not the issue.

The car has some major issues whether from a stuck injector or using inappropriate fuels with would lead to oil polymerization. Yes he didn't use VW 507 but the worst that could happen from that is excessive ash in the DPF.
 
Handling the field work for oil claims was part of my job. Contact Shell and tell them you want to make a claim for damages. You may need to do some more tear down and find actual engine damage. You'll need to give them some of the residue you got from the pan. A pint should suffice. They'll give it a good testing, much more thorough than a $30 Blackstone UOA. When complete, they'll give you their results, and will pay, or more likely, deny the claim. But you'll get a very good answer as to what happened to the oil.
Would you say the ability to claim damages was little more than a marketing shtick at the end of the day?
 
Would you say the ability to claim damages was little more than a marketing shtick at the end of the day?
No, because it was never advertised. That only started because Quaker State had a bad batch of oil in 1980. After that, they started advertising an engine warranty if you registered your car, used their products exclusively and within the recommended oil change intervals. They needed to because their reputation for quality took a major hit through what was just an oversight. That whole deal was a marketing schtick, and I believe the first of what are now engine warranties offered by many lube companies.

Products have implied warranties in that if a company offers a motor oil, it must perform as such, and not cause damage through its use. Someone who believes a lube has caused damage to their engine is entitled to the truth. So when a claim for damage came in, I would often be the rep on hand to collect a sample and initiate communication. This probably happened about once a year. Sometimes there could be two in a year, but often a few years would pass with none. The sample would be tested, and as I remember the results were always a variation of the same findings. 1) The oil is on spec, and not the problem. 2) The oil is not our product, which is identified by a secret tracer ingredient. 3) The oil has been damaged by a severely overheated engine. 4) The oil has been contaminated by fuel, coolant, dirt, or a competitor's product. The last three reasons for denial of a claim, at which point the consumer is free to do as he wishes. I don't believe any of the claims I was involved with ended up in a lawsuit, but they did happen.

I was involved in a filter claim that was paid. It was correctly installed and just blew out as the customer was leaving the garage. I think it was a Purolator made filter, but may have been a Fram. It was almost 30 years ago and I just don't remember. We had used both as suppliers, and switched now and then. Not often, but it was long ago. Anyway, we paid everything. New engine installed with full warranty and rental car for the time it took for the repair to be made. Also incidentals. The customer was taken care of and the garage owner was happy as he got the warranty job.
 
I mean if they just deny claims usually anyway then what's the real purpose

And this goes back to the question of how many claims have they denied?

As mentioned above, Quaker State started this after their oil issues 40 some odd years ago. I was present one night when we watched a friend scrape oil from his oil pan with a putty knife. That oil was Quaker State.

In this particular thread the problem has not been determined to be the oil. The analysis hasn’t come back yet. We shouldn’t be jumping the gun here.
 
I’ve seen similar oil jelling to this in Small displacement off road Diesel engines. Scenario was engine “stuck” in and out of active DPF regen for weeks. Led to a very high rate of fuel dilution. This was combined with low ambient temps and an operating profile where engine frequently did not get to oil temps over 180f. Operator was running bulk 15w40 CJ4 lube (Not meeting engine OE approval or within viscosity requirements which were 5w30). But even with the approved 5w30, the fuel dilution would of Compromised the Lubricant. An unusual case as the engine and machine software should have prevented engine from running after so many failed and interrupted regens. This was an early generation DPF application and later improvements were made to prevent reoccurrence. Worth noting in the cases I experienced, the injection, control system and DPF where same Bosch family as the OP’s TDI. My theory is OP had excessive short Drive trips with active and or passive regen interrupts. An oil sample may have given clues to what happened. I’d be concerned with condition of rotating assembly of this 2L TDI Especially cylinder walls.
 
Reminds me of the horror i've seen in an engine that used to run WVO.

PS: Also, the oil looks like the engine has been run on veggie oil, has kind of a brown color. Very strange since standard diesel was used.

 
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At least based on the comments in that thread this was not the correct oil for engine as the engine had AdBlue and oil for an engine without AdBlue. Incorrect oil was at least in part MBs reason for denying coverage.

Which brings up another point. Was DEF aded to the Golf when it had the TDI Fix (does Canada have the TDI Fix).

Did you ever figure out wha the recommended and actual change intervals have been?
your kidding right ? T6 is used in SCR engines all the time
 
Maybe the ONLY time that a quart of @High Performance Lubricants EC40 cleaner can't get this back to better days. My buddies Passat looked like that and it was from coolant. Topping off oil with whatever that isn't made for it could cause some issue. Doing small short trips is a killer in any car.
 
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