Got Sludge?

[lutzjk]

Tom I agree

A oil change is cheap maintenance.

My son’s truck lost a lb7 engine side to a lower end issue. When we pulled the pan it was sludged up pretty badly.

 

[lutzjk]

With that being said.

We’ve pulled a valve cover off a 6.0 at work before and you couldn’t see the rockers……. So there’s that also.

 

[TheBac]

A few weeks back, my mechanic at work was telling me that the idiots-in-charge in Atlanta have decided our trucks can now go 10,000+ miles between oil changes, and only need one Maintenance Inspection a year, two for trucks driving over 30,000 miles/yr. All I could do was laugh. Asked if we're going to be stocking engines on the parts shelves now? This company is famous for throwing $1000s of dollars at something to save $10. Idiots.

 

[2004LB7]

There os an argument for these longer oil change intervals, like the 10k mile ones.

Supposedly it takes time, heat, pressure or something else to cause the oil to do it's things and provide maximum wear protection. And regularly changing it early can cause premature wear. Today's synthetic oils are so good that for sludge to form there got to be more to it then someone doing 10k oil changes. Contamination, coolant, leaking head gasket, or something. But regular synthetic will not likely sludge in the recommended intervals

Here are a few studies that discuss this

The Effect of Oil Drain Interval on Valvetrain Friction and Wear

Engine oils are subjected to a series of industry standard engine dynamometer tests to measure their wear protection capability, sludge and varnish formation tendencies, and fuel efficiency among several other performance attributes before they are approved for use in customer engines. However, thes

www.sae.org

Mobil 1 Test Results

This page examines the actual service life of Mobil 1 synthetic motor oil.

web.archive.org

 

[lutzjk]

A few weeks back, my mechanic at work was telling me that the idiots-in-charge in Atlanta have decided our trucks can now go 10,000+ miles between oil changes, and only need one Maintenance Inspection a year, two for trucks driving over 30,000 miles/yr. All I could do was laugh. Asked if we're going to be stocking engines on the parts shelves now? This company is famous for throwing $1000s of dollars at something to save $10. Idiots.

It’s becoming more and more common.

 

[PureHybrid]

For class 8 trucks that see tons of miles, there's always companies that will do extended drain. The money you save paying a shop (or your own tech) to do a service when running 100k miles a year (and 10-12 gallons of oil) makes up for an engine overhaul. Less maintenance costs and less downtime.

 

[NC-smokinlmm]

They just want to make ICE vehicles so expensive it would be cheaper to switch to electrics. The downsides seem less of a problem when saving money gets involved for corporations. lol.

 

[Dozerboy]

I had used oil analysis done on conventional oil Delo 400 probably 15 years ago and it made it 16k before Blackstone recommend changing it.

 

[DAVe3283]

Blackstone still recommends 10k+ miles changes on my Duraburb, but they dropped the recommendation from 5k to 4k on my blue truck this last sample. Guess the compound turbos (or my right foot) is harder on it than before.

This is conventional oil (Delo 400). I'm all for preventative maintenance, but if I have data showing I don't need to change the oil yet, I won't. 65k miles on the built motor and 200+k on the Suburban with no signs of sludge on either.

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