Oil Changes: your .02 ? - Page 10 - Fuel Economy, Hypermiling, EcoModding News and Forum

morphector · 07-31-2011, 11:40 PM

People saying synthetics don't freeze never did the test.

One of my friends let a 5L jug of valvoline 5w30 outside in a colder than -30f night. Didn't opened the jug but the content seemed really stuck in there.

Another friends had a quart of castrol 5w50 in his trunk in similar night, tried to top up the oil in his car that morning. The oil was soooo damn thick....thicker than caramel....

me and my metro · 08-01-2011, 12:07 AM

I work for company with approximately 3000 trucks. We have Escapes, f-150s that are gas powered and F-550s, Internationals and some semis all diesel. Everything except the semis get oil changes at 4000 miles or 400 hours. This comes out really close due to all the PTO work these trucks do not moving. The only engine failures are from fuel related failures. Injectors fail galling the piston, taking out liner seals and the coolant ends up in the crankcase. The semis go 10k miles, they hold 11 gallons of oil.

euromodder · 08-01-2011, 04:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Formula413

For the first test I ran the oil for 10,000 miles (Mobil One 0W20) and sent in a sample. The findings were: wear metals look good, plenty of additive left, try 12,000 next time.

With quality synthetic oils like that, I'd expect nothing less.

20.000 km (12.500 miles) is a regular oil change interval in Europe.
30.000 km (18.750 miles) is also very common.

VW has gone back down from 50.000 km (31.000 miles) service intervals to 30 K km (19K mls).

As long as you're not burning too much oil over that distance, it should be OK.

euromodder · 08-01-2011, 07:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by me and my metro

The semis go 10k miles, they hold 11 gallons of oil.

Oil change intervals on semis in Europe range between 60,000 km (37,500 miles) and 150.000km (93750 mls), depending on the oil and manufacturer's permission.

10k miles oil intervals on a semi is ridiculous.

Using biodiesel (blends) halves the oil interval though.

Frank Lee · 08-01-2011, 06:12 PM

I'm no semi expert but IIRC I've ALWAYS heard of far longer change intervals for them than 10k.

cleanspeed1 · 08-01-2011, 06:43 PM

The service interval for most Class 8 diesel, regardless of mechanical or electronic injection, is usually 12,000 to 15,000 miles, and this would be considered severe service. My Volvo can go to about 25,000 miles but it has 3 filters on it ( one is a bypass ).

Going to a system like Filtration Solutions FS2500 with just a filter change every 10-12k and a one quart top off ( the standard OEM filters on the engine don't get changed ) and an analysis will allow 75-100k or longer on dino oil, and the record for synthetic is 360k+. As long as the analysis says "keep going", you can keep extending the filter changes and oil changes.

Every engine is different, Caterpillars are actually the cleanest burning, Detroits and Volvos are some of the sootiest.

Formula413 · 08-04-2011, 09:22 PM

I got my second UOA a few weeks ago, just getting around to updating. The interval was 12,000 miles this time. The only thing noteworthy was that the level of iron in the sample was higher. Blackstone didn't say if it was "too high", just that it was higher. The level went from 17 over a 10,000 mile sample to 41 over a 12,000 mile sample. I believe that is PPM but don't quote me on that. There was still a good amount of additive left. There was a small amount of fuel in the sample but they said that was not an issue. One thing that occurred to me was that my first sample was exclusively warm weather use, while the second sample included the winter, I'm not sure how much that would affect wear.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BHarvey

How much of a sample do you have to send?

As mentioned it's just a few ounces. They recommend getting the oil thoroughly warmed up first, and if draining when sampling, take the sample when it's about half done draining (IE wait a few seconds).