[Gerald]

Snake Oil

[Greg]

Volvo says to use a 10-W30 oil that meets the VDS-4 or VDS-4.5 standard and doesn’t specify a brand. (they of course would be happy to sell Volvo branded oil to you) Detroit Diesel also had a list of approved oils and as long as you used one of them you should be fine.

We had over 200 tractors in our fleet and used no supplemental treatments and never had an oil related issue. Certainly none that would have been prevented by Schaeffer’s products.

I guess you can use what you want, and if the Schaeffer’s product meets all the specs it should be fine, but I bet it costs more than Delvac which is what a large number of people use. Delvac is also available most everywhere.

[Mark]

I freely admit to being a cynic about claims of superior products, whether it is engine oil or dog food.

Regarding engine oils and supplements I think I am on firm footing when I do not believe claims of better performance from oils or oil supplements because the biggest stakeholders regarding those claims are the engine manufacturers.

Let’s use any manufacturer selling engines to the OEM market. I know for a fact that they are expected to warranty their engines which means they not only look at the owner’s manual for the application, they also participate and certify the installation, speciffically with respect to cooling. So my take is that if Detroit or Cummins or any other manufacturer is not so excited that they do not mention or specify the product the odds are pretty good it might not be the best choice.

In fact my thinking is if the product is not mentioned the engine folks, they do not even want it in their engine. Any product that extends the life of an engine, reduces wear, improves mileage or performance is going to be strongly recommended by the engine manufacturer, because all of the above attributes really benefit the engine manufacturer. Their silence speak volumes.

[Reagan]

I know a racing engine and our Detroit Diesels are two different things. I’ve sat in on two Joe Gibbs Racing Oil presentations given by their oil chemists/engineers. Gibbs got into the race engine oil business after suddenly suffering a series of on-track engine failures in their Cup motors and then spent a million dollars in R&D to discover what the problem was. It boiled down to unique additives that had been quietly taken out of high performance engine oil at the behest of the EPA. My engine builder pointed me to Gibbs after he had similar problems with his 850hp engines and learned what Gibbs had done.

There are only a few suppliers of the synthetic base product that synthetic oils are made of; consequently as I understand it, synthetic oil start out pretty much the same. There is only one or two suppliers of special additives that are needed for the extreme performance engines to survive at high RPM. So I don’t think this argument is similar to one I recall in the old days over whether oil from Pennsylvania was better for your engine than oil from Texas.

In talking to both Gibbs and a Schaefer rep about engine oils, I discovered that beyond the synthetic base there are lots and lots of additives that go or could go into oil depending on the application and how the engines are use. For example an engine that issued daily or weekly (or has a short life like a race engine that gets town down often) shouldn’t need as much anti-corrosion additive as an engine that gets used only periodically … like some of our coaches, my race cars, as well as hot rods and collector cars.

In the Schaefer material supplied above one would have to be a lubricant chemist to understand how those claims are achieved and what was used to achieve them.

Its possible that this Schaefer oil is better for how some of our coaches are used, but how much better is open for discussion and probably testing.

Personally, I’m not too worried about engine problems as long as change the oil and filters regularly, don’t hammer a cold engine, use a recommended oil, and exercise the coach monthly. I just don’t see posts about engine problems on the Detroit Diesels on the PC Forum or the three or four Prevost FB pages I’m on.

[Archived]

To all:

Thanks for feedback on Schaeffer Oil.

Jon,

Dog food is probably more emotionally charge then engine oil.

[Archived]

But the people that sell either product are usually not shy about touting their product’s excellence.