Our fleet of Ford pickups gets Motorcraft 5W20 oil and NAPA silver filters. Most of the drivers never check the oil between oil changes. (I check mine regularly, but I don't mess with anybody else's truck) Typically, the trucks get about 5K-6K between changes.
what does your company fleet use?
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In the 80's I worked for an airline that had about 25 vehicles and their own vehicle maintenance shop. They used SAE 30 motor oil to top up the engines. They never changed oil unless the engine had to come apart for some reason. The engines ran for many years. They said it was cheaper to just change engines.
Shell rotella t 15w40 for the diesels machines, Napa 10w30 for the pickups, Donaldson filtration except the cat loaders which get oem filtration. Couple of forklits closing in on 30,000 hours so must be working....
Not necessarily a company fleet, but the shop uses whatever 10W-30 is cheapest, and a mix of Wix, Purolator, AcDelco, and Motorcraft filters for customer oil changes. I'd use 5W-30 myself, but the 10W-30 works for most of the applications we have. Exceptions are modular 3V Fords and newer Hondas and Toyotas, which get sale priced 5W-20.
My company has 5 trucks that only get oil changes when they go in for some other service such as tire or brakes. 2 new engines in 4 years but that's probably cause of the way they were driven and no one checks the oil. Their all fords between 01 and 06 I believe all with the 5.4L. however when they do get oil changes my boss will have synthetic put in it.
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In the day, as I've posted before, the taxi fleet used QSGB and Wix filters exclusively.
My "former" boss was too stupid to realize that proper maintenance was they way to go. He thought he was saving money by allowing the oil to turn to sludge. I spent too much time laying in the grass, next to the freeway waiting for a towtruck instead of making money.
Our EMS fleet is serviced at the regional maintenance yard. The Ford PSD units get Petro Canada Duron 15W40. The gas powered Chevy units get Petro Canada Supreme Synthetic 5W30 (Dexos approved). The Ford expedition Rapid Response units and supervisor units get PC supreme 5W20. The filters are Wix
I take the company vehicle that's been assigned to me to VIOC. It's an '05 Astro commercial model that gets Maxlife blend 5w-30 every 5k.
The Memphis PD uses Coastal 5w20 in their sizable fleet of Dodge Chargers.
We have 4 Ford Focus cars all around 2005-2012, A chevy Malabu (2012), two Jeep Liberty's, one Buick Lacross, a 2012 Nissan Pathfinder, and a Ford cube truck with a power stroke diesel I think it's a 2008. All the cars get Shell Full Synthetic in 5w30 and the Ford truck gets Shell RTS 5w40. Many of the Ford Focus cars have between 150-220,000 hard miles. We have never had to add oil to any one of the Ford Focus cars and all are driven hard the oil on all cars gets changed around 5-7,500 miles although we have at times gone to 9,000 miles. The Ford cube truck gets changed once a year it is usually no more than 9,000 miles. Filters were Purolator but switched this year to mostly Fram usually the middle model I always forget the name but it has a silver can.
Originally Posted By: WobblyElvis
In the 80's I worked for an airline that had about 25 vehicles and their own vehicle maintenance shop. They used SAE 30 motor oil to top up the engines. They never changed oil unless the engine had to come apart for some reason. The engines ran for many years. They said it was cheaper to just change engines.
Hope they changed oil filters at least!
Almost sounds similar to a couple of 900+ fleets I know of that I spoke to the fleet managers about recently. Both fleets change oil every 30,000 miles or 2 years. One uses either a cheap re-refined SN oil or dexos1 for GM cars in its fleet, and the other fleet puts in Mobil1 synthetic. Both change oil filter at 10,000 miles in this scheme. Cop cars and pool government cars/pickups, gasoline.
In the 80's I worked for an airline that had about 25 vehicles and their own vehicle maintenance shop. They used SAE 30 motor oil to top up the engines. They never changed oil unless the engine had to come apart for some reason. The engines ran for many years. They said it was cheaper to just change engines.
Hope they changed oil filters at least!
Almost sounds similar to a couple of 900+ fleets I know of that I spoke to the fleet managers about recently. Both fleets change oil every 30,000 miles or 2 years. One uses either a cheap re-refined SN oil or dexos1 for GM cars in its fleet, and the other fleet puts in Mobil1 synthetic. Both change oil filter at 10,000 miles in this scheme. Cop cars and pool government cars/pickups, gasoline.
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"Corrections Enterprises" Bulk Oil (often but not always labeled Shell, sometimes something else) (when available/forced)
Napa Syn
Formula Shell via a parts store
Occasionally Mobil
"Correction Enterprises" really is not "bad" stuff. Their Dexos is about $4 per quart... but their full Syn is $8 per quart and their 10w30 syn diesel can be as high $27 per gallon (but the 5w30 HEDO is $26, and the 3g case is $17/g).
Napa Syn
Formula Shell via a parts store
Occasionally Mobil
"Correction Enterprises" really is not "bad" stuff. Their Dexos is about $4 per quart... but their full Syn is $8 per quart and their 10w30 syn diesel can be as high $27 per gallon (but the 5w30 HEDO is $26, and the 3g case is $17/g).
Don’t know if we qualify as a fleet with only 3 service trucks going all over the US but if I put all the staff personal vehicles and the toys, jeeps, mud mobiles in there you might could consider us somewhat of a redneck flotilla.
I’ll throw mine out there if for nothing else to stimulate the conversation.
Since I only directly manage the trucks and my own personal vehicles, I will address them because everyone else does the 5-7 k oil things just using the shop for their maintenance as they see fit. They also get full free sampling from our contract lab if they choose to use that benefit. (Benefit of being a small firm)
We use an oil probably most here are probably not too familiar with- Ultrachem Synthetics (specifically chemlube in various weights). This is because we get it free due to a business arrangement and have since the early 90’s. (Free is definitely within my price range)
This oil is comparable to other high end full synthetics but UC doesn’t focus on their automotive products in North America and from what my rep tells me they don’t even have a significant footprint for sales or marketing in the US unless an individual distributor does it.
This is where my practices may be unique but in my case these practices are driven from a business model based on a risk assessment and don’t even consider the oil, usable life, mileage or anything else that would be considered normal for a fleet management scenario.
In short, these 3 trucks are work horses. We have them fitted with 10Kw Inverters; they haul extreme loads in various climates and have other attachments. It is not uncommon for them to power all the commo gear and computers at a remote site and high idle almost 24 hours.
A failure here could shut down a job and cost a lot of money so we go to what many would consider extremes such as deep pans, oil coolers, hi flow oil pumps, oversized radiators, alternators, fans, bypass filtration (oil, coolant and fuel) greatly upsizing electrical and such.
I sample every month and change at approximately 2500-3000 miles regardless. I do this because the miles don’t reflect engine usage and I trend all this not for oil data purposes (which I consider sacrificial) but to gauge the condition of the engine. I simply cannot afford a breakdown (especially in a remote mine site like Arizona, Utah or Nevada where support isn’t always down the road) so I have no problem replacing a fully serviceable oil with another change of new fully serviceable oil. (That applies with every component on these 3, not just the oil)
Basically I base my asset strategy on the old formula that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and because of potential business loss I err to the extreme side of proactive and preventive maintenance that is not practical in most fleet applications.
I’ll throw mine out there if for nothing else to stimulate the conversation.
Since I only directly manage the trucks and my own personal vehicles, I will address them because everyone else does the 5-7 k oil things just using the shop for their maintenance as they see fit. They also get full free sampling from our contract lab if they choose to use that benefit. (Benefit of being a small firm)
We use an oil probably most here are probably not too familiar with- Ultrachem Synthetics (specifically chemlube in various weights). This is because we get it free due to a business arrangement and have since the early 90’s. (Free is definitely within my price range)
This oil is comparable to other high end full synthetics but UC doesn’t focus on their automotive products in North America and from what my rep tells me they don’t even have a significant footprint for sales or marketing in the US unless an individual distributor does it.
This is where my practices may be unique but in my case these practices are driven from a business model based on a risk assessment and don’t even consider the oil, usable life, mileage or anything else that would be considered normal for a fleet management scenario.
In short, these 3 trucks are work horses. We have them fitted with 10Kw Inverters; they haul extreme loads in various climates and have other attachments. It is not uncommon for them to power all the commo gear and computers at a remote site and high idle almost 24 hours.
A failure here could shut down a job and cost a lot of money so we go to what many would consider extremes such as deep pans, oil coolers, hi flow oil pumps, oversized radiators, alternators, fans, bypass filtration (oil, coolant and fuel) greatly upsizing electrical and such.
I sample every month and change at approximately 2500-3000 miles regardless. I do this because the miles don’t reflect engine usage and I trend all this not for oil data purposes (which I consider sacrificial) but to gauge the condition of the engine. I simply cannot afford a breakdown (especially in a remote mine site like Arizona, Utah or Nevada where support isn’t always down the road) so I have no problem replacing a fully serviceable oil with another change of new fully serviceable oil. (That applies with every component on these 3, not just the oil)
Basically I base my asset strategy on the old formula that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and because of potential business loss I err to the extreme side of proactive and preventive maintenance that is not practical in most fleet applications.
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