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SW OH | OK, the neighbors lawn mower comment was an exaggeration on my part. If it were given to me for free, I'd probably use, but keep the intervals shorter. We stayed using Rotella at the farm in the 80s, so it's been around a while. We never took any samples back then. I started working for JRJ on 8-6-99. It was all Pennzoil products back then. In about 01 we switched to Shell products, and to Caterpillar in 19.
With the Rotella 250 was the longest interval, but more went overdue then versus now. It was rare for 1 to go over 200% or 500 hours. Maybe 1 a year went over 500. I don't remember how those samples were. When we went to 500 hour intervals it took some time to get all the Rotella out of the system. A few of the sister companies went back to doing thier own oil changes to use up the Rotella so we did have some 500 hour data with Rotella. TBN is a computed number measuring the additive package of engine oil. Most start at 10 for new oil and 3.1 is the bottom of the passing scale. 500 hours on Rotella had results around 5. 500 hours on the CAT oil we currently use ends up around 7+.
A lot of opinions on Rotella make it to be the gold standard of oil. That may have been the case in the 80s. I don't know if the formulation of Rotella has changed any over the years. There are better oils today in my opinion.
Here's are samples from a 6BT Cummins. The oldest sample on the right is of Rotella with 357 hours. The 2 in the middle are Rotella. The far left is CAT oil with 955 hours, 1 that slipped through the cracks.
Mitchco
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Which is preferred oil
