As the opener cuts into the proverbial can of worms...

What do you folks think of Chevron Delo 400 15w40 oil? There has been much discussion about Shell Rotella (which we have used for years), but the Delo is about 30% cheaper in this area and I'm thinking of switching.

Have some trucker friends that swear by it,say it is better than Rotella, but I am from the old school that says,whatever oil you start an engine out on, it will die with. I know a lot of people will argue with me,until they are blue in the face, but I have seen more than one engine that never used a drop of oil start drinking oil by simply changing brands. The difference in the price of a gallon of oil is cheap compared to a rebuild.Personally I'll stay with the Rotella.

I have never had a problem, BUT, I have always upgraded when I changed and never downgraded.

I use it in all my equipment both gas and diesel

I use it in all my equipment both gas and diesel

I agree with welding man.I remember a long time ago the place I worked got a deal on some oil called Cummins Blue.Not all of the trucks ,but some of them used oil.We switched back to Rotella 15-40 after maybe a year and some that were burning oil,quit burning oil.Some that burned a lot of oil burned less oil.I dont remember any burning more oil and we had about 30 trucks or more considering we changed oil for some regular customers.Maybe 40 or 50 different trucks.On a lot smaller scale Ive seen the same thing with Delo oil.I tried it a couple of times in my truck but it burned more of it so I switched back.Ive heard it the other way tof course you cant always believe what you hear.Trucks will burn more oil if you idle a lot,or have a bad leak,or get it hot pulling a lot of mountains,so unless you stay right after it,it would be hard to say whether there was much difference or not.Somebody who always went the same route would know better than me because I hardly ever went to the same place in 15 years of driving,or at least not enough to tell a difference in something like that.Also different engines might be different too.I mostly had Cummins with a few Detroits sprinkled in there,and Detroits might like it better,at least I heard that somewhere.
From being a mechanic back in the 1980s,Rotella was a big improvement over the old series 3,or 30 weight for diesels.Rotella would make a set of bearings last about 3 times longer than series 3.Some engines ran a million miles before an overhaul using Rotella 15-40.I would think hard and study a lot before I switched.If its good enough it doesnt matter what the other stuff costs,you werent going to buy it anyway is how I look at it,unless there is a big difference,and then Id wonder if there was something wrong with it.A diesel costs a lot to fix over something like oil.Ive heard,though it was a long time ago,about engines blowing up because of oil being bad,or the wrong additives,or something.Delo ought to be good oil,but I dont know about changing oil on a engine either.

For that kind of savings on a name brand ol I'd sure make the switch. One reason Rotella costs more is Shell buys a lot of advertising that some of the other major refiners dont. Conoco, Chevron, Exxon, etc all have premium formulations for diesel engines. I've used most of them and cant tell any difference except cost. Right now I'm using Conoco as its cheaper by a wide margain by the drum than the others. By the gallon theres not much difference at my wholesaler but on a drum price it was almost 100 bucks cheaper.

swear by it...

when ever the new api oil tests come out, chevron delo passed em first everytime. usually with the oil that was already shipping. After doing all the research for a company I worked for, I quickly realize why the chevron is always the first oil sold out at most stores. even when it cost more, the first to pass new tests, the first to develop new additive packages for oils. at least in the past.

however I will use rotella or delvac as well.

It was chevron that developed the hydrotreatment process for making the group III ultra pure synthetic base oil that almost all modern hd oils use today. other wise you have to go with the natural gas developed based ester synthetics bases. The additive package that chevron developed 10 years ago was showing a million miles between overhauls on big rig trucks. Sadly that additive base was modified for the new catalytic converters and is not a robust as it used to be. The old additives were so good that they coated the high wear parts but also coated the catalytic converters as well. so moly and zddp (Zinc) additives got reduced.

Sadly companies that do the best work and are number one, only seem to last about 10 to 20 years and then some bone head cuts the research dollars to "maximumize profits" and then there are the mergers and acquisitions. so every american company ends up destroying itself from within when ever the founding leader leaves.. So we will probably see some jap or euro company take the lead in the near future.

My 1984 Mercury had nothing but Havoline , never had any internal problems, when I parked it last year it had 257,000 miles on it and the engine still ran fine.Dont switch brands.

What year is the engine? All the major oil co. are making oil for the engines built after 1995 and 2002 (gas and diesel) so if its older than that some research may be in order. Look up the API Oil Standards and do some reading. You will be Surprised! Bandit