Ford F150 4.2 V6, Rotella T6?

[4D-56]

Hello fellow oil geeks...

My good friend is running an '04 F150 V6 4.2 with 95K on it, he uses it as his Handyman work truck, it gets a lot of work, quite a lot of miles, always fully loaded..

...I had it running on some Amsoil 5W30 which it ran very well on, greatly improved mpg but wondered if a HDEO would be better for it...im liking the sound of T6 for such a vehicle....is that 40 weight gonna be to high for it...south florida heat taken into account, [censored] stop lights everywhere...long hauls on I95???

could I thin it down a little with 16oz of MMO???

please advise...thank you!

 

[hate2work]

I believe that engine calls for a 20 weight oil. Running it under load most of the time in Florida, I would continue with the Amsoil 30 weight oil, assuming the cooling system is working properly.

Unless the engine needs to be cleaned, forget the MMO.

Thicker does not equal better, unless oil temps call for it

 

[TXMXTruck]

As per my signature, I have a 1998 F150 4.2 V6 that currently has 267K miles on it. I never changed from the 5W-30 originally spec'd by the factory and that works perfectly fine for me in the south Texas climate. Mine looses a little at the rear main seal, but does not burn any oil.

If that were my 2004 with "only" 95K, I would go with a 5W-20 as per manufacturer recommendations. Those are good engines. I would not put a 40 weight in there.

 

[tig1]

Do not put that heavy oil in this engine. Heavier oil may in fact increase the oil temp over the 5-30 you are using.

 

[4D-56]

many thanks for the advice, it really is appreciated..

When i originally spoke to my Amsoil dealer, he told me about how Ford spec'd 5w20 for this engine simply to have it pass some particular emissions tests and that it would make no difference to run it on the 5w30...makes sense, but, when i do the vehicle look-up on the Amsoil site, it gives me the option of using a 0w20 signature series, whadya think of this?

 

[tig1]

My Fords call for 5-20, but recently I switched to 0-20. I recently made a trip to Florida and back and I got about 1 MPG better with the 0-20. As for the emissions test, the differance between 0-20, 5-20, 5-30 will have no effect at all. If you want to use a 30wt oil try 0-30.

 

[GoalieFergy53]

I ran Chevron Supreme 5w-20 and Motorcraft 5w-20 in my 4.2l F150. I have other vehicles using Rotella T5 10w-30 so tried an oil change using that in my truck. I found my truck ran better on the Rotella, so I've been using it since.

 

[Brons2]

I owned a 4.2 and it got it's best analysis results on Chevron Supreme 10w30. I used a lot of M1 5w30 prior to that but I got better results with the Chevron dino, so I stuck with it.

No reason for T6 in this engine. However, T5 10w30 would probably be fine.