Big rig OCI

[Bob Woods]

Last week I was on jury duty with an owner/operater of an over the road 18 wheeler. He says the standard OCI is 18,000 miles to 25,000 miles for the big rigs. What OCI do you use?

 

[LargeCarManX2]

Hey Bob...I alway's went 10 to 12 K using Delo 400 and changed the full-flow and bypass for a total of 12 gallons. But I did alot of off roading in the dirt.

 

[cowpie1]

I used Kendall 15w40 in my last semi, Freightliner FLD with Cummins N14. I changed at 30K. Got 1.4 million miles out of it and traded. The truck is still working and hasn't had the engine overhauled. It is not burning oil at a rate that concerns the owner and UOA's are tolerable.

My current '06 Volvo with a Cummins ISX get the same 30K OCI. Got 310K on it and the UOA's are good. Still using the Kendall oil. Baldwin filters on both. No bypass filters.

 

[onion]

It depends on what you're doing with the truck. For old junk, short trips, dirty conditions, 10k will work well. For well-maintained equipment, long highway trips, interstate driving, not stupid-hot or stupid-cold... 20-30k will work fine.

 

[wsm41bn]

i had a 1989 GMC dumptruck, 7.2 litre engine, and i was doing 7k OIC's on it, and it could have probibly gone longer,

 

[allan5oh]

Depends on the manufacture, and usage.

I think some newer engines can run 50k.

 

[Chris142]

When I was driving I was delivering Powder cement, Limestone etc in Pneumatic trailers. Always in the dirt and dust. Always loaded right up to 80K and going up hills on the West coast.

470hp dettroit Series 60's and they changed the oil evety 15K with delo 15w/40. Most engines dropped a valve around 450-600K which necessated a rebuild.

 

[DiEseLjunKy]

The trucking outfit I drive for runs Valvoline Premium Blue in their 450hp ISX Cummins and 465hp VED12 Volvos changing the oil every 25,000. They've been doing 25,000 oil changes with Valvoline for many, many years and never had any oil related issues.

 

[1040 WreckerMan]

One place I currently work changes the oil every 6K miles, but it's very severe duty. The other place changes the oil on the light duty trucks at 8K and 14K on the heavy duty stuff. The equipment hours varies greatly depending on duty cycle.

The over the road stuff that is not worked real hard, long trips and only hauling 80K generally go 20-25k miles. This is either on re-refined 15w40 or whatever is on sale, usually 76 or Delo. We do have some equipment running in very cold climates or other situations where we would run a different oil, but most stuff gets 15w40.

We don't get a lot of miles out of our OTR engines but a lot of hours. It's not uncommon for an engine at only 300,000 miles to have 18-20,000+ hours on it. Series 60 Detroits are a million mile engine usually, but the heads do need inspections. The 60's run very stiff valve springs, and if the overhead isn't kept in shape you'll end up with problems pretty quick.