What is your oil of choice?
 

What oil do you use?
What intervals do you change at?
Thoughts on oil stabilizer?

I am thinking of starting to use synthetic oil and maybe a oil stabilizer (Lucas maybe).
I know the cost difference but I am trying to balance cost vs intervals etc.
I have heard as muck as 10k with Amsoil and no bypass filter.

I use Rotella 15w40 & Bosch or STP

Thank-you for your thoughts.
DD

Amsoil 15/40 fully synthetic

I like rotella as well. I change mine between 5000 and 7500 miles.

I use Mobil delvac 15/40. I change in between 7000 and 10,000 miles and use six filters. Oil is just as slick when I take it out as when I put it in. I highly recommend Mobil delvac. And in most places its actually cheaper than rotella and delo. My truck has 289,000 miles and runs like a new truck. Just my input.

Delo 400 15-40 every 5K, for the last 200K. No issues yet...

:w2:

Delo 400LE 15-40. It's a low emission oil BUT, regular old Delo will not be available for much longer anyways. The LE is going to take it's place.
I began doing oil analysis thru the place I get my oil and depending on the results, I will progressively extend my change intervals, so we shall see where I end up, but probably end up somewhere north of 7,500.

Hm. I think I might be using the LE too. Not sure. It's whatever we use for the fleet trucks. :humm:
I'll know in another 1200 miles.
a.k.a. a few days.

I would not want to go 7500 on it. I don't really like going 5000, but it's company policy and I don't have to pay for it, so...

Amsoil 10w - 40 high zinc full synthetic every 5k

Spectrometer results will tell me if it's ok or not. I wouldn't go over 5000 without solid information. A $7 test is pretty cheap if I can stretch out oil changes 2000 or more miles. I'll share my results.
My supplier says 10,000 isn't out of the question though. And he's the one selling the oil so it wouldn't make much sense for him to be less than truthful only to not sell as much product. We shall see. Should be a cool ( albeit a long) experiment.

Rotella 15w40. I change it between 3 and 5000. more towards the 3000 mark

I wouldn't mainly because mine is pretty severe duty most of the time, lots of heavy towing, etc. I should probably get one of those tests though, if they're only $7. I'm curious now.

Lube Watch oil analysis for preventative maintenance- Chevron

Great way to find problems early like injector leaks, coolant, soot, silica, viscosity, etc.
Hijack over.

Dammit, I thought it was like a pregnancy test I could get at a local autopart store. Let my truck pee on the stick, and tell me if I should be worried...

This is all good information.
Thank-you all.
Keep it coming.

Almost all good information anyway...
Haha
DD

i have used royal purple 15-40 in my duramax for the last 175k mi.(281k total). I had the motor apart for 10 weeks and the oil still had everything coated. i kept wondering why my parts all looked dirty when another duramax i had tore down looked real clean and had been running rotella. I then realized that my royal purple had a coat on everything when the rotella had just run off. Thus, the royal purple prevents dry starts and i don't have to run an additive. As a side note the oil pressure has also increased approx. 10 psi.

I too run Royal Purple in bith my IDI and my Cummins trucks ..... I was genuinely amazed when I pulled the heads and hg off the ford .... SPOTLESS...... my oil pressure has also gotten better in both as well .

the ford has been running RP for 5 + years .... the dodge only about 3 months .... picked up milage on both :tu:

2009 CUMMINS 6.7 RAM3500 4X4 DW
 

I use Mobil1 5 W 40 Fully Syn Turbo Diesel truck oil and Fleet Guard filters...I change it every 5000 miles...I had the waste oil tested along with a sample of the new oil the lab results were the same except for the suspended solids from the fuel and the soot...The oil is quite expensive but have you priced a new Cummins 6.7 lately...I'll continue spending the $100 on the 3 gallons of oil just for the piece of mind...

Funny you should post about the 5/40 ...... I have a few gallons for after my 12V HG job ... and thats what I plannedfor the ford too .....

should be iinteresting to see if I gain any mpg's there ....:tu:

Its been below 0° in the morning here in Maryland the past few days and the truck starts and runs like Its July...My truck is a 2009 but only has 30,000 miles on it...You will be amazed how well your truck will start in cold weather if you live in that climate...

Always good to see more Marylander's on here :c:

WOW that truck is a beast,I use to be a drag racer and had my car at Mason Dixon several times...

I wonder why synthetic oil isn't used more in commercial applications, ie heavy equipment, trucking, etc. Everywhere I've worked or been around (heavy mining, road trucks, paving) has used Delo or Rotella. Big Cat and Cummins motors are worth a pile of dough, and even more important is down time. That has to say something about cost vs. reward doesn't it? It seems that if synthetic was in any way superior, the professionals would know and use it in 16 cylinder Cats and the like. The extra expense wouldn't even register compared to a failure. Never seen a lubrication failure but have seen a lot of old machines retire due to everything around the engine wearing out.
Not trying to be anti synthetic at all or cause any controversy, just genuinely curious why pickup owners are more apt to use synthetic and commercial applications are not (in my experience).

1. Other than the stated interval extensions. Which, they (the professionals you speak of) may be on a mandated maintenance schedule. You know how big companies cannot think outside the box sometimes.:argh:
2. My main interest in changing my type of oil is cold flow properties. This may or may not matter to others depending on location and usage.

Please feel free to bring up anything relating to oil.:rocking:

Technically, I (like many others here) would classify as commercial as we are self employed or similar. I maintain 3 diesels (2 personal 1 friend), my wife's G35xs. Lots of my equipment and others.

On that note: can I hijack my own thread?
I have heard of no one here using Lucas oil stabilizer.
It looks like a good idea. The cling/climb properties not for any snake oil claims...
Sounds similar to Royal Purple in cling sense. What about clinb?

Another rant...
Sorry,
DD

I am coming in late on this, but here is my 2 cents. I run Delo 15w40 change every 5,000 miles, I have seen trucks go over 500K with this oil and intervals. On another note, I know a fleet that uses Amsoil full synthetic and only changes out the oil filter every 400 hours. They run a oil sample every time and have not had any issues. They have been doing this for about 4 years now.

The answer to your question is cost, a commercial Cummins M11 35 oil capacity is 44 quarts...At $35.00 per gallon that's $385 for oil alone not counting filters and there are 2 of them at 60.00 each...

Ok. Delo 400 is 12 bucks a gallon. I believe part of the reason to run synthetic, specifically Amsoil, was to lengthen service intervals substantially. Some of Amsoil's literature says double the normal suggested interval or more based on UOA results. That offsets the majority of the difference in cost especially when labor is considered, and if it truly is that much better for engines, sounds like a no brainer. So why don't more fleets use it?

By the way, I dig my M11:tu: dispite what a lot of people say about them being one of the first Cummins computer diesels and thus a turd.

Keep in mind that none of us (I believe) are large enough to buy in quantities as large as a multi million dollar corporation. Therefore we will pay more per gallon/barrel. Kind of odd...
Again, "corporate dictates cost must remain low. If no increase in revenue is seen and there is nothing "wrong with conventional" why switch? " I can somewhat see the fuzzy logic. However, better thinking has brought upon this discussion.
Thank-you all for your input.
DD

I know this is advertising; but the cold flow properties are impressive and important. No?

More food for thought for those who prefer synthetic. I must contemplate :humm:

Chevron Delo 400 Low Emission Synthetic 5W40 Gallon Jug: Automotive : Walmart.com


Excellent discussion btw. Been searching and studying.

I'm not fully qualified to weigh in here, as I'm not directly involved with the money in this particular aspect, but I do work for a multi-million dollar paving/excavating/landscaping company. We have around 40 diesel pickups, five triaxles and three horses. More importantly, we have 10 or so skid steers, 15 or so excavators (from little Deere 50's up to Hitachi 350's) and at least 20 payloaders, most of them Deere 544/624's and bigger. At 7 or 8 rollers, four paving boxes, etc, etc. We run Delo 400 15-40 in everything, buy it by the barrel, many barrels at a time. We have a 3000 gallon pump station for diesel on the premises which gets emptied at least a couple times a month because our weekly "top off" isn't frequent enough. We buy all of our fuel, oil, and coolant from the same oil company direct. There are certainly much bigger operations out there than ours, but that being said, for a family business, we're pretty substantial. I know for a fact that we don't use synthetic oil because in spite of the insane discount we get buying in bulk direct from the wholesaler, the cost is still prohibitive and the benefit too unsubstantiated. Our basic scheduled maintenance costs are tens of thousands a year, and while we have plenty of engine failure and repair costs to the tune or well over a million dollars a year, non of that is due to the oil we use not doing it's job. I'm sure if just one or two of the many engines we grenade and rebuild/replace every year was blamed on inferior oil quality, we would be giving synthetic a much harder look. As things stand though, it's not even being considered. When we have an engine problem, it would have happened regardless of what oil was used, and in severe service operations a longer service interval (while financially tempting) is seldom considered wise. The expense of the things that we catch before they break simply because the trucks are in there for service regularly more than outweighs the savings we'd get by not having to change the oil as often, which is debatable and as I just said, a knife that actually cuts both ways.
I'm not sure if that shed any light on anything or not as to why big fleets of heavy trucks/equipment don't run synthetic, but it's what I got for ya.

Thank You JBearSVT, that was very informative and helpful. Is it safe to assume most of the equipment does not run (get used much) in the winter months?

So far here is what we have...
Amsoil-2
Delo- 3
Delvac- 2
Rotella- 2
Royal Purple- 2

various weights/viscosity...

I like the claimed cling properties of Royal Purple.
What about cold flow?

Some of these websites:td: very confusing :s: I am pretty sure Royal Purple shot their video in the late '70's.:argh:

keep it coming please!
Thank You
DD

Normally I'd say yes, although right now we do have a huge construction project that will keep most of our equipment busy through the winter. Usually we scale down the construction in the off season, but for some reason not this year (or the next several, this project will take a few years to finish). That said, we also have extensive snow plowing contracts, and most of our payloaders are used with pushboxes through the winter for snow. We plow the Uconn campus for example, and have four payloaders up there for snow all winter, so they get run for a few days straight anytime it looks like it might snow. I guess the answer is "yes and no".

Here's a cool website if you like minutia like I do. Super detailed.

- Bob is the Oil Guy

Mobil-1 5w-40 synthetic, Rotella 5w-40 synthetic or Amsoil from time to time (when I can afford it). I always use either Fleetguard or WIX oil filters. Chevron Delvac now has a 5w-40 synthetic, but havent tried it yet. I change my oil and filter every 7k. Not too keen on using Lucas oil additives in my CTD. You dont need it with good synthetic oil. I only use Lucas Pure synthetic additive in my supercharged Big Block Chevy, in my other dually. Its a high revving asphalt burner. :rocking:

I have used Lucas in everything ... it works good in the CTD w/Royal Purple and Z-Max .. picked up 1.8 average in my CTD.... and 2.2-2.3 in my IDI 7.3 .:rocking::yeah:

I use rotella 15-40 and lucas

So the equipment sits out in the cold (plugged in I imagine) and is really only cold started once or twice a storm. After initial start it is severe condition operations.

I guess this is what I am leaning toward is this:

I may need a lighter weight synthetic in the winter months to aid in cold start-up when my vehicle is unable to be plugged in.
I know it is just a part store but on Auto Zone's page if you compare Mobil 1 to Mobil 1 there are temperature usage ranges and pour points that make me think:humm:

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Thank you sir. Awesome information :rocking:
I need time to read it again. Lots of info
DD

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I have used...
Or
I am currently using...

Thank you for your response.
DD

I shall refrain from commenting on Z-Max. (Odd Story)

I have used I on and off and have noticed duplicable results time and time again and have not had any other bad issues or anything but WOW to say about it .... and the improvements are worth the extra $$$ in my opinion

Actually no, only our tractors and triaxles get plugged in, and that's only when our dumbass drivers remember. None of the equipment gets plugged in, ever. Matter of fact, I'm not sure I've seen a block heater plug even on any of it. So the severe service starts the minute they hit the key, as that cold start is arguably worse for the engine than 90% of what it will get put through in use while it's warmed up.

DD ... I'm wanting ur input on the zmax story ... If u don't mind sharing ur experience with us ... I am interested

Rotella 15w40 w/ 1 quart of lucas every 5000 miles:tu: