Full synthetic oil

That C12 I bought had the oil changed around 15,000 miles according to the previous owners records & he told me his samples were always coming back to go another 3-5k.

Rollin Coal, look into Schaeffers Oil if you are looking at syn. stuff. Not knocking Amsoil or any other oil for that matter, but they have a really good product line & may be a bit more affordable than some others.

 

My oil analysis consists of smelling for diesel and looking to see if coolant's getting in it I'm comfortable with the 10,000 mile intervals. I'm sure it's a waste just like the 5,000 miles intervals on my 5.9L CTD Ram and the 3,000 mile intervals on my ol lady's little car. I don't care, that's how I do it...

 

I am not going to brow beat you about your oil change intervals. You are in your comfort zone, and that's cool. I would recommend though that you take an occasional oil sample. They are inexpensive and can really let you know what is going on inside before it becomes a nightmare. Like if bearing wear is rising and other things such as silicon (dirt) is showing up. You can't really tell this stuff witha "sniff" test or by the look of the oil. Sometimes, of course not always, you can catch something that is a relatively minor fix as opposed to letting it become a major headache. Run an occasional sample and send it to the same lab and they will chart your engine and give you advise on what to look for if something seems abnormal. If you got something that needs attention NOW, they will call you immediately and let you know.

Carry on and have a great weekend!

 

That's me right there to the T.

 

Yeah, a Kenworth engine tech told me that I needed a new cam or my engine wouldn't last the month. That was almost 450,000 miles ago. OF course, my old engine has 1.5 million on it now, so maybe that flat cam will crater my engine any day now. I don't listen to ANY of the big shops with a truck logo over the door anymore about anything. They've all screwed me or tried to. I found a small shop that has GREAT mechanics. They don't charge what Kenworth, Pete, or Freightshaker shops do, but they are only open 7 to 3.

They haven't done mw wrong yet. ALL of the others have.

 

That is very good shot! The manufacturers reall do care that you flush a lot of money on rebuilds and not have your engine age down to 2,000,000 mi!

 

I'm a former AMSOIL dealer. I sold the product in the late 70's thru the mid-80's.

It's a di-esther-based product. The base stock is made form veggie oil and alcohol... good stuff.

In 1980 the outfit I drove for bought 5 new Freightshaker cabovers with NTC 290's, 9 speeds, 4.33 gears... a pretty common spec in those days. i drove one of them and i talked my boss into using AMSOIL throughout the truck to give it a good test. So we switched over everything (including the manual steering box) to AMSOIL.

We did one physical test between my truck and one with Dino oil... we had a two mile deserted road out in the country... we first adjusted the brakes on both trucks a little loose so brake drag wouldn't affect the test. Then we ran both trucks up to 50 mph and coasted, out of gear, to see which truck would go the farthest... we figured less friction would mean a longer coast. My F/L went just short of 1/4 mile farther than the other guys truck.. not bad.

I drove that tractor for the first 300,000 miles or so. At that time 300-400K was the average mileage between overalls on average. I left the road for a job in dispatch. Soon after the company was sold, dino oil replaced the synthetics and our experiment stopped. Despite the early end to the test, the truck with the AMSOIL ran nearly 800,000 before needing a major.... it got mains at around 500,000 miles. That was a real eye opener to the shop personnel.

During sub-zero temps my tractor, with synthetic 80W90 in the gear box, was the only one you could really steer easily with one hand... those old steering boxes sat right in the wind behind the l/f cab hinge so they got plenty cold.

So I think synthetics are pretty good.

Do I use 'em now? Not in my truck. I changed my boxes and rears last spring and was on a budget...they got Dino oil. The next change I'll refill with synthetics again. I use Delvac 15/40 in my 3406E... at $8.00 per gallon (my cost) it's hard to justify the added expense of a synthetic right now. I do extended oil change intervals, too (50K). I can do that by keeping my idle time to 3% or so.... without an APU (but I do have an ESPAR as of two years ago). I take an oil sample every 20K or so... always comes back good...so far.

After my engine needs another major I will probably switch to a full synthetic as I think they are a good product... but not until that time.

The in my Pete 3406 had it's first major at 600K... something broke and it got a full in-frame. I bought the truck with 900K on it in Jan of 2003. It now has 1,600,000 on it. Rods and mains were done at 1,310,000 and could have easily gone another 100K.

I've found that

 

I had no problem spec'ing and keeping synthetics in my tranny and diffs primarily because Eaton extended the warranty from 500,000 miles to 750,000 miles for using synthetics. And the synthetics do not need changed as frequently. And I can get synthetic tranny and gear lubes from my oil supplier at real good prices (and they are on Eaton's primary oil supplier list).

It is iffy as to whether synthetics are that cost effective in the engine. I suppose it depends on what brand of synthetic and how cheap you can get it. I can get a 40%, CJ-4, 15w40 synthetic blend from my local oil supplier at $9 a gallon, delivered to my front door for free. That is as cheap or cheaper than most are getting conventional oils at lube places and even at Wally World, except on a special sale. Since it is a good buy, and it has shown great wear numbers on the oil samples at 25,000 mile oil change intervals, I use it.

I really have no problem with anyone not using synthetics. We can all choose what we prefer. No one here is right or wrong. We each have our own money on the line and we get to choose what we want to do with our equipment.

Don't ya' just love America!

 

If a guy changes his dino oil at 10 or 15K then switches to extended drain intervals with synthetics I think he would be $$$ ahead with the synthetics...I have seen some pretty nice engine bearings and clean pistons come from engines running full synthetics for well over 1,000,000 miles.

I had a surprise a couple years ago... I had the local CAT dealer adjust the valves in my 3406 and the tech told me he thought this was the cleanest high mileage engine he'd ever seen...

 

I was involved with a 6 truck test of N14's that worked 22 hours a day, pulling 144,000 lbs up and down mountains of BC, Port kells to West-bank. They ran standard oil for about 60,000 kilometers, some more some less, then we added spinner filters, and ports to take oil samples. They did this for quite a while, and the N14's were having a lot of injector problems at the time so we were in there often.
Within a short period of time there was a lot of very smooth gel built up on the top of the head. We use to do bearing roll ins at less than 200,000 Kilometers the first time and more than 200,000 after that.
We had a meeting, with the owner when the trucks were at about 600,000 kilometers, and there was no fuel savings, if anything the trucks used more oil, the bearings showed more wear, and impregnated dirt. When you counted in the increased oil costs, the costs of the analysis, and the increased make up oils, it cost him money.
It took a couple of oil changes and adding a gallon of ATF, 25 miles before they brought the truck in for the oil change. It was brought in and drained and left with the filters punched, till the morning.
We did two oil changes with dyno oil before we did the bearing roll ins, at about 650,000 kilometers, the next bearing roll ins done at over 850,000 kilometers were much better and the engine were a lot cleaner, oil usage went down. We concluded the synthetics use, in the engine as a complete failure.
Use of synthetics in gear cases is standard now, I do not think we even had dyno gear oils.
I have done a lot of 3406B's and never seen a dirty one they, do not use the oil as much as a coolant as the Detroit and Cummins. They run a huge oil cooler, in comparison to the rest.
90% of the 3406B's came in with coolant related failures, burnt valves, and head gaskets. When you had to pull the kits to cut the block, and most of the liners looked like Swiss cheese the kit was changed. A 3406B could get an easy 1.4 million with the head gasket done at about 750,000 miles. Before you changed the kits.