Volvo Penta D6 - IPS and engine oil change

Nick Epps

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Hi there, Is there a reason to maintain VP oil in both the IPS and the Engines, just been looking over the prices for 40 Ltrs in the engine and 32 Ltrs for the IPS drives. Your advice would be as always well received. Nick
 

Momac

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The owners manual indicates the following.
1676326947652.png


1676326978635.png


In practice vds-3 engine oil will probably be required to also achieve the API requirement . Shell Rimula R4X 15W-40 achieves the requirements and is the engine oil I prefer to use .
1676329538445.png

But this complies
1676330236867.png

or this
1676362102974.png
The gear oil is perhaps a more sensitive topic so I will steer clear of that .
 

Momac

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The gear oil is supposed to be fully synthetic 75w90 - 32 ltrs required....being quoted between 700 to 900 euros!!
Apparently the VP gear oil may include some special additives.

But fully synthetic GL4/GL5 gear oil isn't excessively expensive. Example as follows.
1676379363846.png
 

madabouttheboat

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Apparently the VP gear oil may include some special additives.

But fully synthetic GL4/GL5 gear oil isn't excessively expensive. Example as follows.
View attachment 151155

I am normally a big advocate for using alternative VDS oil in Volvo engines, and alternative GL5 oil in drives, but when it comes to IPS (and also the new DPI drives) which use clutch packs I am not so sure. I have seen the size of the bill to repair an IPS drive with burnt out clutch packs and it was eye watering.
 

Momac

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I am normally a big advocate for using alternative VDS oil in Volvo engines, and alternative GL5 oil in drives, but when it comes to IPS (and also the new DPI drives) which use clutch packs I am not so sure. I have seen the size of the bill to repair an IPS drive with burnt out clutch packs and it was eye watering.
I simply point out the cost difference and the understanding that the VP oil may include some special additives.
As you say it would be a risk to use alternative gear oil in an IPS drive.
 

Portofino

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The owners manual indicates the following.
View attachment 151127


View attachment 151128


In practice vds-3 engine oil will probably be required to also achieve the API requirement . Shell Rimula R4X 15W-40 achieves the requirements and is the engine oil I prefer to use .
View attachment 151131

But this complies
View attachment 151132

or this
View attachment 151144
The gear oil is perhaps a more sensitive topic so I will steer clear of that .
This is just a boggo old school mineral oil ! .

Its VDS 3 , sure but with a D 6 or other IPS , modern robotised manufacturer , meaning tight tolerance of metals moving parts in contact , high speed rpm wise compared to a bigger displacement arguably potentially weak cooling ( As all boats are compared to road ) so running hotter than a Eddie Stobart truck chugging up / down a U.K. motorway …….wouldn’t you be kinder giving them full synthetic or at least semi syn ?

It just the load and high rpm being lower displacement to mitigate the extra omph the IPS reckons to give over trad larger displacement shafts .

Your pistons are traveling further faster than mine @ 1750 rpm all day with 32 - 35 L of synthetic sloshing about .

IPS Gear oil .
If you don’t mind I will stay out of that debate and if I ever return to outdrives or IPS pod use a genuine VP tech set up along with there ( ok expensive) parts and fluids . You gotta factor the maintenance, full costs in and keep an eye on residuals and the value of FVolvo SH at offload time .

When I sold my meagre expense wise by comparison DPG outdrive boat , the full VP SH made it easy .A lotus franchise guy snapped it up , he saw the VP SH file .There’s no more diligence he could have done .

We need real world experience of folks offloading IPS ……what buyers actually look deep into .Does lack of genuine lubricants in the pods put them off kill the deal ?How mech savvy are todays dry fingered key board only blokes coming through??

The 3 folks I know with IPS in sub 15 M boats always used a VP agent = lubricants on time as well .
 
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Momac

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This is just a boggo old school mineral oil ! .
That's what the VP spec says may be used.


PS but yes semi synthetic or synthetic engine oil may be used and is not necessarily different in price to mineral oil.
 
Last edited:

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