Diesel Fuel Oil Dilution - 5w-30 Castrol Edge Pro. C1

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Hello All,

First of all I would like to say I enjoyed looking through your website having just signed up, I could not find this topic on your site, so I hope you can point me in the right direction if this has already been thrashed out?, Thank you

A bit of history: I am a 70+ Marine Engineer still working mainly on Marine Diesels up to 2,000 hp. I have recently been asked to look at and service the 3.0 lt. V6 Diesel which are currently being used in late Range Rover & Jaguar vehicles, these engines all have DPF and associated emission specs.

I am concerned about the varying degree of Diesel Fuel Oil Dilution that I am seeing in the used Oil sample results, I believe it is a consequence of the DPF regeneration and the current engine management to meet emission standards?, I have been trying to wrestle with this whole concept of a late Diesel Fuel Injection on the exhaust stroke to meet this criteria?.

I believe the above eng. management coupled with the long service intervals being touted by the different manufactures including Castrol - in regards to the recommended Castrol Edge Professional C1 - 5w-30 for these V6 Diesels, is not helping with engine longevity?, I would appreciate any thoughts on this matter, Thank you
 
Yes, when used on short trips, the DPF regen can cause diesel contamination of the oil. The early Mazda 6 and CX5 suffered from this issue.

My Outlander has an "X" marked on the dipstick, about 20mm above the "full" dot, and if the oil level reaches this point, the oil is supposed to be drained and replaced. Mine has never had a problem, as it is driven 25 minutes each way to work, 5 days a week, mainly in 100km/h zones, and gets hot enough for passive DPF regen to take place.

The problem really comes down to people buying the wrong vehicle for their needs - if operating mainly on short trips, city driving, etc., the petrol engine is a better choice. Has there been a spate of the LR and Jag diesels failing?
 
An ACEA C4 oil will be on the thicker end of the SAE 30 scale and will have a higher HTHS while maintaining the same level of SAPS.

If you're not burning any oil then maybe you could look at an ACEA C3 oil which will still be thicker but will have a slightly higjer SAPS but limited to 0.8%.

In fact I believe PSA who originally designed this engine used an ACEA C2 oil which has a SAPS limit of 0.8% like a C3 oil anyway.
 
FYI, Ford's 6.7 powerstroke diesels have similar issues. During regens on stock vehicles, fuel is injected on exhaust stroke. Fuel dilution of the oil in those 6.7 engines is often 3-4% after 7-9K miles, which is a primary reason why Ford limits OCIs to this range.
 
The best and most prudent thing do is cut in half the recommended OCI, I do this as a matter of course since the manual was written by engineers AND marketing people it is a compromise.
 
Thank you for the replies, I have been reducing the OC1s to 5K on some of these vehicles as the dilution has been around 7%, most are 3-5%, I now do Filtergram tests on those engines and some confirmed a substantial amount of metal wear particles ranging in size up to and greater than 850 micron!, I find these results to be most disturbing for me and especially the owners and the longevity of these engines?.

I have been trying to correlate the Dilution against driving habits on those vehicles to determine the most economical OCIs?

Has anyone been able to remove the DPF unit or fit a dummy exhaust section or modify the ECU program to eliminate this final or 5th. phase Piezo Injection of Diesel Fuel?, I feel this is the only solution.
 
Have a look at Cost Effective Maintenance, they're a Queensland company who make a number of additives for diesels, their website has some good info on DPF issues. They make a product which is supposed to allow passive DPF regens at much lower temperatures.

Sounds like you're maintaining a fleet of these vehicles, might make for an interesting experiment to try some additive in 1 or 2 and compare the results?
 
Originally Posted by BladerunnerBoats
Thank you for the replies, I have been reducing the OC1s to 5K on some of these vehicles as the dilution has been around 7%, most are 3-5%, I now do Filtergram tests on those engines and some confirmed a substantial amount of metal wear particles ranging in size up to and greater than 850 micron!, I find these results to be most disturbing for me and especially the owners and the longevity of these engines?.

I have been trying to correlate the Dilution against driving habits on those vehicles to determine the most economical OCIs?

Has anyone been able to remove the DPF unit or fit a dummy exhaust section or modify the ECU program to eliminate this final or 5th. phase Piezo Injection of Diesel Fuel?, I feel this is the only solution.

There are companies that can supply emissions delete modifications for ECUs. In N . America they just do Ford, Dodge, GM, MB, BMW andVW - the species of diesel in NA plus of course the larger engines put into big trucks. Maybe someone in Oz or Europe " for off-road or high sulfur areas only".
 
Originally Posted by hpb
Yes, when used on short trips, the DPF regen can cause diesel contamination of the oil. The early Mazda 6 and CX5 suffered from this issue.

My Outlander has an "X" marked on the dipstick, about 20mm above the "full" dot, and if the oil level reaches this point, the oil is supposed to be drained and replaced. Mine has never had a problem, as it is driven 25 minutes each way to work, 5 days a week, mainly in 100km/h zones, and gets hot enough for passive DPF regen to take place.

The problem really comes down to people buying the wrong vehicle for their needs - if operating mainly on short trips, city driving, etc., the petrol engine is a better choice. Has there been a spate of the LR and Jag diesels failing?



GM did the smart thing in putting the DPF fuel injection event downstream with a 9th injector. No oil dilution during regen.
 
Originally Posted by BladerunnerBoats
Thank you for the replies, I have been reducing the OC1s to 5K on some of these vehicles as the dilution has been around 7%, most are 3-5%, I now do Filtergram tests on those engines and some confirmed a substantial amount of metal wear particles ranging in size up to and greater than 850 micron!, I find these results to be most disturbing for me and especially the owners and the longevity of these engines?.

I have been trying to correlate the Dilution against driving habits on those vehicles to determine the most economical OCIs?

Has anyone been able to remove the DPF unit or fit a dummy exhaust section or modify the ECU program to eliminate this final or 5th. phase Piezo Injection of Diesel Fuel?, I feel this is the only solution.

Problem is in inherent design and application. Those engines are made for European market where most buyers of 6 cyl engines are people who drive on HWY a lot.
Than someone got an idea to sell those engines to different markets. Unless there is a lot of use outside of city, there will be problems. Those engines are derived from PSA V6, and they are nothing special. They never made break through in Europe next to MB, BMW or VW in 6 cyl. segment. On top of that, because of some issues with higher than avg. consumption compare to competition, those manufacturers recommend thinner oil. I would personally move to ACEA C3 oils. Thick 5W30 or thin 5W40 and cut OCI to 5K.
 
The only way, and I mean the ONLY way, to know for sure is to run a DOE test series looking at a range of engines that use DPF/regens causing dilution and those that do no, all of the same engine family. You'd need a lot of test engines for a base control group and yet again more for the variable group. The test protocol should include UOAs, PCs and teardowns (TDs) to assess overall effects of the fuel dilution. After all, to know how much lifespan may be affected by the dilution, you have to know how long an engine will last without dilution issues, to see if there is a corresponding loss of lifespan with the dilution.

Knowing that this is WAY, WAY past any BITOGer's pocket book and skill set, we can only look at UOAs in vehicles that have lower mileage accumulations, and make some inferences from the macro data. After all, who's going to tear down their Dmax, PSD, Cummins or even a marine engine with only two or three hundred hours on it ?????????

At first blush, there does not seem to be any statistically significant correlation between dilution and wear data as long as the OCIs are kept within OEM limits.
 
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