tweetyduck Posted October 6, 2011 Share Posted October 6, 2011 After months of searching I finally found a 15W40 with a pretty high TBN. Its Lucas Magnum LongDrain. Its available direclty from Lucas Oil in the UK with a really quick delivery. Ordered just before midday and came the morning after. The TBN is 14 which is higher than most oils available in the UK and thats even if they test TBN in the UK which they mostly don't. So if you are planning a trip like me which involves high Sulfur* Fuel this is a cheap choice for your initial fill. 10 Litres for £47.38 delivered. MAIN Site Link Directly to Oil Alternatives in the UK all seem to have a TBN of about 10 and are more expensive. The chaepest other oil i found was Comma Ultra Diesel at about £25 for 5 litres after negotiating the price down. The TBN is 10 and its widely available. Hopefully this will save people from having the same search and/or supply issues i had. (*correct spelling) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveRK Posted October 6, 2011 Share Posted October 6, 2011 Whats TBN? If 'they' don't test it in the UK I wonder why is that? Is it a case that Lucas have decided that TBN is the benchmark for grading oil quality? Only questions as I'm no expert on oil matters and tend to use well known brands of oil such as Castrol, BP, Mobil etc. without going inot the specifics (other than using an oil with an API rating above SE) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CwazyWabbit Posted October 6, 2011 Share Posted October 6, 2011 It's the oils capacity to neutralise the acids created when burning high sulphur diesel apparently. So it's not particularly relevant if you are staying on this island but extremely important if going on an overland trip. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tweetyduck Posted October 6, 2011 Author Share Posted October 6, 2011 The limit on Sulfur in fuel in the EU is very low compared to other countries. Ours is about 5 to 10 parts per million (~0.0005%), Morocco and others are normally 50ppm and place like Syria and Jordan (IIRC) are 5000 to 8000 ppm and this equates to 0.5% and 0.8% which is an extreme amount. The TBN of the fuel as correctly stated is the ability to neutralise Sulfur in fuel and prevent damage to the engine from Sulfuric acid forming during the life of the oil. If you travel to some places where fuel has high Sulfur then a high TBN is required. It also seems to be a huge fascination to the Yanks and so the Lucas oil I discovered. They seem to test every brand they sell and provide very high TBNs even though their fuel is low in Sulfur. This is a way to increase the length between drains and provide 20,000 miles or more between changes (using ULS fuel in conjunction). If you have no choice but to use high Sulfur fuel then you can keep your drain intervals at or around normal using a high TBN oil in combination with high Sulfur fuel. Its the only way to prevent changing oils every 1000 miles (in reality even less, do the maths as its a factor of 100 different) 50ppm and normal oil = 6000 miles oil change 5000ppm and normal oil = 60 miles oil change admittedly its not quite that simple but you get the point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landrovernuts Posted October 7, 2011 Share Posted October 7, 2011 TBN stands for total base number. High TBN oil is used on engines that do not have oil changes such as big marine diesels. The idea is you top up with high TBN oil to neutralise the acid formation in the oil. One thing to remember is that to do this you regularly need to top up the oil system or sumps in our case. I used to add about 2 to 3 hundred litres per day per engine. Toby Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rick Posted October 11, 2011 Share Posted October 11, 2011 LOL, I was going to suggest you only need a high TBN oil with high sulphur fuels and then read you are travelling. FWIW look for an ACEA E4 oil, their TBN needs to be >12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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