Do diesel engines use regular oil? The short answer is no. Diesel engines are internal combustion engines, however they don’t use a spark plug to ignite the fuel mixture, they use compression, lots of cylinder pressure. Did you know oil spontaneously explodes when put under a certain amount of pressure? In the process of combustion in a diesel engine, the extra compression [as we call it] makes more heat upon explosion thus breaking down oil faster.
The extra pressure not only adds combustion waste & contaminants to the oil, but it breaks it down faster because of the heat. Non diesel oils will work in a diesel engine, that’s true, but you sacrifice an awful lot of reliability and dependability. The diesel engine oil must disperse the contaminants, keep them from forming harmful engine deposits while maintaining its viscosity and providing wear protection.
I’m a believer in lubrication, and for the price of good regular maintenance, why would anyone let it slide, or use the wrong products?
It is not how nice the bottle looks, or how much advertising you see on TV about particular brand of oil, it’s the application codes written on the bottle that counts. Specifications and approvals make the playing field level for everyone. There are two established testing bodies.
The API [American Petroleum Institute], and the European equivalent, the ACEA [Association des Constructeurs Europeens d’Automobiles – which was the CCMC]. There is no reason for the average person to have heard of either of them, but their stamp of approval will be seen on the side of every qualified bottle of engine oil.
The API classifications are different for gasoline and diesel engines:
1. For gas motors, listings start with ‘S’ [meaning Service category], followed by another code to denote standard. ‘SN’ is the current top grade, which recently replaced ‘SM’ and ‘SL’. ‘SH’ will be found on most expensive oils, and almost all the new synthetics. It’s an upgraded ‘SG’ oil which has been tested to take more heat and abuse.
2. For diesel oils, the first letter is ‘C’ [meaning Commercial]. ‘CJ’ is the highest grade as of now,[CJ-4 for heavy-duty] but ‘CH’ is the most popular and is very adequate for most vehicle applications.
Does that answer your question? I know lots of folks don’t run the right oil in their vehicles. The only one being fooled is the owner, the extra cost for the right oil pays for itself over and over.
If you happen to be reading this article as you are looking for a replacement diesel engine, call GotEngines.com now and get as much information as you need, that’s free.
1-941-269-8284.