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Had a chat with a retired fleet mechanic yesterday that made me rethink how often I change oil on shop trucks.
He said he ran his personal F-250 12,000 miles between changes using cheap dino oil and sent samples to Blackstone every time, and all five reports came back fine, so now I'm wondering if I'm just throwing money at 3,000-mile intervals for nothing.
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joseph_murray88d agoProlific Poster
Hold up a minute on that 12,000 mile number. I've seen those Blackstone reports too and they can look fine on paper, but they don't show you what's happening inside the engine long term. The real test is how much the oil shears down from its original weight over 12k miles, especially in a diesel that runs hot and loads up fuel dilution. A 10W30 that starts at 10.5 cSt can drop below 9 cSt by 8,000 miles in a truck that sees heavy towing, which means your cam bearings and turbo are getting a lot less protection than you think. Sure it passes the basic wear metals check, but that's like saying your tires are fine because the tread depth is still legal right before they cord out.
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viola_butler8d ago
I can't even keep track of my oil weight let alone its cSt, sounds like you're speaking a whole different language.
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