Oil Changes on your DIESEL trucks

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R & D

Oil Changes on your DIESEL trucks

Post by R & D »

How often do you change your oil? We have always changed our vehicles oil strickly every 3 months or 3000 miles. Our son-in-law just told us that doing that for a diesel engine is not a good idea. Thoughts?
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Re: Oil Changes on your DIESEL trucks

Post by bigbunkhouse »

I dont have a diesel but maintain many. I change 5k or before plow season each year if they have not gone 5k Just finished this years pre plow and I now have 45gallons of used oil for my friends waist oil heater
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Re: Oil Changes on your DIESEL trucks

Post by snoking »

Quit wasting oil. Read your manual. We change the oil in our Dodge at 5K normally, however will go to 7K depending on timing of trips. Do not use the cheap oil that the quick lube use. Chris
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Re: Oil Changes on your DIESEL trucks

Post by campswithcritters »

With pick-ups I always did 4000 or 6 months, with the bigger trucks I have gone to 10,000 or 1 year. I never keep anything long enough to have a definite answer, but I think 3 months is too soon if you do not do that many miles. With the Dodge Cummins if they are filling the filter with oil as called for in the manual I do not see too much harm from doing too often. Main thing is start-up with no oil pressure going to the turbo bearings which is why they are supposed to fill the filter.
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Re: Oil Changes on your DIESEL trucks

Post by surveyman »

Rotella every 5000 miles and always change the filter. Don't forget to change the fuel filter. Here in Wi, by recent law we have to recycle the filters and rags. No more sending them to the landfill. But there aren't any facilities that will take them from the home owner, you can only guess where those will end up! Another successful new law! 8-}
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Re: Oil Changes on your DIESEL trucks

Post by rccolby »

I change my DMax 2X/yr, spring and fall and do the oil & fuel filter at the same time. This usually around 6-8000 miles. The Chevy recommended is 10,000 miles.
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Re: Oil Changes on your DIESEL trucks

Post by EAW »

I mostly go along with the Driver Information Center readings on my Dmax unless I am going on a long trip and don't want to mess with it while away. This time getting ready to go to Texas I had 33% remaining on the oil and 10% remaining on the fuel filter. I had about 6000 on the oil and 10000 on the fuel. I always change the oil filter when changing the oil. I will need to change the oil when I get back in the Spring.

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Re: Oil Changes on your DIESEL trucks

Post by R & D »

Thanks eveyone for your advice. We appreciate it. We were only doing what our dealer told us to do when we bought the truck new and since we paid a extra $700 for a lifetime of oil changes on this truck...why would they even want to have us in there so often. So you see...we were NOT purposely "wasting" oil....and all oil changes are done at the dealer so we assume they are doing it correctly and desposing of all product as required by law.
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Re: Oil Changes on your DIESEL trucks

Post by Chief409 »

Ford says 5k for severe duty, towing IS mentioned as severe duty, but we use the truck enough not to worry about the whatever months. I have 5W-40 synthetic in now, and take the truck to the small dealer I bought it at for service. The mechanics there know what they're doing. On the next oil change I'm getting an oil analysis program established, I didn't feel the first 15k would yield any useful data.
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Re: Oil Changes on your DIESEL trucks

Post by Mike Clay »

Im old school every 3k for me even though the information center still says 78%
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Re: Oil Changes on your DIESEL trucks

Post by jim »

when i toe, i change at 3k, otherwise at 5k.

diesel is cleaner (15ppm sulfur or less) which will reduce the acid formation in ur oil. lubercants are better. it's still a hard habit to break. my engine has 150k on it.
the only engine i've had to replace was due to a pin hole leak in the cyclender wall...not oil related but cooling system related. pin hole developed at 123k on a 92 diesel.
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Re: Oil Changes on your DIESEL trucks

Post by Jash »

I change the oil every 5k and the fuel filter once every year. The indicator on the truck shows lots of service left but 5k is enough. Right know the truck is in the garage loaded and ready to roll. Looks like another departure after Xmas in foul weather. I have had to plow the road to much already. Were in for another couple of feet of the white stuff. Were much better prepared this year and look forward to our trip to South Texas, we start for a couple of weeks at Oak Grove in Penscola, then to Corpus Christi Tx. After that were headed west with no plans.
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Re: Oil Changes on your DIESEL trucks

Post by Travelers »

I change the oil between 4k and 5k or before / after a long trip. I change the fuel filter in November and April - when the fuel changes to / from winter blend / summer blend.
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Re: Oil Changes on your DIESEL trucks

Post by Don Wilson »

I change oil, Delo 400 and Wix filter, every 5,000 if towing the trailer and 7,500 if not towing the trailer.
So since May 2007 when I bought the pickup I have changed every 5,000 miles except one time.

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Re: Oil Changes on your DIESEL trucks

Post by Traveler II »

When we had motor homes we changed the oil once a year or about 5-6,000 miles. The fact is the motor home sat a lot. With our pick-up we put more miles on it, but I’ve been following the in-dash gauge and changing it when it gets to around 30% which is about 8-10,000 miles, or about every 6 months. After reading all these post it looks like I’m doing this wrong. I take it I should not follow the gauge but change the oil every 3-5,000 miles. But why does GM put that gauge in their trucks?
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