Originally Posted By: Pablo
Originally Posted By: dnewton3
Interesting comment. What specifically are you not impressed with regarding Amsoil? By now, any chemical reaction to Amsoil should have subsided in the Dmax, after 100k miles of use. I, for one, think your experiences would be very informational and your knowledge very credible due to the duration of your Amsoil committment.
What "chemical reaction"? His copper was 3 ppm at 13K miles. His Fe is steady in all his posted UOA's. In fact his metals are pretty much the same regardless of oil choice if you account for miles, seems to me.
If he sticks with 5K intervals, then AME makes no sense. If he goes 15-20K, makes more sense.
My apologies, because I wasn't trying to imply that the reaction was ongoing. My intent was to point out that after 100,000 miles of AME, whatever "chemical reaction" that might have been present is very likely to be long gone. The engine should have normalized to the Amsoil by now. It was not my intent to suggest that it's currently undergoing a chemical reaction; sorry if it read that way.
That in mind, I was wondering why he was "unimpressed" by the AME. At only 10k mile OCIs, I can understand why; he's not running the AME nearly far enough out to get any ROI. Even with "normal" UOA numbers from AME, the cost ratio can't even begin to pay back. Why pay for AME and get dino wear results over 10k miles? After 10 AME OCIs at 10k miles each, it's not like he didn't give it a fair chance to impress him; yet he came away "unimpressed".
Seems that he's very committed to "normal" OCI durations. Cannot say that I blame him as he has very extensive personal experience in using dino oils (with a high degree of success, I might add). That in mind, synthetics just don't make sense. It's not like the weather is a factor in Florida, so cold cranking isn't an issue. If he can't/won't extend the OCI to get the ROI and the cold starts are not an issue, why use synthetics at all? Amsoil didn't fail him, it's just that any synthetic is probably not a good fit for his maintenance plan.
I would think that as many miles as he puts on, he'd be a candidate for synthetics and bypass filtration. Excellent opportunity there. But if that's not the path he chooses, then those product don't make sense.
Ottomatic also brings up a great point in that some people who do use synthetics/bypass often tend to "overtrust" the lube system (for a lack of a better term). They are tempted to ignore things they should still be tracking. Just because you extend the OCI, does not mean you can fill and forget. UOAs are a must at that point. And often what happens in these scenarios with small sumps is that the cost of the UOA can often equate to the cost of an dino OCI. Yes, there are some things that a UOA can tell you that would be flushed out with an OCI, but that does not negate the cost/ROI concept. For a Dmax (a relatively small diesel sump at 10 qrts) you can truly OCI for the same cost of a basic Blackstone UOA. (Oil and filters on sale = UOA + postage. If you get TBN, the cost goes up another $10 which makes the OCI way cheaper than the UOA!).
It's not for use to decide his maintenance plan. He's clearly proven he knows how to take trucks out way past where most others would ever own them, and mostly on dino oil.
