Shell Rotella T6 5W-40 in Winter?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Originally Posted By: bluesubie
Originally Posted By: Brent_G
Originally Posted By: Bandito440
The turbo Subaru crowd loves T6 for a good reason. There are many UOAs showing it being very successful. Use it all winter with confidence, but if you can find the Canadian T6 0w-40, that should help out a bit in the coldest parts of the winter.


I didn't know UOA's were a valid way to gauge engine wear. Condition of the oil yes, but not engine wear.

Maybe my reading skillz are lacking, but I do not see Bandito mentioning using uoa's to gauge engine wear.

-Dennis

I didn't mention wear, but the quantity of wear metals in oil surely must be some indication of wear. Otherwise, why test for iron, copper, etc? Why would Blackstone mention elevated wear when those metals are high?
 
Originally Posted By: A_Harman
I'm not a fan of RT6 for gasoline turbo applications. I run it in my Dodge diesel Ram and it does just fine, but it never sees exhaust temperatures above 1300 F. Gasoline turbo's easily exceed 1650 F. Also, RT6 has a large amount of Magnesium-based detergency, which I try to avoid for gasoline engines. Like Caterham says, look for a full-synthetic with the Honda HTO-06 rating. Mobil 1 5w30 has it. AMSoil 0w30 Signature Series has it.


Why do you think the higher exhaust temperature is a problem, can the oil not hack it? Is a Gasolene oil like PU superior in this way?
 
Originally Posted By: Bandito440
Originally Posted By: bluesubie
Originally Posted By: Brent_G
Originally Posted By: Bandito440
The turbo Subaru crowd loves T6 for a good reason. There are many UOAs showing it being very successful. Use it all winter with confidence, but if you can find the Canadian T6 0w-40, that should help out a bit in the coldest parts of the winter.


I didn't know UOA's were a valid way to gauge engine wear. Condition of the oil yes, but not engine wear.

Maybe my reading skillz are lacking, but I do not see Bandito mentioning using uoa's to gauge engine wear.

-Dennis

I didn't mention wear, but the quantity of wear metals in oil surely must be some indication of wear. Otherwise, why test for iron, copper, etc? Why would Blackstone mention elevated wear when those metals are high?


I'll keep my comments for the the preceding posts to myself, but had to comment here. Blackstone's comments are nearly worthless. The spectroscopic results are and indication of wear only, and may be good for trending wear patterns (due to changes in use, OCI or oil choice.) In other words, seeing a very low bearing material in multiple UOA followed by severely elevated levels may indicate a failure.

What some, like me, use UOA results for, is to determine the suitability of a chosen oil for the intended interval. It doesn't matter if every one tells you you're crazy for running an OCI out to 7,500 miles if multiple UOA show that the oil is going strong.

That's not to say that my briefs wouldn't wad a little tighter if I saw my Fe rise 20 ppm for no reason after using M1 5W-30!

Curious, what's wrong with Mg in gas engines, A_Harman? EDIT: Just saw your post here
Originally Posted By: A_Harman
Metallic-based detergents (magnesium) in motor oil can lead to more ash deposits in the combustion chambers and exhaust valves. This can be a problem if the engine has a problem with oil consumption down the valve guides or past the rings. More ash deposits in a gasoline engine means more possibility of detonation or preignition. If your gas engines do not have problems with oil consumption, this should not be an issue.
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: gathermewool


Curious, what's wrong with Mg in gas engines, A_Harman? EDIT: Just saw your post here
Originally Posted By: A_Harman
Metallic-based detergents (magnesium) in motor oil can lead to more ash deposits in the combustion chambers and exhaust valves. This can be a problem if the engine has a problem with oil consumption down the valve guides or past the rings. More ash deposits in a gasoline engine means more possibility of detonation or preignition. If your gas engines do not have problems with oil consumption, this should not be an issue.


Interesting, Doesn't the likes of M1 HM 10w40 use high Mg? And this is intended for older worn engines.
 
Originally Posted By: LaszloToth
Originally Posted By: CATERHAM
One of the benefits of an OP gauge is that it makes choosing the right oil viscosity easy with no guessing.


Super information, Caterham. And we're neighbours, too.

Your welcome.
Do you live in T.O. proper or are you west of the city like me?
 
Originally Posted By: A_Harman
I'm not a fan of RT6 for gasoline turbo applications. I run it in my Dodge diesel Ram and it does just fine, but it never sees exhaust temperatures above 1300 F. Gasoline turbo's easily exceed 1650 F. Also, RT6 has a large amount of Magnesium-based detergency, which I try to avoid for gasoline engines. Like Caterham says, look for a full-synthetic with the Honda HTO-06 rating. Mobil 1 5w30 has it. AMSoil 0w30 Signature Series has it.


I'm curious why you think avoiding Magnesium for gasoline cars is good? Does magnesium have a more detrimental effect on charge octane than other detergent additives? Concerns about deposits as others have posited? Why would that be worse in gasoline cars? Lots of ILSAC oils have high amounts of Mg these days, including Castrol Edge and Mobil 1. Also, what do EGTs have to do with it? Turbo Subarus were allowed conventional oil until 2011, RT6 is certainly more thermally stable than any conventional 5w30. The Subaru turbocharger is water cooled. Many track driven turbo Subarus use RT6, with good results.

You guys who recommend HTO-06 need to read it and TEOST 33C, they're nearly identical. Since Honda no longer makes the RDX with the turbo K23 engine, and GF-5 reintroduced TEOST 33C, HTO-06 is effectively obsolete. Looking for it as evidence of a superior oil today is a fool's errand. Any GF-5 5w30 basically meets it. For example Honda Ultimate Synthetic meets it (of course), but Kendall GT-1 no longer claims to, even though it's very similar to Honda Ultimate. HTO-06 is all about coking in the turbo bearings, a problem Subaru turbos never had.

Originally Posted By: Miller88
For some reason they are convinced that M1 causes the engines to fail.

Has nothing to do with the fact that they are running huge amounts of boost on stock internals ... or flogging the living daylights out of the car.


Many Subaru kidiots have the erroneous impression that Mobil 1 the brand is bad, they get this impression because it's the most common synthetic oil. That said, the SM formula of M1 5w30 was particularly bad about shearing and many turbo Subarus went to an early grave due to spun bearings while running it. The real villain is resource conserving 5w30 of any brand in these highly stressed engines with marginal bearing design and an aggressive factory tune or modifications. The API SN versions of popular oils seem to be a bit better than their SM forbears and Subaru's tuning seems to have improved a bit. Nobody with a tuned turbo Subaru should be using Resource Conserving oil.

LaszloToth -
How much do you drive in the winter?

A good Resource Conserving synthetic 5w30 will be fine in a Toronto winter, but don't take the car to the track with it, and most Subaru owners wouldn't recommend using it on the street in the summer either. If you drive less than 5,000 miles in the winter you could use RT6 or some flavor of 0w40 and run it until after your first track day in the summer.

I've used RT6 in my WRX in a Minnesota winter, it works fine. It's a bit thicker than optimal, but as gathermewool said, with a good starting system it's not a problemm at all. Minneapolis is colder than Toronto, and I often drive to Northern MN. My mother used RT6 for years in her VW Tdi in Northern Minnesota, as have thousands of Canadian Tdi owners.

Pay no attention to Rover driving "experts" who don't understand that oil pressure doesn't tell you the lubrication state of your bearings.
 
Originally Posted By: gpshumway
Originally Posted By: A_Harman

Pay no attention to Rover driving "experts" who don't understand that oil pressure doesn't tell you the lubrication state of your bearings.[/quote]

That's exactly what it does.
OP correlates directly to HTHSV which is sometimes referred to as "bearing viscosity". Maintaining a certain known safe minimum OP is a proxy for running an safe minimum operational viscosity.
If you can maintain that minimum desired OP with a 3.1cP HTHSV 5W-30, when the oil sees maximum oil temp's then there are only disadvantages to running anything heavier.
Yes you will see likely see higher oil temp's at high speed tracks where WOT can be maintained for extended periods of time, I certainly do. But with experience you'll learn first hand through the use of an OP gauge (plus an optional oil temp' gauge to get the complete picture) just how heavy an oil you actually require.

An OP gauge will also tell you if you are running an excessively heavy oil. The last thing you want is to run an oil that's so heavy you're oil pump is in by-pass at elevated rev's at normal operating temp's. That's totally counter-productive.

while avoiding running excessively high OP, and certainly in by-pass mode at elevated rev's is the
 
Originally Posted By: gpshumway



You guys who recommend HTO-06 need to read it and TEOST 33C, they're nearly identical. Since Honda no longer makes the RDX with the turbo K23 engine, and GF-5 reintroduced TEOST 33C, HTO-06 is effectively obsolete. Looking for it as evidence of a superior oil today is a fool's errand. Any GF-5 5w30 basically meets it. For example Honda Ultimate Synthetic meets it (of course), but Kendall GT-1 no longer claims to, even though it's very similar to Honda Ultimate. HTO-06 is all about coking in the turbo bearings, a problem Subaru turbos never had.




Thank you for this informative post.
 
Originally Posted By: gpshumway
A_Harman said:
LaszloToth -
How much do you drive in the winter?

A good Resource Conserving synthetic 5w30 will be fine in a Toronto winter, but don't take the car to the track with it, and most Subaru owners wouldn't recommend using it on the street in the summer either. If you drive less than 5,000 miles in the winter you could use RT6 or some flavor of 0w40 and run it until after your first track day in the summer.


I've run 15W-40 Amsoil in the Summer for DD and track events, and now it looks like it's RT6 0W-40 for the Winter. I estimate I will drive 8,000 km in the Winter, which is essentially 5,000 miles.
 
Originally Posted By: CATERHAM
Originally Posted By: LaszloToth
Originally Posted By: CATERHAM
One of the benefits of an OP gauge is that it makes choosing the right oil viscosity easy with no guessing.


Super information, Caterham. And we're neighbours, too.

Your welcome.
Do you live in T.O. proper or are you west of the city like me?


Yonge & Eglinton, or Midtown - which is the centre of the city. We share racing area racing tracks; Toronto Motorsports Park, Can Tire Motorsport Park (Mosport) - including the brand new DDT for 2014, and maybe even Shannonville if you want to venture out a few hours on the other side of Toronto.

I'm with the SPDA car Club [Subaru Performance Drivers Association]
 
Originally Posted By: LaszloToth
Originally Posted By: gpshumway
A_Harman said:
LaszloToth -
How much do you drive in the winter?

A good Resource Conserving synthetic 5w30 will be fine in a Toronto winter, but don't take the car to the track with it, and most Subaru owners wouldn't recommend using it on the street in the summer either. If you drive less than 5,000 miles in the winter you could use RT6 or some flavor of 0w40 and run it until after your first track day in the summer.


I've run 15W-40 Amsoil in the Summer for DD and track events, and now it looks like it's RT6 0W-40 for the Winter. I estimate I will drive 8,000 km in the Winter, which is essentially 5,000 miles.

If you still feel compelled to run a 40wt oil in the winter, Mobil 1 0W-40 is a far better choice plus it will be more than heavy enough for summer time track use.
 
Originally Posted By: gathermewool

Curious, what's wrong with Mg in gas engines, A_Harman? EDIT: Just saw your post here
Originally Posted By: A_Harman
Metallic-based detergents (magnesium) in motor oil can lead to more ash deposits in the combustion chambers and exhaust valves. This can be a problem if the engine has a problem with oil consumption down the valve guides or past the rings. More ash deposits in a gasoline engine means more possibility of detonation or preignition. If your gas engines do not have problems with oil consumption, this should not be an issue.


Wow, you went back and found my old post that I was looking for!
 
Originally Posted By: LaszloToth
Originally Posted By: gpshumway
A_Harman said:
LaszloToth -
How much do you drive in the winter?

A good Resource Conserving synthetic 5w30 will be fine in a Toronto winter, but don't take the car to the track with it, and most Subaru owners wouldn't recommend using it on the street in the summer either. If you drive less than 5,000 miles in the winter you could use RT6 or some flavor of 0w40 and run it until after your first track day in the summer.


I've run 15W-40 Amsoil in the Summer for DD and track events, and now it looks like it's RT6 0W-40 for the Winter. I estimate I will drive 8,000 km in the Winter, which is essentially 5,000 miles.


An excellent choice. Will you be so bold as to leave it in for your first track session? Most tracked WRXs have very short OCIs, it would be interesting to see a UOA.
 
Originally Posted By: gpshumway
An excellent choice. Will you be so bold as to leave it in for your first track session? Most tracked WRXs have very short OCIs, it would be interesting to see a UOA.


Nope. The WRX/STi oil change interval is 6,000 km, and I believe this is because of the filter size. It's small. I'll change it again before the first track day, and run a thicker Amsoil.

And great timing too, as my employer (Canadian Tire) has 5L jugs of Rotella T6 0/5W-40 on special for $34.39 plus tax this week!
smile.gif
 
Well, the newer cars use the same filter and have 7,500 mi OCIs, so I don't think it's the filter capacity. Your manual lists OCIs for conventional.

No problem changing it though.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top