I'll start! About 20 years ago I had a petroleum engineer tell me to NEVER change the oil in my vehicle. He used his 1978 1/2 ton Chevy truck as an example. Over 350K miles, never had the drain plug removed..........only changed the filter and added oil when needed. He said changing the oil was a huge waste of money, and that the oil only got better as its used. It sounded crazy at the time, but I knew the guy for years and went to school with both his daughters, and I saw the factory paint still on the drain plug myself. So........ What do you think!?
I'll make popcorn.
It is hard to work inside the engine when customers do that, because it is hard to see anything through all the blackness.
I'll take some with butter and a sprinkle of garlic salt, OH and how about a good IPA?
I had an uncle that did the same thing with his old Dodge. We all thought he was nuts but he had it a long time and the rest of the pickup wore out before the motor so I guess it worked out for him.
Had a customer years ago that ran nothing but Salt Water Chevy's {that's my original name for them by the way}. He never changed oil filters only, the only time the drain plugs were removed was for repair work. He had several 8v71's and 92's that ran 700,000 plus before major work. Filthy as hell inside. He hired a driver, said driver had oil changed at a Petro in Calif. Driver got his walking papers. Those were the filthiest engines I ever worked on-& the reason I hate 2 strokes. We run 30,000 miles between oil changes on our DD15's. max.
I changed oil fairly often on Detroit Diesels when I worked at the fire department and they were still filthy. Ford/IH IDIs are another one, the yellow oil turns black the instant you pour it in. Also John Deere engines black as all get out. One thing these all have in common, they blow smoke as part of normal operation. Engines that have a clear exhaust are never so filthy.
Still hate'em.
Don't try that **** on the old Macks. The soot would fill the valve cover like a bundt cake. Worked a fleet of them in my younger days. Synthetic fill, oil analysis dictated drain interval. Filters @ 15k. Again like Truck shop said, disgusting inside. Black sludge you could feel the grit in. No thanks. Been there, done that. Won't go back.
I knew there was someone who would agree, Look like you been tar and feathered after working on one. Bundt cake?
Now come on......some of you guys sound like you don't enjoy getting filthy. Just admit, there is just something about gritty blackness thats makes you feel a sense of exhilaration. By the way, I run 15w40 in everything I own from the mower to my wife's jeep. Convince me I'm wrong.
4.0 L ford V6-----5x30---any heavier and it goes to work on the timing chains in cold weather.
Hell, i r'member going in a short white kid coming out a short black kid (they called me a pygmy) and it wouldn't wash off. There are family photos with blackened hands, the pediatrician didn't want me touching my own kids, yeah, NO! Keep that extended drain BS away from me.
Took the valve covers off , forgot the engine, CH613 still had Mack engine. Renault influence at the time. Anyway , remove the valve covers and there were 2 perfectly baked crust cakes sitting on the heads. Just like a cake pan. No visible rocker shafts or levers, couldn't see the pushrods, like it ran on magic. And they didn't leak.
I used to use Rotella in everything. Now i use 5-30 . Those little lash adjusters and chain slack doo-dads don't like the heavier oils. Takes too long to reach the top.
Engineers have never been known for great ideas.
Never saw dirty oil in a dripper. The internal fuel leaks always kept them clean. All the Intertrationals had sludge that you generally took a putty knife to before dropping the block and heads in the hot tank. All the 17A, 14A and 46A Cat machines were sludged up and the coolant passages outside of the liners were full of creek debris and mud. The Cat 1160 and 3208 engines were reasonably clean because the vapors from all the blowby coated the whole engine compartment. Lots of slippery stuff and sharp things to get cut on in those trucks. I always figured that if it wasn't full of sludge and crud and black slimy oil, it shouldn't have been torn down yet.
I've always been a stickler for changing oil on time and consider PM which over a lifetime is cheaper than repair IMO. 2 cases to back this up. A contractor I used to work with had the first series Hitachi UH07 and for 2 years hadn't changed the oil. It started losing oil pressure so he got a mechanic out to check and found an oil cleaner which worked in a similar manner to a cream separator totally gummed up and the filter wasn't much different. They changed the oil and filter, cleaned the oil cleaner and every thing was good. The 2nd was a Komatsu pc40 which started overheating, I had cleaned the outside of the radiator, no difference. Ran it with the engine cover open ,no difference. So I said to the owner about changing the oil. Hell no was the reply we only just changed the oil at Xmas to which I said we are now in late October and over a 1000hrs. So the oil got changed ( 1gal mind you) and the over heating disappeared
I went to get Rotella T 15W40 last week and couldn't find it anywhere. All my oil sources didn't have any at all. The customer brought me out some Harvest King 15W40 he picked up from an Atwoods store for his machine. He said a 5 gallon bucket was $49.99 and he had been using it for years with no problems. He then told me that the name brand oils were just overpriced due to fancy advertising and packaging. He bought it and I put it in his engine...........and I made a note on his repair and service invoice of that fact.
dirty oil is better than none.
Cover 6 pay 0. I like that.
no such thing as a good IPA.
Not sure about oil, but I work with a few guys that never shower. They might change their filter.....
Just a thought, but how would you Change a filter without dumping half the oil out the engine?
I had a 3.0l V6 ranger, changed oil every 3k. It still came out clean at 228k. I now have a Expedition at 246k. Oil changed every 3k. It comes out clean as well. Might have wasted money but it seems like cheap insurance to me. I have Amalie 5w20 synthetic blend in my bulk tank still. I paid $5.39/gal for it and $2.29 per filter. Oil changes under $10 seem like a no brainer.
Honest lawyer Clean hooker Bigfoot unicorn Good IPA Heart of Lothien, Lothien is a town in Scotland, Heart of Lothien from Drop In Brewery, Middlebury VT is the best beer in the world. It's dark, flavorful, full bodied.
The honest lawyers are always with the clean hookers
My brother OBGYN retired had many lawyers wives as patients-he would tell you different. back to oil.
I dont think I have ever changed a Mack with less than 30000 miles on the oil last one we sold had 1.7 on all original engine all detroits get 15/40 I never pay for rotella oil changes are not cheap if you think they are you need to check your numbers necessary yes cheap no and don't provide insurance of anything the more you fiddle with something the more likely you are to have trouble alright that enough ammunition for you guys
I Don't own any guns.
I do. and I'm an ammosexual. I like it all.
When you run a pushrod engine, you appreciate the zinc in Rotella.
I think you missed the 'honest' part.
Everyone ran Delo around here. Even the Cat dealer selling Cat branded oil was getting Delo in the bulk tanks. Had one outfit running Rimula for a awhile in a lot of old junk. Lost a couple of engines and switched over to Delo. Big outfit south of here ran Delvac for awhile and figured they had problems on some rebuilt Cummins engines. Blamed the oil and switched to something else. As far as I care, if it has the right petroleum ratings, I don't care a lick about the name on the label.
Cuttin Edge, “Not sure about oil, but I work with a few guys that never shower. They might change their filter.....” I resemble that remark. I’m just a dirty ol’e mechanic, sometimes I don’t shower. I wear FR coveralls and make money by the hour!
You guys remember all the Delo advertisements when Ice Road Truckers was a big deal? Larry Frazier was a colleague of mine at Carlile Transportation. He received a lot of friendly ribbing over his picture and endorsement plastered all over. RIP, Larry. The cancer got him in 17.
Lisa is still hustling the Delo.
She is rocking that mom bod now!
I usually go by what the engine/vehicle manufacturer recommends for interval and API rating as well as viscosity and it also depends on the application. But that being said, i don't agree with the outrageous oil change intervals on some newer engines. If my budget and margins were so thin that i couldn't justify regular oil changes and maintenance, then i would be in the wrong business. Just my opinion
On my end a big consideration is idle time. Drivers parked waiting to load/unload then sleeper time taking their ten off or 36 out. With some drivers the engines run constantly. Even with the start/stop mode the idle time can be horrendous. So at a 30,000 mile oil change interval it's really at 36 to 37,000 miles depending on percentage of idle time.
So how do you convert miles running to hours of operation?
I know a lot of utility company trucks do service based on hours, and not mileage. Fire trucks are the same. I think the oil life indicator on my personal truck must be an hour meter as it seems to be around the 250 t0 300 hour mark. Our shop foreman, noted that while it is obvious that the entire crusher spread reaches it's time interval at pretty much the same time. Loaders, and gensets. The trucks that haul steady from the quarry to the shop, reach their mileage that same week
I just call Freightliner service with percentage idle time and miles. they calculate it.
If it's drinking as much or more oil as it would take in a oil change in time span of an oil change intervals I'm not changing the oil, I will change the filter though.
I generator world I use 35 miles to the hour generally.
the old john deere world was 40 miles to the hour.
So 10,000 miles would be approximately 250 hours according to the Deere people?
I suppose so but that was in the 80's.
Carrier refrigeration units are figured at a 1000 hrs at 1373 rpm.
Can a refer engine turn faster of slower than 1,373 rpm?
1000 hours to oil change? They have that enormous bulbous reservoir. I wish we could get that on generators engines. Sometimes the same model Isuzu or Kubota. They run at 1800 RPM.
When was the last time you saw an oil related failure in an engine? New engines of all flavors are so much better made and tighter than any pre-emission engine the oil is not contaminated by combustion byproducts like they were a couple of decades ago. In the case of SI engines fuel injection has eliminated washing the cylinder walls with raw gas. Add in the improvements in oil formulation and additive packages and you have much longer oil life than the engines we all grew up running.
Correct-the cylinder finish and cylinder head machining is part of the reason. Cylinder bores are actually round-way better ring seal. And better ring material. The Carrier Kabota holds 14 qts.
Of coarse-that just happens to be where those engines are programed to run to get the job done using the least amount of fuel.
A extreme example of high end engine machine work.
Better save your porker grease for hard times.
At my day job l do processing on GM cranks, updated ones for current production engines and new ones for upcoming engines. If it says to use 5-w20 oil in your new car.....DO IT! Modern manufacturing equipment can hold tolerances tighter than you can imagine. +/- .003 microns is standard tolerance on bearing journals and bearings are matched to the exact size for a closer fit. Fwiw...how, you ask is this done without hours of hand fitting? Technology. Parts are 100% gaged for journal diameter. This is laser etched in a pun code area on the flange. An automated reader in assy scans it and sequences in the proper size bearings to meet up with the crank as it gets installed in the block. The film thickness on heavier weight oils doesn't play well with the small running clearances in todays engines. Use the recommended oil. Ed
I have not seen anyone mention bypass filtration to extend oil change intervals. The engines that I've run those extra filters on are always much cleaner on the inside. My normal deal was to change out the main engine filter at 250 hours and then full filters and oil at 500 hours if it was suggested maintenance interval of 250 hours. I used to do oil analysis along with it but it was alway clean/good enough to let it ride if I wanted to run it longer before a change. Worst engines that I ever saw were city driver cars with blocked up PCV valves. They collected lots of moisture and would cake up tons of carbon in the lifter galleries.
My wife is always grumbling about me running stuff too long warming it up in colder weather. I always tell her that the people that advocate no or minimal warm-ups aren't going to share the maintenance costs
What kind of heaters do electric vehicles have? I'd imagine they'd use a lot of power and limit the range significantly. My truck keeps me toasty at -30c. Not sure what an electric would do.
Grandfather worked at Standard Oil Refinery Wood River IL, they NEVER changed oil in company machines(Pre 1960), change filter add top off and back outside, real world they rotated those machines at five year intervals so made no difference to the company who bought what damage. At my old Utility Garage we initially pulled samples weekly, a few odd ounces warm machine and once monthly on Auto transmissions as they were acquired. That got extended out to every month for engine(IF not already serviced due to Time or Hours when on long duration worksites) and every three months or quarterly for the Allisons shortly after I hired on. Prior to my hire in by a few months they performed 500 hour engine services as miles always sat LOW, oil sampling did not extend that out all that much and reverted to the 500 hour mark if on a specific site for weeks on end. Driptroit Oil would turn Black seconds after started on fresh oil, was never any consolation as to changing them early as stained no matter what!!! Even better was the Centrifugal Filters on Two Strokes in boats, had to HAND DIP that crap out of the housings ended up like anti seize, EVERYWHERE but where wanted.
Some european manufacturers of diesel engines years ago used the centrifugal spinner type filter system and i believe recommended the oil be changed and the spinner cleaned every 100hrs. Scania is one that comes to mind. As far as heat from an electric vehicle, maybe they will come out with a woodstove option
Electric vehicles have resistance heaters for the time being, also coolant loops between the batteries and motors to keep one or the other at the correct temperature, but don't know if that heats the cabin or not. Future electric cars will have heat pumps. More complication.
My 2012 Ford with the 6.7 doesn't smoke at all, and the oil is as filthy as our 60 series Detroit. As someone that drove and rebuilt two of them, part of the reason they are so filthy is they hold about a gallon of oil that never drains out during a change.
I think BV is referring to old 6.9 and 7.3s with Stanadyne pumps, where as you sir,are referring to the 444s and HEUI DTs. Correct?
Maybe they're like the old Volkswagons with the gas heaters
Macks have a centrifugal filter
Vetech sure hasn't started much trouble on this thread probably at an equipment auction
Or he is dealing with the Loving Wife that MAYBE got to Reading what he has been writing!!
No. The 444 in a pickup holds about 16 quarts. I was referring to the old 82-93 6.9/7.3. I think the oil cooler holds the majority of the residual.
In a shop I worked in we had a customer that would buy new chevy pickup diesels he insisted in running amsoil and changing every 3000 miles it would come out as clean as it went in then would trade them at about 50000 miles so what was the point? We had an old ford rollback with a 7.3 idi with 400,000 some miles on it would drink oil when we had to use it so we would drain that amsoil into clean buckets and give her a nice treat of used synthetic
My 7.3 powerstroke has been religiously oil changed at 5k intervals or as time evolved once a year regardless the miles Has 340k on it using less than a quart to a change. Do not remember the oil coolers having pocketed any volume of oil on the IDI engines IH or Ford.
Speaking of heat, my 1990 GMC Top Kick With Cat 3208 takes forever to warm up. Frosty morning, it'll take 20 minutes to defrost the windshield. Is it too much cooling system, thermostat stuck open, or something else. I've considered putting cardboard on the radiator.
Would start with Thermostat, similar to gas engine style so no seal to be bypassing. Does it have a clutch fan or direct drive full engine speed hub? If a viscous style could be locked engaged and over cooling the radiator down while idling.
There's a reservoir that sits on top of the timing cover. It holds about 1 ½ qts. That's for the HPOP. The cooler holds maybe an additional quart iirc. Each cylinder head holds about a pint. It adds up. If you never let it get nasty, the fresh oil doesn't look as bad. My service truck gets oil changes at 5k. She does so much idling with the crane and compressor it probably is pushing 6-700 hours on intervals.
You make a point, my own is not allowed to get Nasty!!
Just as a comment regarding synthetic oils, i used to have an old turbo 6.5 GM rattler vintage '98. Ya go ahead and laugh now . Summer i used shell rotella 15w-40 and oil consumption was minimal. Winter i used shell rotella 0w-40 for better cranking and starting, plus its easier on the oil pump(they have weak oil pump drive ). The 0w-40 is a full synthetic and using it the oil consumption would triple or quadruple and the front and rear main seals would leak. Then summer again, back to 15w-40 and it was back to normal oil consumption and no leaks.
But when 75x90 and 50wt synthetic became OEM rear drives and gear boxes run cooler and way less failures.
A 3208 automotive engine uses 2 regulators so if one hangs open it takes a while to warm up , change both. Bob
Had a Hino that needed the throttle set about 1200 RPM or it could idle all day and not warm up.
If it didnt come out new with synthetic you are asking for trouble using synthetic. I hate the stuff but if ever bought something new that used it i would stay with it.I wish i had a Dollar for every time i had to talk some one out of using synthetic in a old high mileage engine.
Well, i had to use it to get it started during the winter at -35C because it was my main vehicle, no heated shop and i live in a rural area
Also those 6.5 engines had a real weak oil pump drive adapter that runs off the cam and when it blew an oil cooler line while my wife took it to work it took out the crank. When i patched it back together, i found that the gear teeth on that adapter were just about shot. The cam was ok though. So i reckon anything to put less strain on that mickey-mouse adapter would be beneficial. When i finally sold it there were almost 500000km on that old rust bucket
Those darn oil lines took out a lot of them perfect example of flawed engineering destroying a product
Back to the original question, can the oil be filtered clean enough to last indefinitely or does it "wear out"?
The additive package wears out. The base oil can be refined into new blended oil. Nothing can suspend dirt and impurities forever. Sooner or later it becomes saturated with filth.
Oil itself never loses it's lubricating ability. Oil in an air compressor lasts indefinately. Oil in an engine gets contaminated. Oil has been in the ground for millions of years and you take it out and all of sudden it wears out, no.
About 40 years ago I saw a guy on tv say oil never wears out. He said it just gets dirty. Keep changing filters, oil is good as long as it's not overheated. Also on tv mega builders last year saw super tankers being built and during the building process they put the oil tanks and oil in. 30,000 gallons or something like that said it is in there for the life of the ship, never gets changed. I still change oil though. I think is true it only gets dirty. Think back to 60's, 70's oil changes where at 12000 miles. Personally I think 3000 in new cars is crazy.
In a ship the additive packages are added as indicated by a comprehensive oil analysis program. They also spend large somes of money on purifiers and huge cans filled with oil filters. I was on a USN cruiser for some four years with diesel engines that had 300 gallon tanks that got fuel dilution. That oil was changed ASAP. We were also having to add oil to those engines because of the amount they burned when not loaded up hard. Any of the autos I owned called for 2,500 to 5,000 mile oil changes.
My Father was Bomber mechanic four years in WWII, then another two years Korean Conflict. These planes weren't expected to last a year, but oils were stored & shipped back to a refinery to be renewed. I'm sure the molecule that makes up oil doesn't much change except oil burning on the cylinder walls, then transferring to below the piston by reciprocating or blow by. It sure does get contaminated! In my observations, diesels much worse than gasoline engines.
I think it's more about the whole combustion process that degrades the oil and additives . We used to maintain a fleet of converted gas-jobs running CNG. The drained oil looked as good as what we were putting in. No soot or burnt hydrocarbons to get suspended. We never sampled those so i have no idea if the additive package was compromised.
As I understand it, CNG burns clean and leaves no residue. The detergents and PH modifiers never get used.
So if the base oil is "good", is it not economical to have a more efficient filter to clean contaminates and add new "additives"?
We deal with generators, near all of them run on propane. We do service on them at least annually. Oil is not black, but always cloudy, (water). A few machines will be in special locations where oil gets quite milky. One, on a lake, we change oil twice a year to control how much water it contains. Recent installs, we put them on a "table" 2' above grade. I believe it helps limit exposure to snow & rain. Crankcase vent is to the air filter, still somehow it finds its way in.
Most of the generator site for cell towers around here have auto start and run for an hour or so scheduled to reduce the amount of moisture that accumulates in the engine oil. Warm it up above the dew point and the heat drives it out as vapor. The burning of propane also generates plenty of water. Run a salamander in a closed space for any amount of time and you will see the water droplets forming on every cool surface. When you speak of filtering you have to be careful of what type of contamination you might be taking out of the oil. Additive packages have a lot of large molecules that can be taken out of the oil with the contamination particles in the filters. Putting those additive molecules back in oil is not as easy as just dumping a bottle of liquid into a tank of oil either. Blending them in evenly surely would be a complicated process in the oil pan of an engine.
"Most of the generator site for cell towers around here have auto start and run for an hour or so scheduled to reduce the amount of moisture that accumulates in the engine oil. Warm it up above the dew point and the heat drives it out as vapor. The burning of propane also generates plenty of water. Run a salamander in a closed space for any amount of time and you will see the water droplets forming on every cool surface." These run 15 minutes a week. I don't believe the oil gets hot enough to separate oil from water. Still it is a mystery how some are a real problem with moisture, others not a problem at all.
Which generators do you see the most water in?
Air cooled Generac home standby units is what I sell. We service any other brand anyone asks us to. I can't say one manufacturer is worse than another. My theory is running short periods, never under load, if it happens to be snowing, or drifting, even just foggy, it gets moisture. I see a relative few liquid cooled machines, cost is the only deterrent.
Reason I asked, is air cooled Generac units for the most part run a 5 minute exercise cycle. Air over oil cooler with no thermostat and air cooled engine fins with no regulation, the thing does not get warm enough to burn off anything. We set them to exercise biweekly or monthly to keep the water contamination down somewhat. But the poco shuts us off enough here that that burns the water out once in a while as well.
We see milk oil on NG and propane gens, I think some depends on the propane source and their moisture content. All those lil air cooled home jobs that run a 5-15 min unloaded exercise are never going to get the oil warmed up enough to boil out any condensate. We've seen it on larger standbys too that never got any loaded exercise or load bank action tho too.
These are 15 or 20 minutes a week, depending on date of manufacture. There is a lot of water created by burning propane, but only way to get into oil is blow by. I'm not sure the source of water, nor am I sure how much water volume I'm seeing. Would a tablespoon of water make 1.8 quarts of oil look milky? For now, we change oil frequently.
I stopped buy the shop and was told that a Rotella factory burnt down. They also were told it wasnt getting rebuilt.
The units I had some experience with were for cell towers and micro wave repeaters. What I had seen when the boom in building cell towers was going strong was the back up generators were put in heated buildings at the base of the towers. The issue wasn't protection for the equipment so much as it was mitigating the noise of the gensets lighting off for their weekly run time. Most of these units ran on some type of gas, propane I think, and many were V8 Chevy engines with large cooling fans. The buildings were sealed up like bank vaults. I went to one unit where the water pump was leaking and found the coolant and engine oil had never been replaced. There was no drain cock on the cooling system and I had to cut out the bottom radiator hose and let the coolant drain onto the floor of the building. A shop vac, a mop and bucket was required to clear the moisture and the door was left open with a fan blowing out the smell and trying to dry out the insides. I pitched a service to those people of doing monthly checks and service work and they didn't care a lick about any of it. There is only so much money allowed and maintenance has no budget at all. I think you should feel good that your customer will at least pay for the oil change.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars in generator gear and they won't send anybody up there to change the oil or look at it a couple times a year. Figures.
Well did they have any oil change related failures?
I saw a couple last year. Generators that had run unattended and unloved for days on end. Until they burned the oil down into a sludge resembling chewing gum or molasses.
I wouldn’t know about failures. Made the pitch for the work and moved on. I usually only got calls in those years when people wanted a disinterested third party that had no reason to lie to them.
I try and stay away from the little resi jobs but most of the oil failures I've seen were actually from leaks, especially those plastic oil quick drains. A couple had sludge or bad water contamination but also probably had never been changed judging on the filters.
Oh no! I guess it's delo moving fwd then.
We run Citgo 10x30 & 15x40----zero issues never had a issue and the oil distributor says there's plenty of it.
That was the Shell NORCO Louisiana Refinery, I believe. Nothing to do with lube oil.
I keep going back and forth on this with my Hemi. It uses a lot of oil between changes, no leaks just burning it, it's under Dodge's max allowed of 1 litre per 1,000 miles but still seems like a lot. A lot of people say the oil consumption goes down or even away with a heavier oil. I keep going back and forth between what is the least evil, burning that much oil, or running heavier oil then manufacture recommends?
I worry a heavier oil won't find its way to every corner of the engine.
Not familiar with your HEMI, or how you built it. On a similar note, something that grinds my gears is the latest trend of low friction/low tension piston rings. CAFE Standard mandate silliness. We have the science of piston rings figured out. Various manufacturers go low tension and there is a plethora of engines with oil consumption issues. Subaru 2.0, Ford 5.0 Coyote, Hyundai, Kia..... So, it saves a fraction of a percent of fuel consumption, but now we are killing catalytic converters, adding 2-3 quarts of oil between LoF intervals, higher HC exhaust emissions, multiple TSBs, recalls, warranty engines, labor and misery to the consumer.
I have no great affection for any of the mucky-mucks in the high castle, but when discussions like these come up, it makes me wonder if the previous one had used his pen, which he had the power to do, to cross out some of these silly rules, if we could get back to the way things were about 1999, maybe he would have made enough happy to still be in said exalted edifice, and we would have better and simpler cars with engines that still work.
In my charger w MDS I used Valvoline synth blend 5w20 for high milers. In my ram w/o MDS I used 5w30 in winter, never lost oil in either. I do drive aggressively though. Kinda treat the throttle pedal like an on-off switch. You need the low vis oil in the MDS because it acts like hydraulic oil for the cylinder deactivation.
They have a pallet in the storage building and the boss is saving it for his stuff. They are going to use Delo in the company trucks. The supplyers say they cant get any. Maybe just a local problem.
Shell Rotella is hard to source everywhere. Especially, T6. I’ve been talking about it in the lube price increase thread. It’s a base-stock issue.
It's only gonna get worse with reduced oil production. Can't get lead, oil is drying up, some other commodities are getting scarce. You don't have to talk politics to see the writing on the wall. Global economy, phooey
Stay calm, monitor and adjust. Where there is demand, there will be production. When resources get scarce, people employ innovation. Innovation is the result of change. Those who survive and thrive are those that stay calm and continually monitor and adjust.
It's a 2011 Ram so has MDS. Partly what concerns me is that oil consumption causing issues, even though it's within Dodge's spec. At the end of the day it's probably not much to worry about either way, I bought it at 120,000 miles and it's at 135,000 miles now whatever the previous owners did will have far more bearing then I have. I never asked them what they ran for oil but it was a synthetic filter. But it's runs really good and gets great mileage. I've read so many conflicting things and people running 10w30 without issue but it scares me.
When I read that I was happy I am stocked on 15w40 and 0w40 rotella for the next few years from a good sale but I looked up inventory around here and there's plenty of all of it.
Here's another one, at what point does time become a factor of changing oil? My WS with Cat 3406B i'm at a little over 2 years on oil change, i'd have to check but i'm guessing under 2,500 miles, not sure on hours as hour meter doesn't work (going to install one to track better). I wouldn't be surprised if i'm at 250 hours or more because it idles a ton. Do I go another year? Change now? Truck will pretty much be sitting the next 3 months, change right before using for the year?
sorry
Oil is cheap, we change yearly on a couple trucks that get lower use.