Last time I went to a filling station and thought about buying oil I lost confidence in them when they insisted in filling my tyres to 36 psi all round, so now I'm thinking buy a 5 litre can to keep at home but what type: synthetic/magnetic/simply the cheapest? No one here seems to think it matters. Does it?

Why would you want to keep oil at home ? The truck goes in to the garage every 5000 anyway ?

Of course it matters if you want the engine to last. If not why bother to change the oil at all.

If you plan on turning it over every few years, and/or do little miles, or the engine is an oil burner, just use cheap oil. Remember that the base oil stocks have a finite cost and low cost means low quality.

If you want the engine to last use Mobile 1 Turbo Diesel Pickup Oil. Possibly the best for the application but not cheap.

Most spanner monkey shops do not carry it so I take my own and have them do the oil change.

turbo commonrail requires very good quality oil since the turbo creates extreme heat damaging most oils, and the power output from engine is high. izu commonrail (not the older direct injection turbo) requires oil and filter to be replaced every 10k km or 6 months

engine oil you basicly get what you pay for, but I would choose one of the world known brandnames with API classification.

If you are going to shell out the money to buy premium synthetic oils designed for commonrail engines, do a thorough inspection of the packaging to ensure it is the genuine item.

As with many things in Thailand, copying oil cartons & substituting poor quality oil in these cartons is a nationwide problem. If you see premium grade semi-synthetic selling for 400 B for 6L pack - Fake. Premium Synthetic 600 - 700B - 6L pack - Fake.

Approximate price guide for diesel engine oils.

Std Mono/Multi Grade 330B - 580B 5 - 7L container size.

Semi Synthetic 580B - 800B 6 - 7 L size.

Fully Synthetic 950B - 2,800B 6 - 7 L size.

Use Shell helix ultra diesel Oil in mine since it passed 100,000Ks and warranty expired. Change it every 15K and filter. Still going strong 230,000Ks on it now. (DMAX 3.0 DI Turbo - not commonrail)

I believe one answer would be Shell Rimula Ultra fully synthetic. It's a fleet oil and businesses don't mess around with poor quality stuff. Unfortunately Shell Thailands website is not easy to navigate to get you a link.

Ok the Internet has sped up a bit!!

http://www.calsci.com/motorcycleinfo/Oils1.html This is about the use of such oil in motorcycles but the same logic prevails.

Thanks for the information. The engine is still young and it's not smokey in any way but I do see that it needs a litre or so toward the end of the 5000 km cycle. I think I'll go for synthetic or semi synthetic and get the dealer to use the same one.

Max I would run between oil changes is 5K km's. Agree with Shell Rimula.

The Motul I run in my motorcycle is 230 baht per liter.