Fleet use OCI: 4.6 Ford Limos

[csxt665]

I work at a place that maintains numerous vehicles for a large fleet at a Casino here in CT. The main question I have is your opinion of OCI's compared to what we do. The main contenders are 4.6L powered Lincoln Town Car Limos/sedans. The newest are 2006's (in service end of 05) - some already with 70k on them, some as young as 30k. We still have some 02's left in the fleet that are as young as 150k, and one sedan with 235k+ on it. Here's the deal: we run 5000mi OCI's on them with bulk 5w20 (conventional) - the 06's have had 5w20 since new, and the old ones started on 5w20 sometime around 2 years ago, even with over 150k, sometimes over 200k om them. Some of the cars reach 5000 miles in a month. What are some BITOG opinions on this situation? These cars don't see a heck of a lot of idle time. We usually retire them around 250-300k due to the fact that the rest of the car is tired: i.e. suspension, body, electrical, etc... The NE isn't all that gentle on the chassis' of these vehicles. Our contract with the local bulk distributor is almost up, and it doesn't look like they are renewing. They are debating synthetic. I say conventional is fine, since we run them to around 300k, and have had only 2 or 3 engine failures since I can remember out of a fleet of 30+ 4.6l vehicles. Most are still running fantastic engine wise at the time they are retired.

Also, some of these cars have an overhead console with an oil life function in them. Any ideas how this works? Is it similar to the GM ones? When one car came up to the shop that was at 8000mi on the oil (doesn't read the reminders in the window), the oil life monitor said 30% left... FWIW, we run Motorcraft filters exclusively.

Thanks for any thoughts.

 

[Wrehch]

Have you ever run any used oil analysis on your oil? This is the best way to get optimoum OCI's. Out of curiosity what oil were you using? Sounds like it was working well for you.

 

[csxt665]

It's bulk oil from a company called U.S. Oil. I have been debating on pulling one UOA on a car for the heck of it. Can't really be cost effective on doing *all* of them! I've been reading this site for years, and have taken this kind of thing more seriously than ever.

Also, our HDEO 15w40 from the same company... But that is a topic for another thread.

 

[csxt665]

...And, FWIW, AMSOIL is the offered alternative as of late.

 

[Gene K]

5000 mi OCI seems to be the magic number for OCI with 5W-20 Motorcraft for Police Fleets although it seems to me they would have more idling than your use.

Several Police Fleets have also been known to get good results running 15,000 mi OCI on Synthetics as well. The issue here has been making sure the cars are not allowed to run low on oil.

I would consider working with someone like Terry Dyson at dysonanalysis.com to optimize your oil change interval and lubricant selection for minimum expense over your chosen operational lifetime. You would select several representative cars from the fleet to run oil analysis on to proove out your chosen oil and OCI.

 

[Bryanccfshr]

Your current maintenance seems to be getting you all the service life you need. It would be hard to get much more costs effective than bulk 5w20 at 5k mile OCI's but from a business perspective you should try.
What does it cost to have the waste oil hauled away? what is the cumulative labor time and if extending the OCI's by 50% could save you great costs in the life of the vehicle a couple of analysis to establish what a practical interval is could bring a big return on investment. I will second the recommendation to Use Terry Dyson to optimize the OCI's to your needs.

 

[sw99]

Thats what a ton of police agencies do and thier cars are driven like crazy. Look at all the HM police cars with over 200K.

 

[Earl Filter]

Funny you should mention. Here's a post I made just the other day...

"I was the fleet manager for a large limo company. We only had 4 stretch limos; the rest of our fleet was comprised of 45-50 Lincoln Town Cars from '98-'02 vintage with the same 4.6. These were airport pickup cars and executive transport, and were run about as hard as a patrol car (lots of idling with the A/C on). We had about 5 of them with 350k+ miles on them, another 15 with 250k-350k, and 20 with 150k-250k. Every single one was running on the original bottom end, as the owners would junk a car before putting an engine in it. We had some that had valve jobs, and they usually got a timing chain and tensioners around 200k-250k. We did 3000-3500 mile OCI with whatever 10w-30 bulk oil our shop used (and they bought by price), usually using Purolator filters. This doesn't have anything to do with 5w20, but does speak a lot for the 4.6 in the Panther platform cars. We did have one that turned into an oil consumer, and it had to be put to pasture...when it got to 410k miles. "

 

[Earl Filter]

With my above quote, as long as you don't have any oil consumers, I think you'd be fine at 5k OCIs on conventional oil. It would take an awful lot of miles to have an oil-related failure, provided you don't run them out of oil.