Shell Rotella T

Has anyone tried SHell's Rotella T SAE-5W40 CJ-4, CI-4+, CI-4, CH-4, CG-4, CF/SM?

I have an 06TDI 1.9L (PD) about 100K mi.

I realize the bottle is not stamped with the VW 505.01 approval.

My search results have given mixed responses.

TIA

I use it in my ALH and Xterra.. Its not rated for the PD engine however.

oh..guess i should return it then

...anyone else use it an have uoa with positive results. One search resulted in one member with a positive experience.

Anyone learn "The hard way" with this oil

I have run it in my B4 and 540i and like it. Check out the Mobil 1 TDT mafia thread on this forum for another alterative.

If I were you I would use the M1 ESP FM 5W-40. Great UOA results using this oil in my PD_BHW

casteld73 said:

Anyone learn "The hard way" with this oil

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The "hard way" may cost you a new camshaft unless you use the correct oil.

If your VW requires VW 505.01 I strongly urge you to take that advice.

T_D_I_POWER said:

If I were you I would use the M1 ESP FM 5W-40. Great UOA results using this oil in my PD_BHW

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yeah... just wait , the camshaft will wear out anyway, it just takes longer with better oil

Well 505.01 is one thing, there is better oil on the market that are not label 505.01 because that cost money to get approuved. I like the shell rotella T and the target market is heavy diesel equipment, buses and trucks. its not worthed for them to spend money out for little VW engine that takes 4.2L an oil change. they are aprouved cummins detroit catepillar johndeere because they take 20L-40L an oil change and they probably change it twice as much a normal vw tdi would in a time line.

I used ELF DID 505.01 oil for 4 years and 180 000km later I have blue cam lobs(over heat) and metal shearring down in the oil. I have a brand new cam at home ready. i pored the rotella T 15W40 in there by the way a true diesel oil not like most of the 505.01 approuved. I will check the cam and metal shearing in 8000 km and see what a non 505.01 will do.

My girlfriend highly modified TDI is running the rotella T 0W40 and it runs like a charm, after 8000km you can fell the oil when it came out it was nice and still fell good too

traxterXT said:

.. there is better oil on the market that are not label 505.01 because that cost money to get approuved.

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Maybe maybe not. Oil is not a product that you can say oil A is better than oil B. Oil A may be best for certain cars, not not as good for other cars. Automotive oils are complex products and they are used in complex engines. In addition both the oils and the engines keep changing.

I will continue to only use oils that meet the car manufacturer's specifications.

I see people are still pretending CJ-4 oils are inferior to 505.01 crap.

Nothing to see here...

velociT said:

I see people are still pretending CJ-4 oils are inferior to 505.01 crap....

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Inferior in what way? Superior in what way?

Well you all scared me out of Rotella-T.

Got Mobil 1 TDT 5w40. 100Kmi on the car. Hopefully another 100 to come.

Was using Castrol 5w30 505.01 as sold by dealers.


In hindsight I think I would have been fine with Rotella-T but who knows and I wanted to use an oi that others members have been using and have had sucessfull results with their UOA.

I've run Rotella-T CJ-4 for the last 50,000 miles or so. Motor seems a little quieter, but could just be my perception. I made the switch from Elf when they changed their oil formulation and 5w-40 was no longer available. There have been uoa's posted here from Rotella-T users and the results were very good.

I've only managed 212,000 miles out of my '06 Jetta so far, so we will see what the long term brings.

You have a link to the UOA's for the rotella?

Edit: Nevermind, I found it.

casteld73,

If you don't want your Rotella T, you can ship it my way. I've been using it for 7,500 miles with no issues.

For UOAs, I'm not sure if you looked here or not:
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=205814

casteld73 said:

Well you all scared me out of Rotella-T.
Got Mobil 1 TDT 5w40. 100Kmi on the car. Hopefully another 100 to come.
Was using Castrol 5w30 505.01 as sold by dealers.
In hindsight I think I would have been fine with Rotella-T but who knows and I wanted to use an oi that others members have been using and have had sucessfull results with their UOA.

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You may be right that the Rotella T 5w40 would have worked just fine. But even with the older engines, some of us decided a long long time ago that the extra protection with Mobil Delvac 1 5w40 or Mobil 1 5w40 was worth paying a little bit more.

That may be why the pioneers that decided to try using an API-rated oil instead of a VW-rated oil in their PD engines, picked Mobil 5w40 and not the Shell Rotella. Rotella is fine, but Mobil 1 is better. And now there are many, many used-oil test results of the Mobil oil, but few or none with the Rotella T.

TornadoRed said:

You may be right that the Rotella T 5w40 would have worked just fine. But even with the older engines, some of us decided a long long time ago that the extra protection with Mobil Delvac 1 5w40 or Mobil 1 5w40 was worth paying a little bit more.
That may be why the pioneers that decided to try using an API-rated oil instead of a VW-rated oil in their PD engines, picked Mobil 5w40 and not the Shell Rotella. Rotella is fine, but Mobil 1 is better. And now there are many, many used-oil test results of the Mobil oil, but few or none with the Rotella T.

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not according to the post right above yours... The rotella cj4 outperformed everything else. You are simply making statements that mobil > rotella t. While you are entitled to your own opinion, please share your proof.

Also, please do not take this the wrong way, as you can see from my post count I am a newb to tdi's. I want to know which is the best oil to use for my car.

gilberjj said:

not according to the post right above yours... The rotella cj4 outperformed everything else. You are simply making statements that mobil > rotella t. While you are entitled to your own opinion, please share your proof.

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Copying from the top post in that linked thread, and comparing apples to apples and oranges to orange, results in a different conclusion:

Oil Performance in descending order with 2 or more entries. 8/25/09

Shell Rotella T CJ4 5W40 API 2
Amsoil DEO CJ4 5W40 API 2
Mobil 1 TDT CI4+ 5W40 API 9
TOTAL MC3 VAG 4
Schaeffer S9000 CJ4 505.01 5W40 API 2
Mobil TDT CJ4 5W40 API 2
Mobil 1 Delvac ESP CJ4 5W40 API 5
Elf LLX 504/407 5W30 VAG 6
Mobil 1 ESP 504/407 5W30 VAG 4
Castrol Pro 505.01 5W30 VAG 4
Castrol SLX III 504/507 5W30 VAG 5
Shell Rotella T CI4+ 5W40 API 7

If you compare the API CI-4 versions of each, then Mobil 5w40 ranked 3rd and Shell Rotella T 5w40 ranked 12th. The sample size is pretty small.

The sample size of the CJ-4 versions of each, two tests submitted for each oil, is too tiny to draw any conclusions at all.

I don't have anything bad to say about Shell Rotella, in any of its formulations.

Additionally, what is not shown in the database is whether the tested oils could have gone longer between drains. A high percentage of Mobil 5w40 tests showed that an extended oil drain interval was possible.

TornadoRed said:

Copying from the top post in that linked thread, and comparing apples to apples and oranges to orange, results in a different conclusion:



If you compare the API CI-4 versions of each, then Mobil 5w40 ranked 3rd and Shell Rotella T 5w40 ranked 12th. The sample size is pretty small.

The sample size of the CJ-4 versions of each, two tests submitted for each oil, is too tiny to draw any conclusions at all.

I don't have anything bad to say about Shell Rotella, in any of its formulations.

Additionally, what is not shown in the database is whether the tested oils could have gone longer between drains. A high percentage of Mobil 5w40 tests showed that an extended oil drain interval was possible.

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I agree that there is far too little info to simply draw a conclusion based on the results above. Most of all that the drivers and cars are different. That being said, I've never heard of an engine gernading while using Rotella T. I have found that many people are willing to bash Rotella, or they are unwilling to try it. That's what's going in my car. And believe me, if anything happens while using Rotella T, I'll be the first to say!

I haven't seen too many UOA's from either the Rotella or the Amsoil DEO in the PD engines. But I'd expect either one to generally outperform a VW 505.01 product, both in terms of wear rates and extended drain capability. It seemed as though the Mobil 1/TDT was the first API spec oil to be tested in a PD engine (by GMARK?), so it makes sense that other folks would feel comfortable using it after that. I expect if you took some of the other products from Bob Fouts list of API/CJ-4 oils, you'd find they also work in the PD motors....

TS

Thoughts on this?
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showpost.php?p=2700717&postcount=16

BleachedBora said:

2) Wrong oil/hot shutdowns cooking seals; hard to prove hot shutdowns so I tend to group it into the abuse catigory. However, we are seeing a lot of Rotella users lately that have cooked turbos (about 10 in the last 4-months or so). Since they changed the formula of Rotella it appears that it does NOT protect the turbo the way it did in the past. Some of the turbos we've had torn down I was told had blue heat markings internally which tends to support the claim that they are running hot. I wouldn't recommend that oil anymore for those reasons.

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John B. said:

Thoughts on this?
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showpost.php?p=2700717&postcount=16

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Two thoughts.
1) I like Aaron and trust Aaron, but he is the only one who connected these dots and said that something was wrong with Rotella T 5w40.

Millions of people use Shell Rotella, and Shell spent a lot to build up the reputation of Rotella. It just wouldn't make sense for them to cheapen the product and risk destroying the reputation. I can't explain a surge in the number of turbo failures but I'd want to see some evidence that the motor oil caused or contributed to the failures. Used-oil test results, for example, and unfortunately I'll bet no tests were performed.

2) That would have been the previous formulation of Rotella anyway, not the newest stuff with T6 on the label. With T6, Shell is trying to persuade Mobil Delvac/TDT users to switch with a "just as good but cheaper price" argument.

I'll keep spending a few dollars more each oil change with Mobil, but without more information about Rotella I don't see a reason for Rotella users to switch.

John B was there any more in that thread?
I have not seen anything on bitog regarding Rotella cj4 5w40 damaging turbos or anything else.

TornadoRed said:

Two thoughts.
1) I like Aaron and trust Aaron, but he is the only one who connected these dots and said that something was wrong with Rotella T 5w40.

Millions of people use Shell Rotella, and Shell spent a lot to build up the reputation of Rotella. It just wouldn't make sense for them to cheapen the product and risk destroying the reputation. I can't explain a surge in the number of turbo failures but I'd want to see some evidence that the motor oil caused or contributed to the failures. Used-oil test results, for example, and unfortunately I'll bet no tests were performed.

2) That would have been the previous formulation of Rotella anyway, not the newest stuff with T6 on the label. With T6, Shell is trying to persuade Mobil Delvac/TDT users to switch with a "just as good but cheaper price" argument.

I'll keep spending a few dollars more each oil change with Mobil, but without more information about Rotella I don't see a reason for Rotella users to switch.

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After 7 Tdi's (1 PD), at least 500,000 miles I've never had a Turbo failure... but you know what? I've lost three DMF Clutches, I bet money the clutch failures were related to the Rotella oil. Yes Sir-Ree... I'm sorry, I say "fooey" on turbo failures with Rotella. I bet the same turbos would have failed with Mobil or any of the other top 5. (Yes I am a Mechanic.)

silverbox said:

John B was there any more in that thread?
I have not seen anything on bitog regarding Rotella cj4 5w40 damaging turbos or anything else.

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AFAICT, it is only Bleachbora's opinion as stated in around 5 threads on these forums. I'm not saying it is true. I just thought it should be brought up.

shell makes a European blend that i use works great its synthetic good for 10,000 miles

FlyTDI04 said:

shell makes a European blend that i use works great its synthetic good for 10,000 miles

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Which oil is this?

sry wrong product pennzoil makes a full synthetic European formula 5W-40

FlyTDI04 said:

sry wrong product pennzoil makes a full synthetic European formula 5W-40

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Pennzoil and Quaker State are both divisions of Royal Dutch Shell. (so is Jiffy Lube)