Synthetic or not

[origcharger]

"They say that 5-40 rotela is not good for heavy towing myth or fact?" Myth.

[20046.0PSDX]

My vote is for Mobil Delvac 1 (Truck & SUV or whatever they call it at retail outlets now). I've run it since 5K-7K miles in 2004 and had a major compression leak (6 of 8 cylinders had hardly any of the blue "epoxy" left on the heads or the gaskets) at about 48,000 miles. The engine was torn down and everything was suprisingly clean internally considering the degree of compression loss.

Matt (SDT) performed this work and specifically asked "what oil are you using" because he was very impressed w/ what he saw. Matter of fact, he talked another owner w/ Stage 3 injectors and Aurora 3000 turbo (as well as many supporting mods) they were working on to change from Amsoil to MD1. I trust Matt's judgement implicitly and would highly recommend this oil.

[barnbridge]

David, where are you located where the closest Walmart is 150 miles away, Timbuktoo, Bora Bora, France? Seriously, I've been running Rotella 5w40 syn since about 5000 miles (have 63,000 now) and have no issues. I use Blackstone used oil analysis, cost $20, it's a good way to check on what's going on inside the engine. My suggestions are; oil bypass filter, coolant filter, unplug EGR, CCV reroute(keeps intake clean and turbo hoses from blowing off due to oil in intake), block heater and oilpan heater on 3 hour timer below 30F, gauges(boost, pyro and trans temp) and finally, loose the programmer. If you've been reading the posts here for awhile you'd notice blown headgaskets are a problem, sometimes resulting from overboost due to turbo sticking or programmers.

[dchamberlain]

David, where are you located where the closest Walmart is 150 miles away, Timbuktoo, Bora Bora, France?

I live in a very small town (pop 247) in a remote area of south east Oregon. The population density of Lake county is .9 people per square mile (pop 7400, area 8359 sq. miles), with most of those living in the nearest place that could even remotely be described as a city (Lakeview, pop 2675). Groceries and reasonable fuel is Lakeview at 50 miles away. Anything else is Klamath Falls or Bend, at about 150 each.

I had a chance to check pricing and availability of oil today in K. Falls. At Walmart, Rotella Triple Protection 15W-40 is 8.88, 10W-30 is 9 something and Rotella synthetic is 15 something (all per gallon, although they had Rotalla 15W-40 in 2.5 gallon jugs and 5 gallon buckets. The only place I could find Mobil-1 was at an auto parts store for 22 bucks per gallon.

So now I'm debating with myself. I should at least run 10W-30 in winter. The owners manual says 10W-30 below 10 degrees, and it will get that cold here. Rotella synth would increase my oil changes by about 30 bucks, but that could well pay for itself if it prevents some sort of injector or any other problem. A lot of people have recommended the Mobil-1, but is it worth yet another 30 bucks per change?

I'm a month or so away from my next oil change, so I guess I have a while to think about it.

[Hank85713]

Here are a couple of links to peruse. I gave #57 to one of our engineers involved in AOAP (army oil analysis program) and she said it was pretty informative. so just take these for what they are worth and go from there.

http://www.turbodieselregister.com/a...lem/Page1.html

http://www.turbodieselregister.com/a...l-Information/

[diesel_dan]

Read that analysis carefully -- his knowledge is both dated and the conclusion questionable, based on his reading of specs, versus doing current testing. The CJ oils are fine...