Thank you very much bro zeng for your detailed analysis..

No bro, this Shell Helix Protect 0W-30 SN+ A3B4 is not diesel specific engine oil, it just carries the ACEA A3/B4 spec that satisfies the manual

In your honest opinion bro zeng, should I continue with ACEA B class engine oil, or should I use diesel specific HDEO, better spec-ed ones like Shell Rimula R6 LM 10W-40 full synthetic API CK-4 or Shell Rimula R5 LE 10W-40 semi synthetic API CJ-4, for extended interval, in which only available in 20L pail here.

The only diesel specific 30 weight oil available here is this one

Total Quartz Diesel 9000 5W-30 full synthetic API CI-4

Like I said, your oil actually looks very clean but the oil is not doing its job in terms of detergent and dispersants. My diesel oil is black in color even though it's 1000km used only. If I got time, then I will take some pictures for you.

It is worrying that you can see soot particles in your oil sump which means your oil filter is not doing its job too.

From all your oils, I would recommend you use Delo Sports semi-Synthetic 10W-30. Good all rounder to give you high detergents and good fuel economy. Reason being is Delo Sports Semi Syn has very high amount of detergents that even Rimula R4X, Rimula R5 LE, Rimula R6 LM or Rimula Ultra cannot beat. The only one that can come close to it is Delvac 1 Fully Synthetic but that is so expensive.

Someone's UOA for Delo sports synthetic blend 10w-30 (credit to Winko Industrial):


This post has been edited by e-lite: Apr 29 2021, 03:03 PM


Attached thumbnail(s)

Thanks for the clarification bro e-lite, will change the oil to Caltex Delo immediately.
Weirdly enough, Delo Sports semi synthetic 10W-30 is rare in my area, only 15W-40 is available, I believe the detergents & dispersants formula is the same aside from it's higher viscousity.

Agree with your assessment that dispersancy property of this Helix Protect 0W30's supposedly A3B4 appears to be failing and weakly at 4810 km usage in this Hilux Revo diesel engine, though it is fine for now.

Would be interesting to see how it will develop with time and continuing usage ......

This post has been edited by zeng: Apr 29 2021, 07:20 PM

🤔 your statement kinda got me curious too bro zeng, maybe I should try to extend it's usage & see how it develops over time, blotter test every 1k km

I forgot to mention that I've used Liqui Moly Pro-Line engine flush prior to this oil change, not sure if it affects the dispersancy of current oil...

All the 5 oils above are properly certified/claimed Heavy Duty Engine Oil HDEO diesel (CI4,CJ4, CK4, ACEA E7 ,E9 ) with various truck OEMs' approvals whose detergency/dispersancy properties requirements are very much higher that of a properly certified/claimed ACEA A3B4 PCMO meant for Light Duty Truck.


May I know what is the Euro spec of current 'normal' diesel fuel here other than the Euro 5 diesel on offer?
Euro 4 of 50 ppm sulphur ??

I used to hear horror stories of later model diesel truck engines having very pricy fuel injectors being damaged by Euro 2 (?) diesel fuels then.

Not sure if current diesel engines and its injectors are totally fine with current 'normal' Euro 3-4 diesel fuel.

Is it a waste of money for current later model trucks using Euro 5 diesel, which is supposed to be friendly providing good cleaning to fuel injectors ? Or it makes no difference, in practice ?


At 5000 km oil change interval, any of the above mentioned mineral HDEO 15W40s would be good for 10,000-15,000 km usage no sweat. If I were you, I would ignore any semi-syn or full-syn HDEO for any oil change interval below that of 10,000 km.


Speaking of Fuel Economy, I think you should seriously consider this Caltex Delo 400 MGX 15W-40 API CJ-4 (Mineral) whose UOA from @e-lite above displays tonnes of friction-reducing additives like Moly and Boron.
Not sure whether the other semi-syn or full-syn HDEOs would contain Moly and Boron too.


At 5000-10000 km oil change interval, I would give them a miss as it is not value for money.


I would agree with your position and Bitog's (where I used similar username) that your Hilux Revo diesel engine is good with the ACEA B spec'ed PCMO oils.

Your continuous usage of the current Helix Protect 0W30 A3B4 at much higher mileage of say, 8000-12000 km would be interesting suggesting a B oil is fine.....

However, at this preliminary stage of full-syn Helix Protect blotter, I'm unimpressed really with its blotter 'performance' thus far vis-a-vis that of a properly spec'ed HDEO CI4,CJ4 (E7,E9) mineral oils.

The used oil at 4810 km looks good on the dipstick.

Question: Are the diesel soot particles and combustion contaminants having agglomerated into larger/heavier size lumps , and getting stucked/sticked onto internal engine components and its surfaces while NOT being adequately cleaned off by detergents with a view of aggressively dispersing the suspended soot/contaminants around the body of lubricants?
Hence, the dipstick used oils looks 'clean'?

This post has been edited by zeng: Apr 30 2021, 01:01 PM

https://www.theedgemarkets.com/article/euro...uro-2m-tomorrow

No need to debate on Euro 2 or Euro 5 diesel anymore. All diesel at all pumps are now Euro 5 already. Now difference is whether there is 7% of palm oil, 10% of palm oil or even 20% of palm oil in the near future.

This post has been edited by e-lite: Apr 30 2021, 04:34 PM

If you want to open another can of worms, you can consider doing egr block/delete to reduce soot. But that is another debate on its own and I won't do it on my own car because it ruins fuel economy. If it is an off-road car + soot particles problem in my oil + outside of warranty + ecu retuned properly for partial throttle applications, then I may consider doing it.

But I have seen diesel cars done the simple egr block with just a metal plate and their engine oil goes from black to completely clean.

This post has been edited by e-lite: Apr 30 2021, 04:47 PM

Thanks for the latest update, always have been thinking we had moved away from Euro 2M some time ago to 3-4 .....

Euro 2 was bad for (Mitsu Storm) commonrail injectors.

Thanks bro zeng for detailed suggestions. I'm kinda on the fence right now, whether to use back HDEO at 5k km or continue to extend current oil & observe it's performance. I've done some research on other 4wd model oil recomendations, ACEA B3&B4 or C3 for Mitubishi Triton, Ford Ranger, & Chevrolet Colorado, API CI-4 for previous Isuzu D-Max, no idea on the new 1.9 model.

Starting with the end in mind, I strongly recommend HDEO E9/E7, CI4/CJ4 for all Light Duty Diesel trucks like Hilux, Triton, Ford Ranger, Chevrolet or Isuzu etc either in mineral (for 5000-10000 km), semisyn (for 8000-12000 km) of fullsyn HDEO (for 10000-15000 km or more depending on your comfort zone).

ACEA B3, B4 or C3 would be fine with the Light Duty Diesel trucks though it's efficacies is imho no match against an E9/E7 HDEOs .

Having said this, as a social service for lowyat forum, I would urge you to continue with your A3B4 Helix Protect 0W30 beyond 5000 km up to say 6000-8000 km whichever you are comfortable with, evaluate its blotter spot performance against future blotter spots of HDEO's with E9/E7 CI4/CJ4 ......
eventually make up your own mind or judgement as to the path you wish to walk down the road, equipped with appropriate comparisons, just my humble suggestion.

Note:Your Helix Protect 0W30 should be good upto 8000-10000 km . Any sticking/stuck of soot contaminants in the proposed extended oil change interval may be cleaned off or removed by subsequent usage of high detergent E9/E7 HDEO at whatever oil change interval you are comfortable with later on.
Hence, you are not quite killing a 2 yo diesel engine imo.

This post has been edited by zeng: Apr 30 2021, 10:12 PM

Your Hilux Revo specs very basic diesel oils like API CF4 and ACEA Bx and they should be fine .

However, my preliminary hunch is this 4810 km blotter spot of Helix Protect 0W30 B4 appears weakly imho, not that all other B4's would fare equally 'weak'.

I had seen an ACEA C3 blotter spot with 10,000 km usage in a Toyota diesel perform far far superior than this Helix Protect 0W30 at a lowly 4810 km ......
hence my caution of very very close monitoring of its blotter spot tests.

You may not need it, but a properly spec'ed HDEO , be it mineral or semi/fully synthetics, of CI4/CJ4 or ACEA E9/E7 has properties far superior than this Helix Protect imho, I have no quantitative facts and numbers to back up my position though.

As regards 'extended interval' which I highlighted above earlier on and I wish to repeat, a CI4/CJ4/E9/E7 HDEOs' in mineral is good for 5000-10000 km oci, semisyn for 8000-12000 km (or more) and fully syn (such as this Total diesel 5W30) would probably good for 15000 km upwards, if you are comfortable.

This post has been edited by zeng: May 1 2021, 11:01 PM

I'm inclined to agree with your suggestion that the Helix Protect 0W30 A3B4 may not be doing its job in terms of detergency and dispersancy properties.

'Seeing particles' in the HDEO CI4 by Gin87 may mean the 'dirty' mechanical conditions of the 2019 Hilux Revo diesel engine, however I would like to assume this 2 year old Hilux engine is not 'dirty' per se but in very clean condition , what more its previous oil change intervals of 5000 km is too short and 'premature' imho.

Hence, I would speculate 'particles' as seen or felt by Gin87 inside the CI4 HDEO used oil sample is a strong indication of the excellent and top form detergency and dispersancy properties of HDEO CI4 vis-a-vis this Hilux Protect 0W30 A3B4.

Thank you for sharing a 10,000 km UOA of a HDEO in Chevron Delo Sports 10W30 in a Ford Ranger 2.2L diesel.
This UOA performance is fantastic but, its top up volume of 7.6L may have distorted the complete picture, no?

Btw, I wish you don't mind me sharing this Delo 10W30 CI4 UOA in Post #1 of this thread?

This post has been edited by zeng: May 2 2021, 11:49 AM

The picture doesn't belong to me though. You can use at your own discretion.

Most diesel pickup trucks have about 7-8L oil change capacity. The 7.6L figure should be oil change capacity.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, It doesn't quite make sense for a 10,000 km usage requires a top-up volume of upto 7.6L . Furthermore this WXM xxxx Ranger should be quite a new car at 201x(??) and the ppm for wear metal is reasonable without fresh top-up in general.

Looking at the low'ish wear metal ppm at 10,000 km travel, imho one could easily go further say, up to 20,000 km without breaching the laboratory wear limit, never mind this Chevron Delo Diesel 10W30 CI4 is a semi-synthetic oil.

This post has been edited by zeng: May 3 2021, 12:46 PM

A typical engine flush like the said Liqui Moly Pro-Line Engine Flush prior to an oil change would have helped cleaning out or dislodging carbon dirt contaminants previously stucked on the engine component surface, hence this is supposed to 'lessen' the workload of the detergency part (not dispersancy part) of the new replacement oil in this Helix Protect.

With 'increased' amount of loosened carbon dirt particles within the new replacement oil, the new Helix Protect should have been able to dispersed the carbon dirt contaminant, which I think it did.

However it seems to me from the 4810 km blotter spot test performance of this Helix Protect, whereby the centre zone AND aureole zone/perimeter ring are generally darkened but the diffusion zone remains very light and transparent leading me to speculate that the Dispersancy part of this Helix Protect may be struggling very hard to dispersed off or spread out the 'added' load of carbon contaminants further 'outwards' towards external zones like Diffusion zone.

This post has been edited by zeng: May 3 2021, 01:24 PM

After searching around, I've found these 2 oil in my local workshop that sells 'high end' brands like Motul, Morris, & Liqui Moly. Penrite HPR Diesel 5 5W-40 & HPR Diesel 10 10W-40, both semi synthetic & satifies both ACEA A3/B4 & API CI-4. A little bit thicker in viscosity but I think it's a good candidate for next oil change.


https://www.penriteoil.com.au/assets/pis_pd...emi%20Syn.).pdf


https://www.penriteoil.com.au/assets/pis_pd...emi%20Syn.).pdf

For me in East Malaysia still no Euro 5 B10, pumps are continuing with Euro 2M B10 😬 alongside newly introduced B7 Euro 5.

Both the Penrite diesel oils does not claim OEM approvals but merely claim 'Product Performance Levels' which in a way are two differrent things altogether.

Penrite HPR Diesel 5 5W-40


Penrite HPR Diesel 10 10W-40


Moreover, an API CI-4 oil pairs with ACEA E7 compliance, not ACEA A3B4 typically.

Assuming both of these two oils are appropriately self-certified with API CI-4 and ACEA E7 specification, they are of the high Zinc high Phosphorous formulations which can be bad for an oil consuming engine with 3 way catalytic converters and/or DPF.

However, it may be and should be fine with your new Hilux engine IF there isn't any engine oil consumption issues and its detergency/dispersancy additive package should be stronger than that of the Helix Protect 0W30 imho, a blotter spot test may be able to 'tell'.

This post has been edited by zeng: May 5 2021, 11:12 AM