In the farm and construction industries the newest trend is the 0w30 and 0w40 grade oils. So far these oils do not meet the 2002 CI-4 specifications required for the over the road trucks but for farm and construction applications a CH-4 oil will work just fine. Also these 0w30 oils come closer to meeting the gasoline OEM requirements than does 15w40 so they make a good consideration for fleets that want a universal oil. If you think no one would recommend a 0w40 diesel oil then think again. For example John Deere even private labels a 0w40 oil so it must at least be good enough to put their name on the bottle.
5w20=15w40
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Somehow, I think you're going to be asked to believe that a 0w-40 is like a 30 weight ...but can also serve as a 50 weight. The, yet un-named, oil will be referred to as "cross" something or other ..and it will be an "exact" replacement for everything from 3 in 1 oil to coal tar.
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Yes ..and will reduce the heartbreak of sceriosis and will make the 4 out of 5 that suffer from diarhea ..enjoy it.
When this thread was started the diesel fleet mechanics argued that the only reason a Ford specifies a 5w20 engine oil is to save gasoline and a 15w40 diesel oil would work just fine as a universal gas and diesel oil. The problem with this is that the tolerances in Ford gasoline engines are extremely tight and the engine may starve for oil if an oil that is too thick is use. It was then stated that 15w40 is the only oil that the Diesel OEM's recommend and since the diesel mechanics need a universal oil 15w40 is what is going to go in all vehicles. And this is totally untrue. Detroit Diesel sells a 5w40 diesel oil Cummins sells a 5w40 diesel oil and John Deere sells a 0w40 diesel oil. Yet the mechanics refuse to believe this because their shops only stock the 15w40.
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No ..that's what their boss buys. It's easier to buy oil (55gal drum only for example) a drum for around $300 ..then a drum for about $1000-$1200 when there might be no gain in your fleet's service. You may have a fleet of boom trucks that idle all day long running their PTOs. Not all fleets are "over the road" and see varied duty. You may have equipment that's using 12 gallons a month and some that's using less then 1 gallon a month. You have to feed them all.
Sure ..most major oil refiners offer a synth HDEO. Some in multiple viscocities. They just don't fit in many circumstances.
Would a synthetic 0w-40 or 5w-40 have served this engine spec'd for 5w-20 better then 15w-40? Probably...but not to the tune of spending thousands ..perhaps tens of thousands of dollars more in annual oil purchases just for ONE VEHICLE. You could destroy the engine and just buy a new one for any insult to it in comparative costs.
Sure ..most major oil refiners offer a synth HDEO. Some in multiple viscocities. They just don't fit in many circumstances.
Would a synthetic 0w-40 or 5w-40 have served this engine spec'd for 5w-20 better then 15w-40? Probably...but not to the tune of spending thousands ..perhaps tens of thousands of dollars more in annual oil purchases just for ONE VEHICLE. You could destroy the engine and just buy a new one for any insult to it in comparative costs.
Gee...I wonder if androbot2084 cares to educate us on Nutritional Supplements, Water Filters, Powder Laundry Detergent and Natural Fertilizer Products.
He sells Amway too?quote:
Originally posted by 427Z06:
Gee...I wonder if androbot2084 cares to educate us on Nutritional Supplements, Water Filters, Powder Laundry Detergent and Natural Fertilizer Products.
Firefox with the "MR Tech Link Wrapper" extension fixes that.
The price of synthetic oil must be going up because last week shell rotella was selling for 7 dollars a gallon and the full synthetic shell rotella 5w40 could be had for 14 dollars a gallon.
At any rate the diesel mechanic that started this thread said that he was already using a semi-synthetic 15w40 diesel oil. So I really do not think it was price that was the objection but rather a common belief that only a 15w40 will work in a diesel engine. This again is not true as far as semi-synthetics are concerned. API service CJ grade semi synthetic oils are available in 10w40 grades and even a semi-synthetic CI grade 10w30 diesel oil may meet all the specifications that are required.
The point is not what I would do as a worker at a shop. If I were just a worker I would install the 15w40 and change it once a year if that's my boss insists on. If a year down the road my bosses truck blows up and his warranty is voided because I put in the wrong oil and neglected the maintenance let the boss fire me because at least I got a years work out of him. Had I tried to argue with the bossman he would have fired me on the spot.
At any rate the diesel mechanic that started this thread said that he was already using a semi-synthetic 15w40 diesel oil. So I really do not think it was price that was the objection but rather a common belief that only a 15w40 will work in a diesel engine. This again is not true as far as semi-synthetics are concerned. API service CJ grade semi synthetic oils are available in 10w40 grades and even a semi-synthetic CI grade 10w30 diesel oil may meet all the specifications that are required.
The point is not what I would do as a worker at a shop. If I were just a worker I would install the 15w40 and change it once a year if that's my boss insists on. If a year down the road my bosses truck blows up and his warranty is voided because I put in the wrong oil and neglected the maintenance let the boss fire me because at least I got a years work out of him. Had I tried to argue with the bossman he would have fired me on the spot.
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Hey, everyone has one of those Vonage commercials happening in the background from time to time.
427Z06, no I don't use 15w40 in a Ford modular, but I do use it in all my diesel trucks. I have used 0w40 in my 5.4 because it was all I had at the time. I also don't have much of a choice in most cases running 15w40 in cold weather. I live close to the coast so it normally doesn't get much colder than the 40*F. I do have to go into the mountains quite frequently, and it gets real cold. If I was in cold temps continuously, I would certainly use 5w40 since all of my work trucks are diesels. I prefer to use the block heater when ever possible to keep the coolant and oil temp at least 75*F, however when I'm in the mountains at a work site there is usually a real lack of anything besides what I brought with me. The pour point on Delo 400 15w40 is -23*F. 0*F (and I meant to type 10*F, not that it makes much of a difference) is getting close to the point of no return. I posted that mostly as an extreme case as to the versatility of a good 15w40, I certainly don't make a habit out of running 15w oil that cold but it does happen and my oldest PowerStroke is still ticking with 300+ on the long block.
Androbot2084, if my math is correct $14.00 per gallon for 5w40 Rotella is twice (that's double) the price for 15w40 (with your posted figures). If the fleet is living a long and happy life on 15w40 why would I double my oil cost? At work we have a fleet of 1400 revenue units (and still growing) and we have tested many oils, both syn and dino. We currently run 15w40 because it provided the best service for the money spent. We now use a re-refined 15w40 from Unocal. I certainly don't think that dino 15w40 is the only oil that work in a diesel. When I use up my current stock of Delo 400 at home, I'm going to run 5w40. For the diesel engines I have, a 30wt seems to be too thin in most of the conditions I operate in (other than the cold). There are very few oils other than 5w40, 15w40 and 30wt that are designed for use in HD diesels. There are many oils of different viscosities that would be acceptable in passenger car diesels, or small tractor diesel.
What I would do on my personal vehicles differs from what I do with fleet vehicles. I keep my personal vehicles for a long time, and the extra cost for the best oil is worth it to me even if it only increases the longevity slightly. In a fleet, I want the least expensive oil that will make the equipment last with minimal problems for their expect lifespan, which is generally a lot shorter than people keep their cars for. I also want to keep the least amount of money in inventory, which means stocking few parts and supplies. 15W40 goes into all the diesel equipment and 5w30 goes into all the gas equipment. The oldest equipment in our fleet are about 500 1996 Cummins engines that are severe duty, in town, intermittent duty engines. They see a lot of idle and constant stop and go situations. We have had no failures related to oil and we have only rebuilt about 4 or 5 of them. Those rebuilds were either due to defective parts or mechanic error, not the 15w40 oil we run.
Androbot2084, if my math is correct $14.00 per gallon for 5w40 Rotella is twice (that's double) the price for 15w40 (with your posted figures). If the fleet is living a long and happy life on 15w40 why would I double my oil cost? At work we have a fleet of 1400 revenue units (and still growing) and we have tested many oils, both syn and dino. We currently run 15w40 because it provided the best service for the money spent. We now use a re-refined 15w40 from Unocal. I certainly don't think that dino 15w40 is the only oil that work in a diesel. When I use up my current stock of Delo 400 at home, I'm going to run 5w40. For the diesel engines I have, a 30wt seems to be too thin in most of the conditions I operate in (other than the cold). There are very few oils other than 5w40, 15w40 and 30wt that are designed for use in HD diesels. There are many oils of different viscosities that would be acceptable in passenger car diesels, or small tractor diesel.
What I would do on my personal vehicles differs from what I do with fleet vehicles. I keep my personal vehicles for a long time, and the extra cost for the best oil is worth it to me even if it only increases the longevity slightly. In a fleet, I want the least expensive oil that will make the equipment last with minimal problems for their expect lifespan, which is generally a lot shorter than people keep their cars for. I also want to keep the least amount of money in inventory, which means stocking few parts and supplies. 15W40 goes into all the diesel equipment and 5w30 goes into all the gas equipment. The oldest equipment in our fleet are about 500 1996 Cummins engines that are severe duty, in town, intermittent duty engines. They see a lot of idle and constant stop and go situations. We have had no failures related to oil and we have only rebuilt about 4 or 5 of them. Those rebuilds were either due to defective parts or mechanic error, not the 15w40 oil we run.
Thanks for sharing, 1040 WreckerMan. Your clarifications put things into proper perspective. Hopefully your descriptions of accounting decisions will educate 'boy wonder' if he cares to learn about the business side of maintaining a fleet.
Boy, this is nonsense. Where do get your education?
15W40 was NOT developed for 2 stroke diesels.
Detroit diesel 2 stroke series 149 always required monograde 40 or 50.
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I'll attempt to translate.
40 weight monograde synth "may" end up also qualifying as a 15w-40/20-40 due to broad VII.
Flaw: Virtually no 40 weight synths were used in 2 stroke DD's. They had normal consumption to the tune of one gallon every 10hours of operation. The majority of oil usage is dino whether 2 or 4 stroke.
Very few monograde 40 weight synths exist at all. Mobil appears to have only one that is rated CF. Another is for gasoline ..but has no S or C spec's
40 weight monograde synth "may" end up also qualifying as a 15w-40/20-40 due to broad VII.
Flaw: Virtually no 40 weight synths were used in 2 stroke DD's. They had normal consumption to the tune of one gallon every 10hours of operation. The majority of oil usage is dino whether 2 or 4 stroke.
Very few monograde 40 weight synths exist at all. Mobil appears to have only one that is rated CF. Another is for gasoline ..but has no S or C spec's
First of all bottom line and initial cost are 2 different things. An oil could have a higher initial cost but it could have a lower bottom line when you factor in the fuel cost savings.
First of all the trucking business is not about windfall profits but its more about nickles and dimes. If you save enough nickles and dimes those nickles and dimes add up. For Example John Deere claims you get a 2.7 percent increase in fuel economy when you use their 0w40 synthetic oil. Now that may not seem like much but if you are driving a 100,000 miles a year and get 5 miles to the gallon thats 20,000 gallons of fuel you have to buy at 3 bucks a gallon is $60,000. Every 1 percent you save on fuel puts $600 bucks in your pocket and 2.5 percent thats $1500. Now if you have a 1000 truck fleet thats a 1.5 million dollars that you save and thats nothing to sneeze at.
First of all the trucking business is not about windfall profits but its more about nickles and dimes. If you save enough nickles and dimes those nickles and dimes add up. For Example John Deere claims you get a 2.7 percent increase in fuel economy when you use their 0w40 synthetic oil. Now that may not seem like much but if you are driving a 100,000 miles a year and get 5 miles to the gallon thats 20,000 gallons of fuel you have to buy at 3 bucks a gallon is $60,000. Every 1 percent you save on fuel puts $600 bucks in your pocket and 2.5 percent thats $1500. Now if you have a 1000 truck fleet thats a 1.5 million dollars that you save and thats nothing to sneeze at.
Ya, you may have UP TO 2.7% increase with synthetics, yet there is at least 15% MPG variation due to individual driver skills.
Please stop you propaganda. Do you have an agenda or you just want to advertise your immaturity?
Please stop you propaganda. Do you have an agenda or you just want to advertise your immaturity?
The big 1000 refrigerator truck fleets that I know that have switched to synthetic oil have not yet adopted it as a universal oil and still have to stock 2 types of oil. This is because if an engine is burning a quart of oil every 500 miles it is no longer economical to use synthetic oil. So they stock the 5w40 synthetic oil and the 15w40 petroleum oil. However both oils are heavy duty diesel oil and are interchangable which means trucks are not damaged if the wrong oil is used.
To keep things simple the fleet does a lube oil analysis once a month on every truck. That way the fleet does not have to keep track of miles and it covers both the over the road trucks as well as the city trucks. The fleet also uses a fiber optic video camera to check the wear inside of the cylinders to see if the extended oil drain is holding up. Over the road trucks go from 60,000 up to 80,000 miles without an oil change if the oil analysis holds up and the engines usually last a million miles between overhauls.
This big trucking fleet operates out of New York so in that climate they can take advantage of the cold weather performance of a 5w40 heavy duty oil.
To keep things simple the fleet does a lube oil analysis once a month on every truck. That way the fleet does not have to keep track of miles and it covers both the over the road trucks as well as the city trucks. The fleet also uses a fiber optic video camera to check the wear inside of the cylinders to see if the extended oil drain is holding up. Over the road trucks go from 60,000 up to 80,000 miles without an oil change if the oil analysis holds up and the engines usually last a million miles between overhauls.
This big trucking fleet operates out of New York so in that climate they can take advantage of the cold weather performance of a 5w40 heavy duty oil.
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