Synthetic oil

[Sushibar]

Just thought I would enlighten some of us with what happend to a friend of mine.. Engine 6.5 Chevy turbo diesel. 200,000 miles. Synthetic oil changes at 10,000 miles, no by pass filter. Engine blew a head gasket. Upon inspection, both head gasket blown, 2 broken valve springs, 2 pistons badly scored. Engine had to be bored .060 over.

The vehicle is well maintained and drives loaded 95% of the time.

Didn't do UOA.


Take it as you wish but I know what I'm going to do.


You can say this and that but the fact remains that his engine needed to be rebuilt.

I think I'm going back to short intervals.

 

[jonny-b]

It is a pitty he doesn't take it seriously enough to buy a GOOD synthetic oil. I do, and I my OCI is 18-19000 miles(28-30000km). It is a turbo-diesel with a power chip. A bad synthetic is no better than mineral oil. Very often it can be worse, since the producer don't think well enough about the additives(since it is a sythetic). I think it is your choice, but I guess there must have been other issues playing a role, in this case. Did he do a flush, or use ARX when he made the switch? I guess his engine would have blown up anyway, and that he switched over to synthetic just to make the engine last longer.

Just to enlighten you, though.

 

[Pablo]

Quote:

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Just thought I would enlighten some of us with what happend to a friend of mine.. Engine 6.5 Chevy turbo diesel. 200,000 miles. Synthetic oil changes at 10,000 miles, no by pass filter. Engine blew a head gasket. Upon inspection, both head gasket blown, 2 broken valve springs, 2 pistons badly scored. Engine had to be bored .060 over.

The vehicle is well maintained and drives loaded 95% of the time.

Didn't do UOA.


Take it as you wish but I know what I'm going to do.


You can say this and that but the fact remains that his engine needed to be rebuilt.

I think I'm going back to short intervals.

---

How long was the head gasket leaking before it blew? How does he drive? He had two broken springs and didn't know it?

We really have no information on how the oil was performing.

 

[Steve S]

What do you expect a synthetic oil to do? make the engine invincible? Synthetic would not help with the damage or be expected to.

 

[Steve S]

Quote:

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It is a pitty he doesn't take it seriously enough to buy a GOOD synthetic oil. I do, and I my OCI is 18-19000 miles(28-30000km). It is a turbo-diesel with a power chip. A bad synthetic is no better than mineral oil. Very often it can be worse, since the producer don't think well enough about the additives(since it is a sythetic). I think it is your choice, but I guess there must have been other issues playing a role, in this case. Did he do a flush, or use ARX when he made the switch? I guess his engine would have blown up anyway, and that he switched over to synthetic just to make the engine last longer.

Just to enlighten you, though.

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What brand of oil was used and how would any brand of oil protect when the rings break from the coolant doing a slight hydo. lock and the rings breaking then ripping the metal from the cylinder walls. If you ever get a chance to see blown nitro feul engine being rebuilt it is amazing to see the damage done to the engines no matter what oil is used .

 

[Steve S]

Also it is a Chevy remember Chevrolet's ad from years ago "Chevrolet the heartbreak of America."

 

[Sushibar]

He was using Amsoil 15w40 HDD, uses a fuel additive, checks the fluids regularly.

There must have been issues occuring that an oil sample would have helped fine the issue.

I've run engines with broken valve springs before and didn't know until the valve cover was taken off for maintenance to adjust the valves.

Regardless of how it happened, if an engine is going to let fly no magic oil will prevent it from doing so Excellent maintenance schedules go a long way though.

Just thought I'd share the experience that is all.


And by no means am I bashing Amsoil or any others. I have Amsoil in all my ATV's,and my power steering pump in my truck. I run Delvac1 in my truck and it has been the best performer for mileage and making my truck operate well. (6.0L ford). I've tried lot's of different brands.

I had a 6.5 turbo diesel, it left me stranded so many times I got fed up and bought a Ford.

I've had issues with the Ford but none where it left me stranded. My Chevy left me stranded 7 times in 60,000 miles ,as always the fuel pump packed it in. They jacked the warranty on the pumps to 10 years/200000 km but what good is that if your stranded.!

 

[ottomatic]

What type of coolant? Dexcol perhaps?

 

[1040 WreckerMan]

The 6.5's were not known for longevity. However, there seems to be other issues with that engine other than running Amsoil for 10K in it. I firmly believe that regardless of oil type, UOA's need to be done to established a wear trend and safe OCI. Without a UOA you are taking a stab in the dark. Just because you use synthetic does not automatically mean you can run 10K+ OCI's and it'll be ok.

The need for so large an overbore may be due to the blown head gaskets. If they had been leaking for a while it could wash down a cylinder and cause the piston scuffing. This would have been evident had a UOA been done, might have saved the engine or at least required less of an over-bore. It's hard to say what really happened to that engine without being able to see the broken parts. By listening to the exhaust note, under load if possible, it's quite easy to tell if a valve spring is broken. Most of the time it's really easy to tell by the way the thing runs and pulls. 200K on a 6.5 isn't too bad either way. I'd still run a synthetic after it's put back to work.

 

[Strjock81]

I would just be happy he nursed 200K out of a 6.5L Chevy Diesel. That is approaching "miracle" status for that particular piece of equipment--one of the few diesel engines that can actually make a Ford 6.0L look "good" by comparison!

 

[jmac]

Sushibar your experiece with the fuel pump on the 6.5 exactly mirrors mine along with brand switch as well. I was lucky and a front end collision totalled that one for me before I had to get rid of it on my own. The engine itself I thought was rather good, it was the fuel pump every time.

 

[Sushibar]