Curious what the opinions are out there on spending the extra $$$ on synthetic. Also post your experience with MPG if you noticed a difference. Thanks!

And thought I'd pass on some savings info for those of you who use it in their trucks. O'Rielly's Auto Parts has synthetic Rotella T6 on sale for $19.99 gal. $8.00 off their regular price. I think until the 27th (limit 12) Stock up!



2001 F350 7.3 CC LB, SRW, 4wd, 242k,
FASS 150, AutoMeter EGT/Trans/Boost, TS 6 chip, 4" turbo back, BD GTP38, IH Bellowed, AirRaid intake w/AFE Pro Guard 7, stiffer fuel pressure spring, stock sticks & HPOP, AIH Delete, HPX, .50cent mod, 6.0 IC, Vulcan VPMax boots, JW trans, w/spin on filter, Hughes deep pan, Fluidyne HF HD Trans Cooler w/Spal fan, DieselSite Coolant Filter running CAT ELC, Archoil additives,

Bilstein 5100's, 4" Pro-Comp lift, 34" Nitto Terra Grappler AT's on 20" Mamba's, Firestone Airbags, BedSlide, 45 gal aluminum transfer tank, Stockton Bed cover, Fender Flares, Door Lock penny fix, Tool box, 07 grill mod, International emblems

 

I've used it occasionally as well as others. Good in the cold weather, some use it year 'round.

 

These engines and their components depend so heavily on oil i can not see not using them.Not to mention how much injectors cost.Way better cold weather performance where i live and go also. Not so much of a big deal i suppose if you live in a warm weather area all year round.

 

In my opinion, T6 is not necessary in the southern states. However, it certainly doesn't hurt anything either. When you come over this weekend, remind me to show you my oil analysis lab reports for Rotella T and T6 and you can form your own opinion.

 

I run the T6 in the cold winter months on all my 7.3's, they just start much easier in the cold weather. I switch back to 15/40 for the other 8 months...because it's expensive changing the oil in all these 7.3's and I do it every 4K because I just feel better about it

 

Any possibility of you posting that information here?

 

Ive been running T6 in mine for about a year now and I will never run anything else. The peace of mind offsets the cost for me everytime, not to mention that you can run longer between oil changes with the T6 which in itself offsets the cost.

 

I agree 100%. I ran T6 for a couple oil changes but I switched back to regular dino and I run Rotella 10w30 in the winter months and it starts and sounds just like when running the T6. 10w30 Diesel Motor Oil is actually a pretty robust oil. There is a guy with a Duramax on one of the oil forum sites that runs it year round and he pulls a 5er and has got excellent reports back from Blackstone on it. IMHO the only time I would run synthetic oil in anything is if I was going to extend my drain interval or if I lived in an extra cold enviroment.

 

While I am convinced that pure-synthetic is superior to dino oil in performance and longevity, the #1 issue is CLEAN oil. So, faithfully maintain your change intervals, add a bypass filter if you can afford to, and you will have excellent results whether or not it's synthetic or dino. These days, it's hard to justify the extreme added cost of pure synthetic like Amsoil, Redding, etc. At $20 a gallon on sale for T6...that's a great buy!

Sadly, dino oil is costing what pure synthetic oil cost 6-7 years ago.

A year ago, I put T500 HPOPs in both trucks. Joey emailed me and said, "Wow...your cores looked GREAT! It's rare to see them in such good internal shape." So I asked him if he noticed a difference between the two, if one was more worn than the other...because I knew HIS had only used Rotella dino oil for its 205k miles life with faithful 4k-5k oil changes, and HERS had only used Amsoil synthetic with a bypass for its 110k miles life. Joey's response: They both looked about the same. I felt a bit bad about all my Amsoil investment.

 

Unfortunately I don't really know how to pull the data.
What I have is an online portal to the lab we use for our fleet oil analysis. I also have a separate account for my personal vehicles. I can run a variety of reports for certain vehicles or compartments (engines, transmissions, coolant etc) or even regions. In order to make heads or tails of the info I have to understand how each vehicle is used because that is what really makes the difference. I have a master cheat sheet for our entire fleet that helps me understand the data. For instance, we have some trucks that don't travel very far but they run off a PTO all day long. We have other trucks that drive back and forth between our branch cities. Then we have trucks that just drive around from time to time and inspect stuff.

So, our Freightliner that goes to Tucson and back each day (or several times a day) will have a completely different oil use compared to our digger or crane trucks. What we found is that miles traveled doesn't really matter because each truck is different. So, we have a program where we sample the oil on a regular basis and let the lab tell us when to change the oil. For a program like that, synthetic oil can be very practical. As a result, we use synthetic in most of our trucks but not all of them.

For my personal trucks, the lab actually recommended that I use regular Rotella T or whatever brand I like because they said synthetic was a waste of money for how I am using the truck. They also recommend the same for about 30-40% of our work fleet. In a nutshell, if you put a lot of hours on the engine in a short amount of time then synthetic makes a lot of sense. If I remember correctly, we found the break point to be around 110-120 hrs/month for our trucks in our region. Other regions may be different.

We do have some exceptions though...our DPF/DEF trucks run regular dino oil. Because they regen, the fuel level in the oil becomes a problem long before the lifespan of synthetic is up. I have used both types in one of my personal trucks and the rate of wear metals was statistically the same for both oils. So, in these cases regular dino oil provides plenty of protection. There is nothing wrong with synthetic oil, there is no doubt it is superior to regular oil but if regular oil does the job...then synthetic may not be necessary. Each situation is different.

Here is a copy of a lab report for my daily driver. It's not super accurate since it lists Motorcraft Oil for the last two changes when in fact it was Rotella T. I guess the lab doesn't read the sample tickets too closely.... At any rate, the lab reports show that regular oil works just fine for this engine. No external filters...just the OEM unit. Lately I average just under 9k miles between changes...

 

I love running T-6 in my Excursion. It is quieter in the winter. I figure I can change it myself using synthetic for about what it costs at the quick oil change place with dino and can run it longer. I recently started running with the Mobil 1 Filter that I got from Filter Dump. I don't mind paying more for piece of mind. I will keep this rig a long time.

 

Thanks for the input guys! I forgot to mention O'Reilly's also had the dino Rotella $5 off a gal @ $12.99

 

Must be a local sale. Still $28 for T6 and $18 for Triple T on the website.

 

Hey sledhead, thanks for checking online. I should have done that but didn't think of the possibility it might be a local AZ sale. I hope nobody ran out to get it just to find the reg price!

If you want some just type in your zip code on O'Reillys.com to see if it's on sale in your neck of the woods.

 

Another option is Wallyworld...

T6 for $21
Triple T for $13