Oil Availability Rant...., Urgh Options

['73-914kid]

Today I planned on doing the first oil change in my car after doing the 6. The front cooler was always leaking, so I had kept adding enough oil that kept it relatively clean... the leak was fixed, and I had driven it for another 1,000 or so miles, no big deal, oil is dirty, time to change it.

Get a Mahle Filter yesterday, figure I'll go and get a case of Brad Penn like I always do from VW Paradise here in San Marcos. Apperantly, they aren't selling it anymore because they have to buy it in 80 case lots from Brad Penn. Fair enough, that's not very economical for a small shop.

So I've been driving around all damn morning to 4 or 5 different auto parts stores to try and find enough Valvoline VR1 to fill up this engine... Not happening. I've ended up with 8 quarts of the stuff. Need 6 more. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif)

So here I stand, 6 quarts of oil short, trying to do an oil change because with the local Brad Penn source nonexistant, I'm assuming everyone else who ran BP is buying up all the VR1 now. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/hissyfit.gif)

Anyways, rant over... and for those of you local to me, be warned, VW Paradise no longer sells the good stuff, so don't drive all the way here only to find out they don't have any.

[Jake Raby]

Diesel engines actually have different wear mechanisms than gasoline engines. For example, soot control is much much more important and diesel engine than a gasoline engine. In a diesel engine, soot particles can create more wear than anything else. Accordingly the best way to reduce where in a diesel engine is through such control, which means more dispersant additives.

High-speed gasoline engines do not suffer from soot related wear.

The point here is that just because an oil is better for wear in a diesel engine, does not mean it is better for wear in high-speed gasoline engine applications.

Different engines. Different mode of wear, and different lubricant chemistry. Fact is it took Diesel oils longer to be impacted by lubricant changes than gasoline oils, but once it hit them they became even more compromised.

My Duramax Diesel has 180K miles on it and makes 505 RWHP on my chassis dyno (spinning tires) and is filled with Joe Gibbs DP40 Turbo Diesel oil.

That said, I don't sell a single product outside of a complete engine anymore, that includes oil. Thank goodness!

It really doesn't matter to me which oil is used and I would not have even posted if this thread hadn't been sent to me by the owner of one of my engines that saw it. He then wanted to run Rotella, even though it specifically states in my 80 page engine manual NOT to use this oil.

Hell, Maybe we should all be using Mil-L-23699 Turbine Engine oil? If its so cool to use a lubricant thats designed for a completely different application, might as well go straight to Jet engine oil!