Oil for a truck or bus: ACEA E, DTFR, MAN, Volvo, Scania
Or what do two dozen codes on a twenty-litre can actually mean?
In this section: 2 articles
The owner of a tractor unit or a bus stands in front of a shelf of twenty-litre cans, and each one carries a whole column of small print: DTFR 15C110, MAN M 3477, Volvo VDS-4.5, Renault Trucks RLD-3, Scania LDF-4 and a dozen more lines. The salesman keeps it short: “It’s got everything on it, fits any truck, take it and don’t think about it.” It sounds convincing: the longer the list, the safer the oil. In fact a long list does not make an oil “better”, and of all those lines only one matters for your engine: the one in its documentation.
The main point has already been made in the article on choosing oil for a lorry: first look at what the truck maker requires, especially while the vehicle is under warranty. The ACEA heavy-duty classes (the full-ash E4 and E7, the low-ash E8 and E11 and the rarer F01) are explained in the article on the current ACEA classes, and the American CK-4 and FA-4 in the article on API SQ and the diesel classes. Here we deal with the truck makers’ own approvals.
Why a truck needs its own approval
An ACEA class is a common minimum, the same for everybody. A truck maker’s approval is that same class plus tests on its own engines, and quite often permission to run longer on that oil as well. So for a car an approval is first of all a question of compatibility with the engine, while for a truck it is also a question of money: it decides how many thousand kilometres the vehicle will cover before the next oil change.
That is why the lists are so long. An oil maker that earns its living from fleets passes the tests with several truck makers at once, and anything it has not had the time or the wish to certify it adds as “meets the requirements”. Of the 190 oils for commercial vehicles in our catalogue, 149 carry European heavy-duty codes.
Daimler Truck: DTFR in place of MB 228
After the Daimler group split, Mercedes-Benz’s heavy-duty approvals passed to Daimler Truck and since 1 April 2023 have carried new DTFR names. As explained in the article on the carmakers’ new approvals, this is only a renaming: the requirements have not changed. The old and new numbers line up like this:
| Former number | DTFR | What kind of oil it is |
|---|---|---|
| MB 228.3 | 15B110 | ordinary ash content, for engines without a particulate filter |
| MB 228.5 | 15B120 | ordinary ash content, extended interval |
| MB 228.31 | 15C100 | low-ash, for engines with a particulate filter |
| MB 228.51 | 15C110 | low-ash, extended interval |
| MB 228.52 | 15C120 | low-ash |
| MB 228.61 | 15C130 | low-ash, API FA-4 level, reduced HTHS (2.9-3.2 mPa·s) |
The “15” after DTFR means an engine oil, the letter B an oil for vehicles without a particulate filter, the letter C a low-ash oil for vehicles with one, and the last three digits are the particular specification. Hence a simple rule: a B oil does not belong in a truck with a particulate filter, however “thick” and “reliable” it may look. And 15C130 is not the next step up from 15C110 but a thinner FA-4-level oil, and it goes only where the maker has expressly provided for it. The old MB 228.1 is an approval for very old vehicles. The Daimler Truck list of approved oils is open to the public: you can look it up on the Daimler Truck approvals site.
Volvo, Renault Trucks and Mack: one family
Volvo Trucks, Renault Trucks and Mack belong to the same Volvo group, so their approvals come in pairs: VDS at Volvo, RLD at Renault Trucks, EO at Mack and, for the newer ones, EOS. On cans they usually sit side by side:
| Volvo | Renault Trucks | Mack | What is known |
|---|---|---|---|
| VDS-3 | RLD-2 | EO-N | older generation; the most common code in the catalogue |
| VDS-4 | RLD-3 | EO-O Premium Plus | predecessor of VDS-4.5 |
| VDS-4.5 | RLD-3, less often RLD-4 | EOS-4.5 | since October 2017; API CK-4 level, backward compatible |
| VDS-5 | RLD-5 | EOS-5 | since 2021 (Volvo); lower viscosity, on the market as 5W-30; in older engines only if the manual says so |
This shows clearly that “newer” does not always mean “fits everything”. Volvo expressly allows VDS-4.5 in engines of earlier generations, where VDS-2, VDS-3 or VDS-4 used to be required. VDS-5, on the other hand, is described in Volvo’s North American documents only for the new, more economical 11- and 13-litre engines of 2021, and it is not backward compatible there: the oil is thinner, the oil pressure with it is lower, and in an old engine warnings start coming up on the dashboard. For European engines the line is drawn by the documentation of the particular engine, so use VDS-5 only where the manual names it. Mind you, Volvo allows VDS-4.5 in the new engines too. Renault Trucks RXD also turns up on cans; check it against the manual.
Mack’s older codes and the American approvals of Cummins, CAT and Detroit are covered in the article on oil for tractors and heavy machinery.
MAN: from M 3275 to M 3977
MAN’s numbers do not form a simple ladder, so they have to be read one by one.
1. M 3275-1 and M 3277 are ordinary-ash oils for truck and bus engines without a particulate filter.
2. M 3477 is a low-ash oil which, according to MAN’s list, is for Euro 3-5 engines and only with diesel fuel of no more than 50 ppm sulphur. MAN no longer issues new approvals to it: where it was required, an M 3677 oil is now used.
3. M 3677 is a low-ash oil that MAN introduced with the move to Euro VI, for those engines. It is backward compatible with M 3477.
4. M 3977 is a 0W-20 or 5W-20 oil with a reduced high-temperature viscosity, for some Euro VI-d engines. It is not backward compatible: where M 3677 is required, an M 3977 oil must not be used.
M 3575, M 3775 and M 3777 also turn up often on cans. I do not go into them here: if one of those numbers is written in the manual for your vehicle, look for exactly that one on the can.
Scania, DAF and Iveco
Scania labels its approvals LDF (for Long Drain Field test): the oil has passed Scania’s field trials with an extended interval. LDF-4, the next step after the older LDF-3, is meant for Scania engines with a particulate filter, Euro 6 for example, but not for the V8. LDF-5 is the specification for newer Scania Euro 6 engines (according to oil data sheets, from about 2020). On the market these are 5W-20 oils, mostly with the same MAN M 3977, and LDF-5 is not backward compatible: it goes into an older Euro 6 only if the manual expressly allows it. A separate case is Scania Low Ash, a low-ash oil for engines with a particulate filter.
DAF splits its requirements by interval and by engine generation: Standard Drain and Extended Drain, with the engine group in brackets, for example Euro 0-III or Euro IV-VI. So with DAF it is not enough to find the words “Extended Drain” on the can; the Euro group has to match too. Other DAF codes turn up as well (HP-1, HP-2, PSQL 2.1E, PSQL 2.4); check these against the documentation in the same way.
Iveco writes the ACEA class right into the name of its standard 18-1804: “TLS E6”, “TLS E9”, “T2 E7”. Handy, but here too it is the whole name that counts, not just the class.
The drain interval is tied to the approval
Take a Prevost bulletin (Prevost is a coach maker in the same Volvo group) for North American coaches with the Volvo D13 engine of the US10 generation. The same engine and the same 10W-30 viscosity, yet different intervals: with an oil approved to VDS-4, 60,000 km in severe service and 75,000 km in normal service; with one approved to VDS-4.5, 65,000 and 90,000 km respectively. A European truck has figures of its own, but the principle is the same.
In plain words: the long interval in the service book is valid only with an oil holding the approval it was set for. An oil that carries the same code merely as “meets the requirements” does not guarantee that interval, and stretching the interval on such an oil is like setting off on a long haul with somebody else’s spare wheel: it is you who takes the risk, not the salesman. I will say it again: the interval in the documentation is a maximum. Short urban runs for a bus, long idling, dust and fuel of doubtful quality shorten it, they do not lengthen it.
Gas engines
A bus or truck running on methane (CNG or LNG) has its own list of oils in the gas engine’s documentation. Gas codes turn up on cans, Volvo CNG for example, and one oil may carry both diesel and gas codes. If the gas engine’s documentation lists a gas approval, look for exactly that one.
How to choose oil for a truck
1. The code from the documentation, in full. Not “MAN” but “M 3677”; not “Volvo” but “VDS-4.5”. With it, the viscosity and the Euro level.
2. With a particulate filter you need a low-ash oil. In DTFR that is the letter C, for MAN M 3677 (formerly M 3477), for Scania Low Ash or LDF-4, in ACEA E8 or E11 (E6 or E9 on older cans).
3. “Approved” or “meets the requirements”. An extended interval needs a genuine approval, not the oil maker’s own claim.
4. New thin oils only with express permission. VDS-5, DTFR 15C130, M 3977, LDF-5 and F01 do not go into older engines “to be future-proof”.
The codes for gearboxes and axles (MAN 341 and 342, Scania STO, ZF TE-ML) are a separate story; read about them in the article on gear oil approvals.
So, a long list of approvals on the can is not a mark of quality but a list of the engines the oil was made for. Find in it the line from your truck’s documentation, check that the oil maker lists that code as approved and not as “meets the requirements”, and only then count how many thousand kilometres the truck will run on that oil. And if the salesman insists that “it’s got everything on it”, ask him to show you your code on the can.