Zinc is still in Shell Rotella 30

[Guest Straight eight]

We still hear fatefull news about zinc leaving our favorite oils. I wrote to Shell Oil about their Rotella brand. Here is my letter, and their answer.

I have been using Rotella 30 for Years in my antique Buicks and

understand the latest version of Rotella has dramatically reduced the

amount of zinc. The overhead valve engine with non rollers valve

mechanism theoretically needs the zinc for the sliding friction. What

has happened to Rotella? Can I continue to use it in my antique

engines, or should I find another oil made just for the antiques with

zinc added?

----------------------------------------------

Clifford, there has been no reduction of zinc in the straight weight

Rotella oils such as Rotella T 30. There has been a slight reduction in

zinc for the multigrade Rotella T oils in order to meets the new API

CJ-4 specification. Rotella T 30 should still work well in your antique

Buicks.

Thank you for your interest in Shell products.

Richard Moore

Staff Engineer

Shell Global Solutions (US) Inc.

Westhollow Technology Center, PO Box 4327, Houston, TX 77210, United

States of America

1-800-231-6950

[Brian_Heil]

Of all the name brand non synthetic motor oils tested (something like 30) by the GM Fuels and Lubes Dept several years ago, guess which brand came in a distant last?

Shell.

Did it meet the API requirements? Yes.

First place? Texaco Havoline. Every other name brand was within test error of a tie for a very close second behind Havoline. Shell was a very distant third, specifically their Fire and Ice product line of the time.

Are all current API approved motor oils far superior to the oils of the 20's/30's/40's/50's/60's/70...? For certain.

Since they all cost about the same, I'll let you guess which brand I don't buy.

[Guest ZondaC12]

AND the debate RAGES on haha....

man maybe were too fussy about this crap. jeez youd think our engines were made of glass or something. im just stickin with whatever i can find that isnt SM and GL or whatever the G- one is. fortunately my local advance auto parts has quite a bit of brands and a few (including their own!) are like that. that and not pounding the hell out of my car helps too im sure!!!!

[Guest AntarcticDave]

Paul, check out this article from the Cadillac & LaSalle Club: http://www.cadillaclasalleclub.org/OldCarsNewOil.pdf - it changed my mind on whether I could ignore this issue. I started adding EOS, but that's been discontinued now too. This change I'll use a 20-50 racing oil, but eventually think I'll switch to Royal Purple XPR in a more appropriate viscoscity for my flathead.

[Guest Straight eight]

Gee Brian, are you REALLY being fair? Your comparison to Fire and Ice as an example of a private passenger oil used many years ago, to a very well known highly respected Commercial Vehicle oil being produced and used in long haul trucking as well as a lot of these Diesel Pickups today.

An employee of GM Diesel in Grand Rapids in the 60's introduced me to Rotella. He maintained that GM used it in all their diesels.

Since that time I have used nothing but Rotella in everything from my brand new Corvair, to my 40's Buicks without any engine problems in any of the cars I have owned.

Why not contact that same testing company and compare apples to apples, and see how the recommendation holds up today comparing Rotella, not Fire and Ice!!!

[Brian_Heil]

For a period of time (six years) I was responsible for the approval of the 'factory fill' motor oils released at the Buick Engine Plant #36 and also used/required in all our vehicle and dyno tests at Buick Product Engineering in addition to my other release responsibilites in the Base Engine Design Group.

The Shell data was so far off the others we had the Lab run it again. Same results. We had significant debates as to whether we should validate with Shell because it was so far below the rest yet made the API spec..

I have no data or experience with Rotella, only Shell as a company that produced a bare minimum Fire and Ice product when everyone else produced a far superior product. To me, that said something about the company as a whole and still does.

The oil we did use was Mobil (non synthetic). It was based on bulk cost more than anything (and that its performance was similar to all the others except Shell) when you buy it by the rail car tanker full. We would draw off 55 gallon drums full from the tanker at the engine plant and truck them down to the engineering building for use so we tested with the exact same thing that went out the door of the plant.

Interesting additional fact, we had similar results on Shell gasoline tests also.

[JalopyBob]

Brian; while what you say about Fire and Ice may be true, the subject here is Rotella. Why malign a product by inference when you have zero first hand experience with it? That is what Ralph Nader did with the Corvair.