Is Rotella Highly Detergent?

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Greg L

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This is a follow-up question, based on an observation I made last weekend with my truck.


Back in June, I put some 30w Rotella in my 1951 GMC truck, with 6-cyl.

It's been doing great, until I took it on a road trip (20 mile) out of town & back. Travel was done on country roads & speeds got up to about 45mph at the most. Oil pressure was good, about 45-50# average. And no overheating.


My question: since the truck has been home in the garage, more oil drips have been observed in the drip pan than ever before. Not gushing, but significant. I should note that 8 oz. of MMO was added with that last oil change. Should I be worried?

I suspect this all has to do with Rotella and its robust package, coupled with the MMO.


GL

p.s. I have used Pennzoil straight dino 30w up until this point, with very few drips compared to this.
 
The Rotella 30W has a HDEO additive package suitable for diesels, so it has about 3 times the detergents and dispersants as the regular Pennzoil 30W. Is this the first time you have used MMO?

Nice old truck.
 
Not the first time using MMO...have used it before with the Pennz 30 wt.

Never a problem before......


GL

-
 
clarification here:

The "so-called" high detergency on HDEO such as Rotella, etc. has to do with suspension of insoluables such as carbon soot from diesel engines, etc. and may not have to do with how well the motor oil can "clean" the inside of the engine.

If you want to perform cleaning, use AutoRx instead.
 
Counterpoint:


I'm not actually looking for high tensity cleaning of the engine; just observed that the oil drip was much more severe this time around with the use of Rotella vs. the standard Pennzoil dino.


Thanks for all the input, guys!!
smile.gif



GL
 
The detergent/disspersant package in Rotella is not going to clean any solids off of the seals! It will suspend more carbon,soot and other contaiments then a PCMO wich will keep the engine cleaner int he long run. The MMO is never a really good thing to put in to any vechile other then one that is sludged. It is hard to tell how thinning the oil and adding Chlorinated products to the oil is going to impact the seals. If these are origanal seals then I would suspect they are needing to be replaced. It has obviously been leaking for a while or you would not have a drip pan under it. So I am going to guess it is simply the natural progression of what ever caused the leak to begin with like age.
 
I had situation simular to yours only more severe. I and two other guys bought a used'70 Camaro to drive as a work car. It was shot to he ll when we bought it, with a lousy service history and a sludged up six cylinder engine, but we were mechanicing for a living at the time and it only cost us 300 bucks. Surprisingly, it ran well and after driving it a while we decided an oil change was long overdue. We used RPM Delo for the fill which must have been quite high in detergency because it started smoking right away! Within a month we had to install spark plug antifoulers and within a year it was comsuming a gallon of Delo a week - so much for changing the oil! On her final trip (before we threw her away) as we drove out of the Washburn tunnel in Pasadena, Tex the cloud that she emited climbing the grade coming out left the tunnel virtually unnavigatable. Since then I have avoided oils formulated for diesels like the plague. I have often wondered if I had AutoRXed the car instead of Deloed it would the results have been any better. Anybody familiar with AutoRX care to venture a guess? Cheers all! DV
 
I'd have to say the Delo had aboslutely nothing to do with it. Perhaps changing the oil but not Delo in particular. Detergency DOES NOT mean the oil is going to dissolve layers of crud on the inside of an engine. Heck, the oil originally formulated for that 70 Camaro probably had more detergents than the Delo!

No one has yet shown me any real evidence of an engine "cleaned" by using HDEOs.
 
I'm a bit more optimistic then you guys are. I'm thinking if you have a sludged up motor and start doing 500 mile OCI's with a half quart of MMO added each time, something is going to let loose.
wink.gif
 
You are probably right! Looking back, (we drove the car from '81 to'83) just the act of changing out the crude oil that was in the sump caused the immediate consumption issues. Perhaps we should refilled with hypoid oil! She 'twas a joy to drive - words can't describe what it feels like to drive the equivalent of a ground based sky writing biplane! Cheers!
 
lol, I almost fell for a bumble yellow and black 78 RS. I know the feeling.

Clyde, no one's saying anything about MMO (although I've never found it particularly effective). It's the mere act of using an HDEO.
 
quote:
Originally posted by BrianWC:
Clyde, no one's saying anything about MMO (although I've never found it particularly effective).
Click to expand...
See ... there you go again ... being pestimistic. It's not healthy to have such a negative outlook on life.
grin.gif
 
Not pessimistic, just years of snake oil purchases under my belt. Until I became a BITOG'er a few years back, I thought Restore was the best thing you could do for your engine.
grin.gif
 
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