OCI based on engine hours not miles

[ToadU]

Almsot all of my wreckers and service trucks have engine hour meters yet I still maintain my fleet based on miles. Anyone doing service based on engine hours? My trucks almost never make it on the highway and are strictly in town and being used 24/7 literally. Lots of idling, tons of dust and stop and go. My drivers are hard in equipment...pedal to the metal at every stop light. For years I have contemplated rewriting my service intervals based on hours rather than miles.

Anyone doing this??? Any advice???

 

[SLATRON]

I've changed oil on a delivery vehicle when got over 250 hrs with less than 3k miles, but normally severe service miles comes first, idk what hourly range should be though.

 

[Stewie]

Maybe go by the months

 

[Clevy]

I'm using hours now because of winter however if you follow the oil life monitor it compensates

 

[ToadU]

I have been doing 12k OCIs which is about 3-4k Past The OLFM reccomendation.

 

[HTSS_TR]

OCI based on hours is better than on miles for vehicles that are idling a lot or mostly stop and go like your work trucks.

You should also use synthetic oil, for diesel engines I would use Shell Rotella T6, for gasoline engines I would use Mobil 1 or Pennzoil Platinum or Castrol Edge.

 

[dnewton3]

What brand(s) of tow vehicle are you running? Do they not have a service manual specific for this kind of use? Typically, converted chassis-cab type trucks get unique service manuals. I would think an hour based maintenance program would be good for you.

You can always do an "guesstimate" of your equivalent by perhaps guessing an average speed of 15-20mph, then converting hours into a mileage mark. I.E. say you average 20mph; you want to OCI the equivalent of every 5k miles. Your OCI would be set for 250 hours. You can play with the numbers as you see fit for your comfort. Of course, this depends if the veh has an hour meter, but you could install one as they are not expensive.

Your other choice would be UOAs. Perhaps UOA every 200 hours and track oil and engine condition. Why guess when you can know?!?!

I personally have some off-road stuff that goes strictly by hours; Kubota and Scag both have hour meters on them, and obviously no odometer. Very common for non-road stuff to run this way.

My Duramax equipped truck has an odo and hour meter. I seem to average about 37mph overall for several years of ownership now. This veh is used for about 50/50 city/hwy. This is my basis for stating you may want to make your estimate around 15mph or maybe no more than 20mph as an equivalent.

 

[Claud]

Farm tractors and construction plant have OCI's based on operating hours, your trucks would probably be best served by a similar regime.

Claud.

 

[camperbob]

We go by fuel consumption, seems to be more in line with actual conditions

 

[ToadU]

My powerstrokes average around 7.5-8 mpg and the cummins ISBs are the same.

In the wrecker industry we don't get industry specific manuals. The wrecker industry is pretty far behind everyone else to be honest. Even the "manual" for the wrecker body is just a copied and stapled booklet consisting of 5 or so pages. They don't even really spec a hydraulic fluid for the wrecker body---basically says you can use ATF of any type or any hydraulic fluid that gives good operation. It's kinda laughable.

As far as running synthetic diesel oil I just can't justify the cost. I go though so much oil in my business it would cost me thousands of dollars a year to use a Syn.

I don't do UOAs on every truck, I have a couple I do regulairly as a baseline. 12k OCIs is probably a guesstimate of around 800-1,000 engine hours. Nothing in the UOAs is a concern and my wreckers consistently go 300k--350k miles before I sell them.

In the past 20 years I have had 2 somewhat oil related engine failures---although none directly related to oil change intervals. One 7.3 powerstroke years ago had an oil pump failure and one of the 6.0s was off road and ran over somthing and punctured the oil filter......driver didn't notice or didn't care and continued operating the truck until it stopped......for good.

Those have been my only 2 failures even somewhat oil related and I can't really blame the oils or filters.

My hope with this thread was to further extend my OCIs and push them further to save money.

Diesel Syn is more than double what I pay for oil now so for me to change to Syn I would need more than double the engine hours / miles to justify the change. Is that even possible considering hoe much I abuse the trucks. Could Syn let me go 25k OCIs?

 

[dlundblad]

I have a friend in the towing business and he goes by miles.

Last I knew, he performs regular UOAs through Napa with his business account. (I want to say he uses bulk Citgo 15w40?) I cant remember the engines he has though. I think one is the Cummins 5.9? Then he also has a few International flatbed trucks. They also have a F-650 flatbed.

I personally don't think synthetic is worth it for severe conditions like these. Keep buying what youre buying unelss you can find something cheaper IMO.