Rotella 15w40 CJ4 2007 Duramax LBZ Blackstone UOA

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Just got my UOA back on this vehicle. VERY happy with the results! Im not sure how to post their report on here so I will type it out. Duramax LBZ. Oil was rotella 15w40 CJ-4. MIles on truck 61,339. MIles on oil were 9,054 miles in about 5 months. One quart of makeup oil added halfway thru run. No additives added to oil. I did run fuel injector additives in the fuel though. I also noted that this truck is "tuned" being that I added more power to it, and they mentioned if I would not have mentioned that to them, that the could not even tell. Oil filter was a bosch "distance" plus with two "filtermags" installed. They noted that they found a "trace" of fuel but it was no concern. TBN read strong at 7.2! EGR system is disabled on this truck I wanted to add also. I tow hard with this vehicle (13,000 pound trailer) in summer months....and I can now be rest assured that dino HDEO used for reasonable intervals are the way to go! HOWEVER.... just to be different..for my next run I will be trying out the rotella T6 synthetic for a longer interval. I wanted to run this batch at least until the "change oil light" message came on...but I got skeered only because I added the computer tuner to this truck and was worried about that taking it's toll even more on this oil with possible fuel dilution. This obviously was not an issue and blackstone recommended to run this oil next time to 11,000 miles and then UOA.

Here are the rest of the numbers...

Aluminum 2
Chromium 1
Iron 18
Copper 2
Lead 3
Tin 0
Molybdenum 5
Silver 1
Titanium 0
Potassium 7
Boron 27
Silicon 8
Sodium 3
Calcium 2477
Magnesium 33
Phosphorus 1120
Zinc 1237
Barium 0

SUS Viscosity @ 210 f 77.4
cst viscosity @ 100 c 14.86
Flashpoint F 420
Fuel % TRACE
Atifreeze % 0.0
Water % 0.0
Insolubles % 0.2
TBN 7.2
 
Ah, yes ....

Yet again more stellar UOA evidence from dino oils and Dmax engines. So very nice. So very boring, but in a good way. Fuel at a trace is no issue. Your FP is good. So too is vis, insolubles, etc, etc. TBN is outstanding for that use. That dino oil could have gone further, obviously.


Nothing wrong with trying the T6; just get your money's worth and run a LONG OCI with a few UOAs for confirmation along the way. I cannot recall; do you have a Fumoto valve for easy sampling? I do, and take my samples when at full temp, with the engine running live. Then I shut down and dump the sump.


I realize that I come off as "anti-synthetic" most of the time, but that is not the case at all. There are good reasons to run syns, but those reasons are mis-interpreted by many people. Your choice to use T6 isn't "wrong" but if you don't greatly extend the OCI, you're cheating yourself out of money. Clearly the dino oil can do what you ask of it for a long time. Question is this: will the syn do the same nice job for a LONGER time?

Clearly, the limits on your most recent combination are quite impressive as borne by the UOA evidence you have. Given the data (good TBN, low insolubles, good wear) that oil could easily have gone 11k miles, and proably more!

Kind of puts that "I'm going to use synthetic @ 5k mile OCIs" mythology in perspective, don't you think?

Congrats, Ponch, on that UOA. Great report on a great combination.
 
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That is exactly what I want to see with the T6....if it CAN protect this well for much longer....
 
I forgot to mention also dave...yes I do have the fumoto drain valve. I was surprised how slow the oil comes out of the valve..(good as far as not getting messy). Did I read correctly that you sample from the valve with the engine running? If so...I could see how that could keep things "stirred up" a bit better for sampling. I want to shoot for 15,000 miles on the T6 run. I also am using an amsoil filter this time that I forgot I had laying around. I dont know if I shoud just sample at 15,000 miles or a bit earlier? I will see when that time comes...ive been driving 25 to 30 thousand miles per year so a one year OCI is out of the question for me.
 
Very nice UOA on the Shell Rotella Triple Protection 15W-40, Diesel Dino.

Ponch you have absolutely amazing results and thank you for posting this UOA. The results are.....stunning to say the least!
 
Yes that is what I thought also! It is amazing how that nasty looking sooty oil turns out to be so "good" in UOA terms! This was also my first UOA on this website...next up next year will be the T6 with even more miles!
 
Think of the value in this report. 9K mile from roughly $3/qt oil, with a 7.2 TBN at the end and only 0.2 insols. It's enough to make a Scotsman smile!

TP Rotella is a great oil for the money and obviously DMaxes like it.
 
Yes jim...on a "tuned" engine also! This UOA should silence the "rotella CJ-4 is junk" crowd. The only thing else I wish was included in the UOA from blackstone is oxidation/nitration. I know "oil analyzers" provide these tests...as I have seen before with previous amsoil uoa's.
 
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