MOTOR OIL ?

My guess is that if the oil level on one of these new trucks dropped below an acceptable level a low oil level warning would come up before any engine damage would occur.

We all should check the oil from time to time. But I'll admit that I'm one of those that rarely checks it. But depending on the year of your vehicle you could be setting yourself up for an expensive failure.

Want a real shock call your local dealer service department and ask therm what the manufacturer deems is acceptable for oil consumption during warranty. I worked for Toyota in the 90's and the acceptable consumption was 1 quart a month. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same today. My kids little Nissan Versa has a 3 quart sump. So if it was burning a quart a month it would be out of oil before the oil change came due.

I like the idea of using synthetic and changing oil every 25000 km. I kind of think if my oil level was below the add mark I would end up changing it early rather than adding regular oil to top it off. As it is I never check my oil level so adding is not required.

Turtle n Peeps wrote:
OP, I don't know what you tow with but I do know Toyota and Honda (maybe several others??) have a spec in their owners manual to change their filter every other time.

There is a very good reason for this spec. You see, a filter filters better the longer it filters out impurities. All a filter is, is a piece of media with holes in it. The more holes that are covered up the more the filter will filter.

Now I know people are going to lose their shirt over the above statement but maybe the oil change place knows more than you or "some" of the people on this forum.

When I had my turbo car I blocked off the by-pass because I didn't want any unfiltered oil going through my turbo. I never saw any pressure drop after 5 or even 7 thousand miles. That means to me the filter still had a long way to go.

Something to think about.

Full flow filters often have a bypass to prevent pressure drop due to a plugged filter.

Time to research engine oil filters again.

Wonder what the best/better filters spec is for particulate size they filter down to

IIRC, WIX (Napa Gold) and PureOne were good to >25 microns. Anyone have that data?

I have a similar story and it's not a myth. In my early 20's a friend of mine had the oil light come on and soon a rod knock in his 1991 Toyota Tercel with 38,000 miles on it. When I tried to drain the oil it seriously came out like chocolate pudding, slow and goopy. He admitted he had never changed it since new.

Long story short we swapped in a used junkyard motor. Being basically a kid I kept some of that old oil in a mayonnaise jar on the shelf in the garage. I used a long screwdriver to carve the date in the oil sludge in the bottom of the jar. Years later when my mother sold the house and we were clearing out the garage you could still see the date carved in the sludge.

valhalla360 wrote:

philh wrote:
mix and match, change up if you like. Today's it's an old wives tale, that actually had a basis of fact in the past.

Friend was a mechanic that had a car come in with a failed engine. A little thick sludge came out of the drain. After an investigation, turns out the female owner religiously took her car to the same quickie oil change place for an oil change every 3000 miles... except for (IRC) 50,000 miles, it never got changed.

Sounds like one of those apocryphal stories that never happened. At best, it may have been a lie when she was trying to get a warranty claim after never changing the oil.

They might be able to trick her on the filter but if you are sitting in the car, you can typically see them putting the oil in.

An oil change place that doesn't change the oil would get caught by someone real quick and then get run out of business as not all people are stupid.

He was a dealership mechanic, and I personally knew him. He had photos of the remaining sludge in the pan, and also buildup on the heads.

I did ask the question, how did the car last that long? They speculated the oil was "topped" off every time she came in for an oil change.

Engines are surprisingly resilient to bad owner behavior. My step daughter trashed her engine. She bought a used car and had it inspected by a mechanic I trusted. 18ish months later it died, I had it towed to same shop. My wife was with her and the mechanic asked when the last time the oil was changed. Couple of months ago. Who did the oil change? Shop over by work. Was that your first oil change? Oh no, couple of time before that. At that point he had enough, he directly confronted her, why are you lying? Took her over to the car, showed her the oil filter he put on when he did the prebuy inspection, with the mark he made on it. {sigh}. I know she didn't learn that behavior from her mom or I. I change the oil in our cars, and actually sample each oil change.

I have looked at this as well:

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Miles-Lubricants-Milesyn-SB-15W-40-API-CK-4-5-Gal-Synthetic-Blend-Diesel-Motor-Oil-Pail-MSF200103/305238438

And wonder what our oil Gurus think of it?

5 Gallons of synthetic blend for $83 delivered.

Edit: Oops! I got in my head that you had a diesel. This oil is definitely no appropriate for your rig.

I have seen a 5 gallon synthetic blend for gas engines for $52 including freight.

The one and only time I went to a quickie oil change place, when the kid handed me the bill, it included a charge for an additional quart of oil. When I inquired, he informed me that my vehicle, a full size '92 van with a 5.7 TBI engine, needed six quarts of oil, and the standard rate included only five.

When I told him that I had change it myself many times, and it takes five, he pulled the dipstick, and sure enough, it was overfilled. He removed the extra quart, and showed me the computer screen that told him six quarts was required.

It's not always a barely-sentient worker messing up.

I took my Dodge CTD to a chain oil change place a few times.

The last two visits convinced me to go back to doing it myself.

I dropped my truck off and they told me to come back in 45 minutes. 45 minutes later they explained to me that they could not change my oil because the drain plug took a special tool and I would have to go to the dealer to get my oil changed....

It happens that I happen to own that secret tool :) so I went home and changed it myself.

Second try went pretty much like the first except the reason that they couldn't change it was that the drain plug was cross threaded and I would have to go to the dealer. Again I went home and did it myself. The drain plug was a little snug but not cross threaded.

The next time I saved myself an hour and just stayed home and changed my own oil.

My own thoughts on synthetic Vs conventional oil:

A big benefit of synthetic is extended oil changes. If you put on a ton of miles and oil changes come frequently it makes sense to run synthetic oil that can be run significantly more miles than conventional oil.

Currently my RVing is limited to trips during the Summer. Max of about 400 miles. I put less than 3000 miles last year. With my current activity I never hit 3000 miles before I have run for six months. I run Rotella T and change it every six months.

I hope to be going on the road full time in 2022. If I put the miles on like I did last time I was full time then it will make sense to go synthetic. I expect to be putting between 15k and 20k miles a year.

The blended oil is new to me. What kind of oil change frequency would be appropriate with blended?