Engine oil T4 vs T5

[sailingharry]

I have a 98 Yanmar 4JH2E. I'm not much of a believer in high priced engine oils, kind of a traditional guy. I have always used Rotella T4, in my Yanmar and my old Volvo before that. My current car, a 2002, gets conventional oil, and the 94 I had before that as well.

But I was about to place an order, and Amazon will sell me 3 gallons of T4 for $70, or 3 gallons of T5 synthetic blend for $57. Kind of startled me!

So the question is, is there any reason not to use T5? Is T4 more than just 'traditional," but becoming obsolete?

[rslifkin]

Sometimes pricing can do weird stuff like that. On an engine that doesn't particularly abuse its oil and doesn't need synthetic, you can use either. The T5 might let you go a little longer between changes, but I'd want to back that up with oil analysis.

I can't see any reason not to use the T5, so if it's cheaper, I'd go for it.

[pcmm]

If you can, just go to Walmart and get your T4. Amazon prices for oil are often jacked up far above retail pricing!

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by pcmm

If you can, just go to Walmart and get your T4. Amazon prices for oil are often jacked up far above retail pricing!

This. You can buy 2-gallon containers at Walmart

[Oldwheels]

Oil is like women to men. We all like them but each has a special quality.
I personally run synthetic in everything. The main advantage to synthetics is life span. Easily twice the life span of mineral oils. This has been proven time and again thru oil analysis.
I have the same engine as you and change once yearly. About 250 hours, This oil also lube my transmission. I run 15-50. I have cut apart my filters and run oils analysis. Always well with in spec.
Mineral oil will give great service also. Just needs to be service more frequently.
Both should give you a 10-15,000 hour engine easily.

[sailingharry]

Originally Posted by pcmm

If you can, just go to Walmart and get your T4. Amazon prices for oil are often jacked up far above retail pricing!

Well, color me stupid!

I had previously price shopped it, and the three gallon pack at Amazon was the best deal around. But that was 2 years ago. Today, that works out to $23 a gallon.

Walmart has it at $16.78 a gallon -- or a three pack at $23 a gallon.

Walmart can get it for me today!

As far as changing interval, I am preparing to do an oil test this fall that will be close to the recommended change interval. If prior experience is an indication, I will see that contamination and TBN both support considerably longer intervals. I'm interested in seeing the results.

[pcmm]

Originally Posted by sailingharry

Well, color me stupid!

I had previously price shopped it, and the three gallon pack at Amazon was the best deal around. But that was 2 years ago. Today, that works out to $23 a gallon.

Walmart has it at $16.78 a gallon -- or a three pack at $23 a gallon.

Walmart can get it for me today!

As far as changing interval, I am preparing to do an oil test this fall that will be close to the recommended change interval. If prior experience is an indication, I will see that contamination and TBN both support considerably longer intervals. I'm interested in seeing the results.

Thats a decent price. In Canada (where I am) walmart sells 5l jugs (which is 1 oil change on my 4JH2E) for $29 the exact same jug on Amazon is $75... Not rocket science for me.

[rslifkin]

Amazon vs Walmart pricing on oil varies. Sometimes Amazon has good pricing, sometimes they don't, so I always check both before ordering. Lately Walmart has been better most of the time.

[Uncle G]

There's a school of thought that says it's a bad idea to put a modern hi-spec oil in an old engine:

Oil for yacht engines – Cox Engineering

"Subsequent discussions with both Yanmar technical and the Shell oil laboratories suggested that we had unwittingly committed two sins, the major one being that we had followed the normal idea of being kind to our engine by giving it good oil – a semi synthetic. Yanmar insisted that putting a higher grade modern oil in an old design engine was asking for trouble. I was sceptical so I spoke independently to Shell laboratories and to my surprise they said the same thing. They went so far as to say that we should never use synthetics in old design engines since there were components in the oil that could cause accelerated wear."

[rslifkin]

Putting synthetic in an engine that doesn't need it won't hurt the engine. And it won't cause leaks. That's all an old wives tale. Now, you can have an old engine that needs high levels of ZDDP or certain other additives that have been changed in newer oil specs, but synthetic vs not isn't an issue there. Anything of newer spec is likely to be a concern in those situations, so you may have to hunt down some specialty oils that fit the need better.

[NorthCoastJoe]

I have some old tractors from the 1960's, The gear oil ( transmission, hydraulic )in them must be old type mineral oil if you use modern oil in them you will eat the white metals that make up the bearings and bushings. But I do use multi weight in the engines with no problems.

I would love to see more data about marine engines, and oils.

[catalystcat]

Somewhat lesser known is Rotella from BJs.

Rotella Triple T is 6gal for $96.

$16/gal.

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by NorthCoastJoe

I have some old tractors from the 1960's, The gear oil ( transmission, hydraulic )in them must be old type mineral oil if you use modern oil in them you will eat the white metals that make up the bearings and bushings. But I do use multi weight in the engines with no problems.

I would love to see more data about marine engines, and oils.

Good point. The white metal thing isn't a synthetic base stock issue, but an additive package issue. That's where you have to be careful of when an oil spec is forward compatible or not.