It won't be long and it'll be that time. I recently bought this truck, previous owner used regular rotella. I am considering full synthetic rotella oil. In the manual it says 7500 miles between changes, would that extend if synthetic is used?

 For those of you that run synthetic, what interval do you change yours? 

 Just a curious question to see if the extra expense has more advantage than just better oil. Thanks 

 Does anyone run an oil additive (IE: lucas oil stabilizer) or anything such as this? I have a 1995 GMC K1500 with 360,000 miles that I would use this in. 1 quart of Lucas in place of 1 quart of oil. It seemed to help with oil consumption on that high milage engine. 

 Just curious, I know alot of people refer to them as "snake oils" but I did have some results with that stuff so thought I would ask.

Not as a steady diet by any means but I hit mine with some STP evety so often for the added zinc. Never hurt anything in my other vehicles not sure it made much difference in the long haul though.

3 hours ago, Doubletrouble said:

I have a 1995 GMC K1500 with 360,000 miles that I would use this in. 1 quart of Lucas in place of 1 quart of oil. It seemed to help with oil consumption on that high milage engine. 

If you already using it, keep using it. That's a lot of miles on that thing, you're on borrowed time there. Of course if it's all hwy and you baby it all the time then not as big of a deal. I imagine bearings are getting worn and thicker oil helps. On gas engine these stabilizers help combustion, on a diesel ring design is different and they generally don't lose compression near as fast as gas. Usually scorched cylinder walls from foreign material damage it, like k&n filter. Then the ring is still tight but there are lines scratched in the wall so gas can escape. Gas rings are spring loaded towards the cylinder so with time they lose tension, where diesel as piston goes up compression forces the rings towards cylinder wall to seal better. 

Other than that stp or Lucas probably help older seals, has some additive to make rubber more pliable so it seals better. I've seen a car where transmission seal for torque convertor was leaking, he added some Lucas it helped for few months, then it was dumping out. When I took the tranny out that seal crumbled in my hands, looked like sand. Not sure what did that Lucas or whatever. It was a Toyota camry. 

7 hours ago, Doubletrouble said:

 Does anyone run an oil additive (IE: lucas oil stabilizer) or anything such as this? I have a 1995 GMC K1500 with 360,000 miles that I would use this in. 1 quart of Lucas in place of 1 quart of oil. It seemed to help with oil consumption on that high milage engine. 

 Just curious, I know alot of people refer to them as "snake oils" but I did have some results with that stuff so thought I would ask.

 

I am personally not a fan of them. I do realize some have good results with oil consumption thou, like yourself. 

 

Personally I would be more inclined to run a slightly thicker oil vs an oil additive.Modern oils are really good and just don't need additives, that's my 0.02. 

 Honestly with the Cummins I am not planning on oil additives just using synthetic. I was curious if anyone here had used it. 

 I have been using 2 cycle oil in the fuel lately per some discussions on this site. I have noticed a bit of improvement with it in the tank. 

4 hours ago, Doubletrouble said:

I have been using 2 cycle oil in the fuel lately per some discussions on this site. I have noticed a bit of improvement with it in the tank. 

I don't use any if I'm running bio, sadly more and more stations sell it. Good and bad for both.

I haven't seen any bio around here but I really haven't been looking for it either if that makes sense.

If its 5% or less it does not have to be labled.

I have always used valvoline premium blue in my dodges and never had any issues. Now with this ck4 formula I decided to switch it up and go back to the old ci4. It was expensive but will only get changed once a year or so so I went with PDD new oil.

 

Regarding cost of oil, in my travels to northern Iowa and Minnesota I have found T6 to occasionally be on sale. Coupled with the Shell $7/gallon rebate they ran last year I got T6 for $2.25 per quart when purchased in 10 qt. jugs!

 

Coupled with the Donaldson filter my oil analysis (including TBN) came back great at 10k miles, so I stick to that - it's also about the time I need to add more oil, so I change it. I put my oil sampling port on the filter housing so that may affect the grading of my engine's health, but that is THE oil going to my engine!

 

I do about 2,400 miles per month.

Edited January 30, 20205 yr by LorenS

When we had ol' @cajflynn running here on the site he was changing oil every 20k miles. 

• Chevron Delo 15w-40
• Fleetguard Filter

Net sum of this is a 53 block engine that made it to 1.3 million miles. 

 

Then another one is @dorkweed that ran a MotorGuard bypass filter. He started with a oil change and ran...

• Supertech Diesel Oil 15w-40
• Fleetguard
• Motoguard bypass filter (toilet paper)

He ran 84k miles on a single oil change. Testing every 7k miles with Blackstone and replaced the filters every 7k and topped off.

 

I post this just for educational purpose. It up to the reader to contact and chat with these people since they are to currently active here. They are still members and will respond if asked.