[Donkey]

Did a service on my 98 Suzuki Sierra and purchased 5w-30 oil as per service manual, problem is I didn’t read the rest of the requirements and used an oil for Diesel engines, the oil I used is Penrite enviro+ c4 diesel. I thought I got the one that said diesel plus petrol. Anyways I just realized today, I’ve rung around and received different advice from the store that I got it and manufacturer though both seemed a little unsure. Is this a problem? Should I change it straight away? Will I need to change the new oil filter? Will I have to do anything in particular when I change(eg flish with engine flush)?

[Gwagensteve]

I’d run the oil as it is, it won’t cause any problems (in fact, the added zinc is probably a good thing) but if you change it, yes, always change the filter when you change the oil- the filter is far cheaper than the oil and if the oil is actually a problem don’t leave a bunch in the filter by not changing it.

[Donkey]

Gwagensteve wrote:

I’d run the oil as it is, it won’t cause any problems (in fact, the added zinc is probably a good thing) but if you change it, yes, always change the filter when you change the oil- the filter is far cheaper than the oil and if the oil is actually a problem don’t leave a bunch in the filter by not changing it.

Thanks for the tip mate.

[fordem]

From the Penrite web page - look for the underlined word...

Quote:

VEHICLE AND FUEL TYPES
ENVIRO+ C-4 is suitable for use in passenger cars, 4WDs & light commercial vehicles. It is not recommended for use in motorcycles. It can be used in light duty diesel engines with / without a DPF (Diesel Particulate Filter), Petrol, LPG (Dual Fuel & LPi Liquid Phase Injection) and E10 fuelled engines.

[shakes]

Gwagensteve wrote:

I’d run the oil as it is, it won’t cause any problems (in fact, the added zinc is probably a good thing) but if you change it, yes, always change the filter when you change the oil- the filter is far cheaper than the oil and if the oil is actually a problem don’t leave a bunch in the filter by not changing it.

I’ve always found this interesting.... motos typically change oil every few rides, and filter every second change. It holds I minor % of total and ‘dilution is a solution’

(I don’t disagree with you)

[Gwagensteve]

Few things to consider here.

An (educated) guess- I reckon the volume of oil in a motorbike engine is small and the filter (relatively) large.
I also bet that dilution with fuel from wetting the cylinder wall is a bigger problem with motorbikes than with cars.
If you're changing the oil every few hours of run time I agree changing the filter probably isn't necessary. Dirt bike engines probably have similar rebuild intervals to on-the-road car oil change intervals. Filtration isn't that important for a bike. The uselessness of bike air filters is proof of that.

However, cars run their oil for many many hours (lets say 10,000km/average vehicle speed=40km/h - 250 hours of run time) they run small filters and the cost of the filter is cheap compared to the cost of the oil.

Compare the size of the oil filter on a falcon 4.0 motor to a Detroit 4.53 so see how far engineers have reduced oil filtration for road driven cars in the interests of cutting cost and weight.

[fordem]

I have very clear memories of oil & filter change intervals being different back in my youth - it was common back then to do an oil change every 3000 miles and oil & filter, every 6000 miles - what's not so clear, is why it was done that way, and I no longer have access to owners & shop manuals from that era to determine if that was a recommendation, or just common practice. These would have been the days before the "spin on" cartridge filters that are common today, and a filter change meant removing the filter housing, removing the element and then washing everything out before reassembling with a new element and refitting - and keeping track of the various springs & washers and the sequence they were in.

[saph]

fordem wrote:

From the Penrite web page - look for the underlined word...

Quote:

VEHICLE AND FUEL TYPES
ENVIRO+ C-4 is suitable for use in passenger cars, 4WDs & light commercial vehicles. It is not recommended for use in motorcycles. It can be used in light duty diesel engines with / without a DPF (Diesel Particulate Filter), Petrol, LPG (Dual Fuel & LPi Liquid Phase Injection) and E10 fuelled engines.

As posted here its fine for petrol most oil makers do it the same make 1 big batch of oil just diffrent labels.

Your engine might like it better anyways so dont go running about like a headless chicken thinking you have wasted the cash plus it will show on the bottle 'for modern PETROL and DIESEL with DIESEL particulate filters'.

http://www.ausoil.net/products.php-id_c ... s=306.html is how i found its label.

[fordem]

saph wrote:

As posted here its fine for petrol most oil makers do it the same make 1 big batch of oil just diffrent labels.

I'm not certain I agree with that "big batch just different labels".

Oils for diesel engines have to be formulated differently to oils for gasoline engines, they need, among other things to trap soot, and hold it in suspension, diesel oils can in most cases be used in a gasoline engine with no harm, but the other way around there is a very real risk of long term engine damage - you might want to ask why not make a big batch suitable for diesels and label it as suitable for gasoline - it can be done, but the cost of the additive package is greater than that required for a gasoline engine oil, and cuts in to the manufacturers' profit margins.

For what it's worth, many of the oil manufacturers do market a blend of oil formulated for diesel and labelled for gasoline - it's aimed at "fleet operators" who have large quantities of vehicles and want to avoid having to stock oil for both types of engines - it costs more than the equivalent oil for either a diesel or gasoline engine.

[Gwagensteve]

Yeah, I'm with fordem - another major difference is emissions. Petrol engine oils now contain much lower levels of heavy metals, because when they're burned in the engine they're obviously emitted into the atmosphere. Diesel engines which operate at higher bearing loadings retain higher levels of metals in the additive pack to help the engines live, which is why I mentioned it's probably not bad for the motor at all to have diesel engine oil in it.

If you're curious, so some reading on oils for flat tappet cams through the hot rod community. There're some oil manufacturers that are specifically formulating oil for old school engines with flat tappet cams with added zinc to help them last.


Even if the base oil is shared between petrol and diesel grades, the additive pack is where the difference lies and what makes it specific to the application.

[sideways]

I reckon my dirt bike has a bigger oil filter element than my girlfriends Outback!

Personally I change the filter with every service on all my cars. I don't think it's at all necessary with my Toyotas massive Z9s but they're so cheap I figure it's not worth risking some sort of filter failure. FWIW for both my Toyotas they specify an oil filter change every second service. It makes sense with the size of the filter element.

Most of the time I cut the old oil filters open for a look. The outback and LS1 with their tiny filters have a fair bit of carbon type crap in them at the specified service intervals. The larger filters I can never spot anything like that, even the Suzuki filters would have an element with 3X+ the surface area on a motor with a fraction of the displacement. I figure the gunk is so much more spread out you can't see it.

[saph]

saph wrote:

fordem wrote:

From the Penrite web page - look for the underlined word...

Quote:

VEHICLE AND FUEL TYPES
ENVIRO+ C-4 is suitable for use in passenger cars, 4WDs & light commercial vehicles. It is not recommended for use in motorcycles. It can be used in light duty diesel engines with / without a DPF (Diesel Particulate Filter), Petrol, LPG (Dual Fuel & LPi Liquid Phase Injection) and E10 fuelled engines.

As posted here its fine for petrol most oil makers do it the same make 1 big batch of oil just diffrent labels.

qouting myself here as was pointed out by fordem and steve i meant the base oils and not the extra stuff thats put in.

[Gwagensteve]

Just some tangential ramblings

Out of interest I've just done an oil change on my FG XR6T (mobil 1 5W30) and ryco offer a superior filter that, they claim, takes the oil change interval out to 15,000km. I'm going to stick to 10,000km in any case, but it's interesting that perhaps filtration technology is where the extended change intervals we're now seeing are coming from, along with tighter tolerances and better fuel control that sees less cylinder wall wetting from unburned fuel etc.

My Defender was 20,000km oil change interval, and that changed from 10,000km between the 2.4 and 2.2 puma engines - same (?) engine architecture.

Also consider how few cars we now see on the road visibly smoking, I remember as a kid seeing cars with high oil consumption frequently. Now (Except for nikasil lined BMW motors ) its rare to see a smoking road car, and along with that, how clean the combustion is on modern cars. Not sure if you've noticed waiting at traffic lights with an old car idling next to you (let's say mid 80's or order - carby) and you can smell the unburned fuel. In the 60's and 70's our cities must have been toxic and I'm sure nobody really noticed.

[sideways]

Gwagensteve wrote:

Just some tangential ramblings

Out of interest I've just done an oil change on my FG XR6T (mobil 1 5W30) and ryco offer a superior filter that, they claim, takes the oil change interval out to 15,000km. I'm going to stick to 10,000km in any case, but it's interesting that perhaps filtration technology is where the extended change intervals we're now seeing are coming from, along with tighter tolerances and better fuel control that sees less cylinder wall wetting from unburned fuel etc.

My Defender was 20,000km oil change interval, and that changed from 10,000km between the 2.4 and 2.2 puma engines - same (?) engine architecture.

Also consider how few cars we now see on the road visibly smoking, I remember as a kid seeing cars with high oil consumption frequently. Now (Except for nikasil lined BMW motors ) its rare to see a smoking road car, and along with that, how clean the combustion is on modern cars. Not sure if you've noticed waiting at traffic lights with an old car idling next to you (let's say mid 80's or order - carby) and you can smell the unburned fuel. In the 60's and 70's our cities must have been toxic and I'm sure nobody really noticed.

Dunno where you've got that from, the 2.4 Defender was also 20000kms. Even the old TD5 was 20. TD5s have a neat oil filter setup, as well as a conventional oil filter there's a centrifuge that you replace like a spin on filter. TDV6 Discovery is a whopping 26000 between services with a solid 160000 between timing belt swaps. To make this happen they spec an expensive fully synthetic oil and the oil filter is huge. Of course, they would rarely be out of the workshop for that amount of time!