10K mile oil changes

[72'CaminoKid]

very good question, i cant answer that for ya, but i would think probably a mixture of both

[75K30]

Originally Posted by 01Cummins

i aint no brainiac on these kind of things but im gonna ask a question on this topic, when you put fresh oil in your engine everybody knows its a clear brownish color, after 3000 miles you drain that oil and its pretty well blackened out, is this just from the oil heating up and cooling down constantly or is it dirty or what?? maybe this qualifies as a good question.

That is a very good question, and the answer is fairly simple. Rings scuff and metal components shed material. Detergent type oils have cleaning additives to help keep the engine clean. The dirty, or dark oil you see is a combination of contaminants from the fuel that is being burned, and carbon deposots etc, etc.
These contaaminants are refered to as "Suspended Soiids" and are picked up by the filter, unless the solids are small enoufg to pas right through, or the filter is plugged and it goes into by-pass.
Anyway, most oils start out very clean, ans synthetics are actually as clear as water before color is added. Dark oil soes not necessarilly mean that the oil is no longer effective.
Most oil changes are really done prematurely. Without analysis we would never really know.

[junior3382]

I use either mobil 1 or Valvoline 15w50 full synthetic. I had an old ford tempo one time, was passed down to em when my car died, and the first thing I did was switch to synthetic. Due to some stupid descisions to fly down a dirt road I had to change the oil pan. When i took it off, the guts of the motor were perfect! Like it was brand new. I believe it was the 40k i used the synthetic oil since the car had over 200k when this happened. I have never had a complaint about it. And I usually change it around ten grand on my trucks, and it still comes out pretty clean. Just never even considered ever having the oil tested, how much can you really learn? I mean internal leaks would present themselves in other ways too right? How important is it?

[o3shortbed]

penzoil anf fram tough guard filters every 9000 to 12000 miles. i usually reset my oil life lite 3 or 4 times. seems to run fine. my oil analysis: motor oil is motor oil

[Jessie]

We are farmers and have been since the last ice age I think. During the 80's when farm equipment had become so high priced dealers always recomended oil analysis. That was mostly for transmissions etc and very seldom for engines. The only thing we found by doing an analysis was that something was about to break and would cost you between 12 and 15 large to fix or don't do an analysis and let it break where by a repair would cost you 12 to 15 large to fix. The analysis kept you on pins and needles and the break simply pissed you off until it was fixed. So we stopped the analysis program and simply tryed to work our equipment fully serviced and not raw hide the tractors and such putting excessive wear and tear on anything. I see no benefit to oil analysis. If it's going to break it's going to break. You might save a shaft or a housing by stopping use of that equipment until it was repaired but the down side is that if you didn't have a relacement for that equipment the lose by being late to market or not make the market at all could wind up being a larger lose or complete lose. As far as engine oils are concerned I am a firm believer and user of the synthetic oils. Since we began using these oils we have longer engine life and cleaner engines. We use rotella synthetic and I can tell you that in these big 584 cu international diesels I can tell and hear the difference in the way they run and perform. I am totally sold on synthetic oils. We change engine oils every four months in everything regardless of hours whether it's 50 hours or 500 hours.

[gmctrucks]

Contaminants would worry me when using synthetic Mobil 1 in this other truck I had so what I would do is every 5k miles I would change out my Wix oil filter and top it off again it would just make me feel better our Turbines at work use synthetic Mobil 1 361 days a year now stop 24v hours a day and we always' get good results on it now you can't beat that.