[s-cars] Diesel oil?

[Djdawson2 at aol.com]

You can safely run diesel oil... and I always do in my cars.  However,  I can 
only report on one engine where I used it for a very long time.  I  had an 86 
Scirocco that I bought in 89 with about 90k miles on it.  I  exclusively ran 
Shell Rotella T (15-40 mineral based oil) in that car.  I  actually sold that 
car to a friend, who owned it for 2 years running the same  oil.  Then I got 
the car back through a trade on another car.  I kept  it for about 2 more 
years, and again sold it after moving to CO... to another  friend.  When I lost 
contact with the car in 97, it had 260k on it... had  never been apart, not even 
for a valve job.  I would say the results speak  for themselves.
 
Other things...  Diesels do not run hotter, in terms of coolant  temps.  
Diesel fuel does, however, put out more heat energy than  gasoline.  You can 
always expect a Diesel rated oil to have a greater  detergent load, and as a 
result, will keep the engine cleaner.  They are  also subjected to more extreme 
tests to get their ratings.  The S ratings  you see on the package are for gas 
spec, and the C ratings are for diesel  spec.  Typically, the higher the 2nd 
letter, the more extreme service the  oil will tolerate.  Bargain shoppers that 
find a case of oil at the K-Mart  for $10 can take a quick look at the cans, and 
typically find the oil rated for  SA or SB service.  If you are buying any 
such oil for any reason other than  changing oil in your air compressor, you're 
making a big mistake.
 
I currently use the synthetic version of Rotella in my cars.
FWIW,
Dave