In my experience it's pretty rare that dealers use Motorcraft oil especially when they offer special pricing on oil changes. Most of them have bulk tanks and they fill them with whatever the local jobber provides them for the best price. Dealers try to bully you into 3,000 mile oil changes so oil quality/longevity is not something they concern themselves with. That 3,000 mile oil change mentality is what heats most of their shops for free in the winter months using perfectly good "waste oil" in their burners.

 

Personally I will only use motorcraft. The reason being is because I believe ford had made sure that their oil (which is made by havoline i believe) can stand up to whatever their engine requires. I only ran motorcraft in my 6l because the oil controls so many things in that engine...I.E. it uses the oil to fire the injectors. I have seen tests where other oil would foam under high temperature situations and did not offer good enough lubrication to vital components in the engine...This is my belief as to why the 6.0 had so many injector failures. I ran my 6.0 with only motorcraft for 100k+ and never had an injector problem. ( I also added a fuel additive to make up for the lack of sulphur in the newer fuels)
So in conclusion..I will continue using motorcraft products only in my new truck just as I have been in the past.

 

Guess you can't believe what you read. Guess when it's time Mobil 1 will be in my truck .

 

Wallyworld has Mobil-1 5W-40 CJ-4 full synthetic for $24.50/gal around here.

They had a place on the shelf for Rotella T6 gallons but there were none left. It was $19.xx/gal.

What I wanted was non-synthetic 10W30 but they didn't have any brand of that so I got Rotella T5 10W30 synth-blend for $11.50/gal. to do my first change which I'm planning to do at 5000 mi.

 

this may be a stupid question, but in the owners manual i never saw it specify that you need an oil specifically for diesel engines. it says "motorcraft 10W-30 super duty" or substitute whatever weight that is recommended for the climate you live in. it has some part numbers and what requirements the oil has to meet if not motorcraft but i don't have a way to decipher and cross-reference that off hand.

with that in mind, does anyone know if you can use just regular 10W-30 that you would use in a gas engine? i believe the diesel specific oils like rotella and delvac still have the ZDDP in them which is good for the preservation of metal engine components, but reduces the life of emissions system items. was wondering if they are pushing the regular motor oils because of the absence of ZDDP--->longevity of emissions parts since we have so many of them now??

 

Simple answer is the oil needs to have a CJ4 rating, engine oils that don't have that rating are unacceptable.

 

You guys that are doing your first oil change early - Break in oils are different then regular oil, does Ford use a "break in oil"?

Either way, I would not switch to synthetic oil until at least 10-20k miles. The engines need to break in and some of desirable qualities of synthetic oils goes against the breaking in of the engines.

 

Alex, appreciate that. Looks like I'm going back to Mobil1. Kind of bummed about the Rotella T6 not being a true class IV oil. Feel like I've been duped.

 

Same with the Harley "SYN 3" that they push for the motorcycles.

 

simple enough...that's what i needed...thanks!

 

Even simpler....go by the stuff in the motorcraft jug thats the correct grade. I have never noticed a benefit what so ever with sythetic besides a higher oil change bill and blowby. I've taken apart engines that have well into 120k that have used nothing but what we put in it at the dealership at the right intervals and the cylinder still have the cross hatching on them. IMO waste of money! Good example...everyone out there that has been using what they thought was a sythetic "thought" they were gettting something only to find out it wasn't a sythetic...so what did sythetic users really gain out of their fake synthetic oil.....nothing. Im sure there will be some arguing with this but to each his own...use what the engine was designed to use unless you design the engine yourself...I have built a few engines that "I" designed to use different oil than the factory and then and only then have I noticed a difference in how the engine run and operates.

 

IMO the only real advantage of the synthetic diesel oil is the 5W-40 rating that is good at all temps.
What economy or good is provided by the extended drain intervals provided by the 6.7s engines "smarts", if you have 15W-40 in it with 4,000 miles on it and its suddenly -15 F?

 

This is what I was thinking. Conventional thinking is no synthetic prior to 10k. That is also my plan. This seems to be confirmed by several higher mileage 6.7 owners I have spoken to that stated the fuel economy seems to pick up just beyond 10,000 miles as well as power. Switching to synthetic before that point could extend that 10,000 mile "magic mark" to 20 or 30,000 easily.

 

I would imagine its just harder for the engine to get running because its so much thicker and it would only decrease fuel mileage by a minimal amount once everything is warm....might not change the economy at all..who knows. But I dont think these engines use anything that thick anymore.