Cost of an oil change - CAT 330hp

Fortunate enough to live near Freightliner Gaffney and take it there every year. Jan's service:

Rotella - $70
Filter - $21.75

Gen service - $100
Filter - $13.57
Oil - $11.

Annual service labor (which includes the oil changes and lots of other stuff like fuel filters, lube, ride height adjustments, etc) $350.

As an aside, (a subject I know nothing about) there is a lot of discussion on CAT related sites that one should not follow the CAT recommendation of 11,000 miles but go to around 6,000 because the HEUI pump likes very clean oil and has a high failure rate if you don't change oil more frequently. I know zero about this but throw it out as a data point.

Paul1944 wrote:
The quote I got was $1,000 to $1,200
Sorry, I should have included this in the original post.

Freightliner dealer here in Vegas is also high priced, when I bought my 08 Bounder and had extended warranty I took my Gas F-53 in for service since few places her in Vegas accept a motorhome, oil change, trans service and checked/inspected front bearing in front axel and checked all fluids and it cost me $1000 never took it back after that and I do my own service now, their rate posted inside said $125 per hr..


As big as these class A looks its not that bad, just learn to do your own service and use the extra money for other things.

I went to my local Freightliner dealer to price service:

Oil change ... 225.00
Fuel filter .. 75.00 each
Chassis lube . 58.00

These prices were parts and labor.

That is the price for a Freightliner truck. Motor homes are an additional charge by the hour for access to the filters, i.e. floorboards.

I went to Caterpillar and purchased the oil filter and secondary fuel filter for $38.00. The primary fuel filter, an Alliance by Freightliner, was $24.00. I tried to buy the PacBrake lube but they had none. I ordered it at a cost of $8.69 plus $8.95 shipping.

8.3 Cummins in the dually 5 gal bucket of Rotella 15/40 is about US$60.00 around here, Fleetguard lube filter and the primary and secondary fuel filters are....um... I forget...

Chassis lube takes 15 minutes including looking around a bit with the light and totally destroys one rag.

Fuller transmission takes 4 gallons of 50weight every 200,000 miles I think ...

Air filters are more efficient as they get closer to replacement- so I change when the indicator says to.

Paul1944 wrote:
The quote I got was $1,000 to $1,200
Sorry, I should have included this in the original post.

About right for a full retail dealer service. You can shop for a local Speedco.

If you’re going to be a diesel owner, you need to find an independent local house. You can save some by using non OEM filters but not a lot. I don’t bother.

Paul1944 wrote:
The quote I got was $1,000 to $1,200
Sorry, I should have included this in the original post.

Sounds way high to me but I do my own work. I would guess they would have less than $300.00 in materials. So that leaves almost a grand in labor.

That's a lot of labor for a few hours work! :E

The quote I got was $1,000 to $1,200
Sorry, I should have included this in the original post.

To pay a shop I'd expect $500ish min.
Couple hundred in supplies (guessing) but 20ish qts of oil is $100 or so without dealer markup and CAT filters ain't cheap.
3 hrs at $100/hr, maybe 4, so yeah $5-600.

Most fleet reccomendations for oil change is 300-500 hours, so do the math there. Somewhere between 10-25k miles.
Or time based if you don't rack up miles, I'd do every other year.
This is a case where oil analysis is worthwhile $35 is cheap. And if you put on a lot of miles, bypass filtration could be of value as well, but only if you're doing high miles.

dons2346 wrote:

Tom/Barb wrote:
I just did the cummins today, 5 gallon bucket of delo 15-40 $100.00 FL3000 filter $45.00.
YMMV

I can get that done plus two fuel filters, water filter, and chassis lube for another $100

My other filters are not due, my engine air filter never gets changed, the air compressor, and coolant filters were changed recently.

I normally don't change them all at the same time.

dons2346 wrote:

Tom/Barb wrote:
I just did the cummins today, 5 gallon bucket of delo 15-40 $100.00 FL3000 filter $45.00.
YMMV

I can get that done plus two fuel filters, water filter, and chassis lube for another $100

So $250 just for engine oil & filters, chassis lube and fuel filter. Not counting the generator service. A lot depends on how much labor it takes also.