I’ve always taken my truck to Walmart for oil changes. Due to Covid- our local WM auto service center is closed.

With the assistance of a mechanically inclined friend, I’m going to do my first ever oil change.

Who has the best prices on all the oil and parts I will need? I do get the 10% military discount available at local auto parts stores.

F-350
15 qts 15w40
Oil filter Fl-1995
Air filter fa-1680
Fuel filter fd 4596

Thank you!

 

Usually wallyworld has best price on Rotella/Delo oil and 1995 oil filter. You can usually get the autoparts to price match any price you find. Any oil that meets Ford spec WSS-M2C171-F1 is fine.

No need to change air filter if it’s not damaged and the filter minder isn’t showing restriction. Fuel filter will last 30k miles or more if using good fuel. I just recommend draining it and inspecting that fuel at oil changes.

 

Riff-Raff is the cheapest place to get the filters. Oil just find best deal locally. You can return the used oil to any auto parts store as long as it’s back in the jugs.

 

Walmart. Cheapest prices on everything that I've seen. And sometimes by quite a bit from the automotive stores surprisingly. But like Jason said, you may get them to price match.

 

I have also found deals at tractor supply. Bought the special last year for 5 gallons of T6 and saved some serious money thanks to info here about coupons/rebates. It was 5w40 though. They ARE making 15w40. Saw some at Wally World before the world fell apart this spring....

 

I recently order everything through Amazon. T6 and Filter delivered to my doorstep.

 

You can continue to go to Walmart, but this time, to the retail store to buy the oil and filters. Walmart offers a 10% discount to Active Duty and Retired Military.

Counter Point: The 1680 is the smallest, thinnest, weakest, most woeful air filter that Ford ever fitted to the 7.3L diesel. Within less than a full model year, Ford upgraded the air filter to one that was two times deeper, with more dirt holding capacity and a longer service interval. In addition to getting restricted alarmingly quick, due to a low amount of filtration surface area, combined with the oil fouling from the recirculation of unfiltered crankcase vapors into the intake tube, the 1680 panel filter would crown up in the center under suction, and sometimes rip apart, due to it being thin, restricted, and having too weak of a metal screen.

CHANGE the 1680 Air Filter at every opportunity. UPGRADE the 1680 filter if funds and interest allow.

If you have an angle top Early 1999 air box, you may not be able to upgrade to the 3" thick panel filters, due to the angular clearance. But if you have a flat top Mid 1999 airbox, and are still running a 1680 panel filter because the book says too, you can right away upgrade that filter from the 1.5" thick to the the 3" thick panel filter.

Ford did this in production, by fitting the 1710 filter, as shown below:



Besides doubling the filtration area and dirt holding capacity, the 1710 filter featured two glue beads bridging across the pleat tips of the filter. These were added to make the panel stiffer, to keep it from buckling up during suction. While the 1710 filter was being used in production (along with a level top air box, snorkle fed from the front, not the fender) to solve all the 1680 problems, WIX was working on an even better flat panel filter, but first needed to finish perfecting and patenting the production process to emboss the media. I'll talk more about embossing process in a minute, but first let's look at this newer WIX designed filter (sold under the Motorcraft brand), called the 1750:



In this side by side comparison photo above, on the left is a 1680, and on the right is the 1750. Notice not only the panel height difference, but more critically, notice the screen on the 1750. That screen is part of a quadruple prong attack on keeping the panel from buckling upward under suction from the turbo.



Now, back to WIX and their special media embossing machine. This machine was able to emboss "pillows" into the filter media that gave each pleat a more 3 dimensional structure to maintain space between each pleat when the filter was under suction. The idea was to keep the individual pleats apart, to prevent them from being sandwiched together when the turbo was pulling hard. Here is a close up of what the new pleat structure looked like. (Keep in mind, this was "new" 20 years ago, but is common place today, and has been improved upon since).



So, if you have a level top stock air box (as opposed to the short lived angle top stock air box), there are several good reasons to go ahead and buy the Motorcraft 1750 stock replacement filter, as opposed to the 1680.

• Thicker panel (twice as thick)
• Twice the dirt holding capacity
• Twice the filtration area
• Pleats maintain separation from each other with 3D structure embossed in media
• Sturdy screen on top of filter
• Twin glue beads on bottom of filter (depending on filter manufacturer)
• Larger profile perimeter sealing gasket, of softer durometer for more compliant sealing conformance between compression tabs and latches

No matter which flat panel air filter you get, the recirculation of crankcase vapors is sure to make it load up quickly, so there is always benefits realized from a change interval that may not be indicated by the restriction gauge, especially if panels are pulling up, with smaller profile seals, and unfiltered air is sneaking in under the lid between perimeter compression points, and therefore the filter minder in the lid is not seeing a restriction.

The oil vapors leave a witness mark of the air flow and restriction (or restriction bypass) dynamics in the stock air box. Compare how similar (almost identical really) these two 1750 air filters below (each with less than 5,000 miles... it was actually a little bit more disciplined comparison than that, but it has been a couple of decades now since my tests and I find that I have now forgotten the details)



BOOM! Instant replay. Same air flow witness pattern. Same loading bias.

Anyway, change the air filter.

Better yet, change the entire air box to the Ford Severe Duty Air Induction System (called AIS for short, and AIS is the best search term to use for the most results).

The Motorcraft Air Filter part number for the AIS air box is 1757, and the 1757 is the latest, greatest, and last air filter Ford offered for the 7.3L PSD.

The 1757 uses the same filtration media concept as can be found in catalytic converters and diesel oxidation catalysts. In the old days (70's and 80's), people would hold up their illegally removed catalytic converters up to the light and exclaim, "See, it's already plugged up and the car is brand new!" because they coudln't see daylight straight through the honeycomb catalyst. But the filtered flow through the media is sideways, where the gas enters a honeycomb of long channels, and passes through the membrane defining the channels into adjacent channels, which are open on the exit side, and closed on the inlet side. So it is never possible to see straight through the channels, because the channel ends are closed on either the inlet side or the outlet side, but each channel is only closed on one side, not the other. With every other channel facing opposing directions, the channels fill with gas, pass through the channel walls (getting filtered in the process) and escape through the adjacent channel.

Donaldson thought, why not use this same concept in air filtration? The US Military agreed, and used this air filtration concept on the M1Abrams tank. Ford, with it's "Military Grade" marketing mindset, thought, sounds like a good idea to use on the Super Duty, and brought in the Donaldson corrugated cardboard bundle filter concept on board with the 6.0L production air filter. Then Ford asked Donaldson to retrofit a similar solution for the 7.3L. A couple of airboxes were 3D printed (a much bigger deal 20 years ago) and installed in some miner's trucks for testing in Nevada and I think South Dakota. The end result is that we have a factory produced, factory approved, CARB approved air filtration system that holds over 3 times the dirt that the 1750 could hold, without restriction, and has 3 or 4 times the service interval.

The AIS 1757 is the only Motorcraft filter for this application that I could agree with not needing changing if it isn't damaged or not showing restriction. All the Ford flat panels should be regarded with far more suspicion and scrutiny, and of the three flat panels discussed here (1680, 1710, 1750), the 1680 is the worst, being woefully inadequate, and should be changed every 5,000 miles regardless.

 

This is rare, if it happens at all based on my first hand experiences. If you have something official from Wal-mart stating they do offer a 10% discount, I would love to see it.

 

Thanks for pointing this out.

I have never personally asked for a discount at Walmart, and saw only this:





The MilitaryBenefits.info website appears to be in error, based on your experience, which resonates with my reading just now of Walmart's Policies as revised in 2017, which indeed do not identify any Military discount benefit.

This isn't to say that Walmart is not Military friendly.

Walmart Announces New Focus on Hiring Military Spouses

Walmart Hires More Than 14,000 Military Spouses in 12 Months

Walmart Surpasses Goal of Hiring 250,000+ Veteran Associates

Walmart also donated $225,000 to Operation Homefront

But I cannot find anywhere on WALMART's website where Walmart offers a Military discount, contrary to what MilitaryBenefits.info asserts.

Thanks for the correction, and sorry for the distraction OP, but at least you benefit from this information, in terms of where you might shop for your oil and filters.

 

My apologies also to the OP, but I didn't want them going to the counter and asking for something they more than likely will not receive. If ny chance Wal-mart did offer a military discount, I was going to take full advantage of it from here on out.

Wal-mart is very military and veteran friendly in a lot of other ways though.

Sam's Club does in fact offer a military discount for their annual membership. The discount is usually 30% - 40% off the annual price plus a gift card good for ~$30 bringing the cost of the membership to near zero. Sometimes they throw extras in there like a large pizza or rotisserie chicken for free.

I am not sure if Sam's club sells oil, but based on their maintenance bays and battery sales, I suspect they do sell oil. We buy meat in bulk from them once a year and that is how we know about their discount offers.

As for the oil prices for a DIY'er. I usually buy my products online and either have them delivered for free or pick them up. I use Advance Auto, AutoZone, O'Reillys and NAPA. They usually offer 20% - 40% off coupons if purchasing online.

For example, the other day I bought some Valvoline DOT 3/4 brake fluid from Advance Auto. I used an online coupon that brought the price down from $6.99 to $5.89 and it was delivered to my house less than 2 hours later by a private delivery driver. I live in the country and I thoroughly enjoy this service. I have used it two more times since then and the last time I used it the price was 25% off and the product was at my house faster than I could have gone to get it myself. Free same day delivery is a wonderful thing!

I will often buy oil and filters for 3 - 4 changes on sale and store them until needed. I have been using Rotella T6, but am going to give T4 a shot. I also use K&N oil filters with the 1" nut welded on the end. I use these on all 4 of my vehicles as it makes things easy when changing oil on the road. Fumoto drain valves on my vehicles as well...

We hope this helps you come to a decision and a successful engine service.

Speaking of service, thank you for your service! We all appreciate it more than we can ever express.

 

@Y2KW57 Good answer. Thank you for the detail.

 

Or if you don't want to spend the money on an AIS just get rid of the whole airbox and get the 6637 Donaldson Blue kit from Riff-Raff.

 

I have installed lots of 6637 filters to replace broken stock filter housings.

 

In the past I have heard that Wally World carries the Motorcraft oil for our rigs but I have never seen it at any of our local stores.

 

Yes Walmart still best price for oil and the Motorcraft filter. And all the stores near me have the oil as well.