Oil: I'm Not Convinced It Ever Needs To Be Changed

[94BULLITT]

You still need to drain the oil even if you add a quart a 500 miles because you need to let the sludge out.

 

[CBW1999]

Several years ago there was an article in one of the Car Magazines that contained an interview with a Molecular Engineer. He was asked about Oil and specifically about how often to change it in an automobile. He said Oil never wears out and will continue lubricating forever but that it did get dirt. So he was asked how often he changed his oil in his car. He said every 3000 miles (yes, this was several years ago) why would he take such a risk for $20.

Have you ever owned a tractor long enough to worry about an oil change or did you misread the 50 hour service as time to change the tractor?

 

[JOHNTHOMAS]

Have you ever owned a tractor long enough to worry about an oil change or did you misread the 50 hour service as time to change the tractor?

Are you trying to imply that this isn't true?:confused3:

 

[JOHNTHOMAS]

Have you ever owned a tractor long enough to worry about an oil change or did you misread the 50 hour service as time to change the tractor?

OK, let's see. 14 Kubotas and how many got past 50 hours. YES, BX1500 3 years:thumbsup: B7800 3 years :thumbsup: (When I owned them the 0% was for 36 months, they were paid off).:cool2: BX2200, L3240, BX2350, BX2660, B3200, Gas Kubota Mower, B2320 NOs ..... Still have F2680 4 YEARS OVER 100 HOURS(PAID OFF):thumbsup: F3080 almost 3 years OVER 50 HOURS(still own):thumbsup:, RTV1140 somewhat over 2 years OVER 50 HOURS(still own):thumbsup:, BX25 around 3 years and gone AND OVER 100 HOURS:thumbsup: and B2620 1.6 hours and still own. Did 50 hour service per owners manual on those I owned for over 50 hours. Early ones included HST fluid at 50 hours but past 5 years owners manual has only oil and all filters at 50 hours WHICH i FOLLOW..

 

[ArcticFord]

On our farm we had an -55 Fordson Tractor ( Dagenham). I never saw my father change oil on the rear end. Engineoil was changed in the middle of the -70. I am not certain if the engine oilfilter was changed then.
One winter they had to make a fire under the rear end to melt the ice inside.This was in the early -80.Rear end got its new oil next spring.
But the oil on the backhoe never got changed. It had seperat oil system.The tractor still runs like a Fordson !
Scania truck had a cyclone filter for the engine oil. You got a god look into how the oil managed to transport dirt and driving conditions when you opend the cyclone.
Have a Cherokee that run ca. 30000 km. before draining the engineoil. Did not notice any misbehave during that period. Still, I am in favor of following the manufacturers advice concerning the intervall of changin the different oils on a vehicle.

 

[newbury]

It's one thing to change 5 quarts of oil at 5000 miles on my Civic, at $4/qt, quite another to change 15 quarts of Rotella T6 in my F350 at 5,000 miles. When just the oil approaches $120 I think it's time to spend a few $$ to check the oil. And I don't mean "does it look black".

I had the oil and filter changed on the F350 by my Ford dealer using their standard oil for $65. I think they were honoring a generic special, after all that's about the cost of the oil alone.

After I ran it 6,000 miles (almost all highway, some towing) I changed it and the filter myself and installed a Fumoto F-111 Engine Oil Drain Valve. I then sent a sample of it off to Blackstone Labs ($23). They suggested an oil change interval of 8,000 miles. That's on whatever Ford uses for oil! I put in 15 quarts of Rotella T6 at about $25/gallon.

I'm going to sample it at 5K to 8K miles and see how far it's likely to go.

But if the Ford dealer continues with a $65 oil and filter change I'll probably go back to them when needed.

I don't think a $23 Blackstone analysis is warranted for every oil change. Especially if the oil only costs $20. Now if I can just figure a cheap way to change the filter w/o changing the oil.

 

[megaboz]

Oils today really don't need to be changed as often as manufacturers state. That being said, it is necessary to change them because they do get contaminated from engine use and filters do not catch all the garbage.

I had a friend that ran a bypass oil filter system and replace one filter out of the 2 every 10k, at 200k the truck was traded in and for what ever reason they dropped the oil pan. All was good with a visual inspection.

While I believe his results, I would never do that after knowing that there are other contaminates that filters can't remove.

Its the contaminates and lack of detergents that require oil changes. At the factory requested interval? That's your call.

 

[JOHNTHOMAS]

Interesting. After reading through this thread I seem to sometimes see "If it's cheap do it pretty often and if it's expensive do it less often". I'm not saying do or don't or for or against.
Just an observation (mine) of how often oil and or filters need to be changed based on cost and not machine usage or quality of replacement product. I think most of us do this with maintenance "stuff". Grease is cheap so do it every day but would those same people do it every day if grease cost $100 a tube? I wouldn't and actually don't even though it's cheap and I've got about 15 tubes of grease in the garage.
I know there are some that base their replacing Hyd fluid based on how expensive the cost of the tractor was and as a low percentage of that cost for changes do them more frequent than Manuf recommends. You know who you are.
Some companies make a single product and brand it at several different price ranges for those buyers that believe if it cost more then it has to be better. Go to Wal Mart and look at replacement wiper blades for one example and look how far apart the prices are for a, say 17" replacement blade, keep looking, they have them in several different locations and when you look at the Manuf and packaging you'll see what I mean. Of course a $2.39 wiper blade will not last as long or wipe as good as the one on sale for $14.99, will it? Just one example.
Would I dare say a store branded oil that meets ALL of the same specs would be just as good in lubricating and lasting as a highly advertised branded oil? Even though the same company made/canned or whatever they do with both of them.
Guess that's the $500/$1000 question. Or maybe not for some.

 

[greasemonkeyok]

Having experienced thermal breakdown of the engine oil in a vehicle, I am aware of the risk of extended use of motor oil. The only thing that saved (the engine from catastrophic damage) was (after) the driver said,"I think the car is driving funny" I checked oil and found it had virtually no lubricating properties left. (The oil was thick and felt like rubbing syrup between your fingers.)

If you want to learn more that you want to know, a good place to start is:

The Lowdown on Oil Breakdown

To me it is kind of like walking down the middle of the freeway. You might do it for decades with no adverse consequences but that doesn't mean it is safe. The better question is, is it worth the risk?

 

[newbury]

Good read from Ford 6.0, 6.4 and 7.3 Oil Bypass Systems and Billet Aluminum Filter Caps

From a major oil analyzing company about the benefits of bypass filtration.
---"We receive many oil samples from clients who don't understand what is required to run unusually long oil use intervals in their engines. The accumulation of wear metals, blow-by materials, and oil oxidation products in their oils is alarming. It has been our experience that one cannot simply add oil of a particular brand or base stock and expect it will be useful for an extended period of time, lubricating, cleaning, and cooling as required. Oil that becomes contaminated needs to be changed promptly. In our opinion, there are no magic oils or additives. There are, however, auxiliary systems you can add to your engine's lubricating system that will keep the oil clean enough to use over an extended period of time. By-pass filtration units are the most common system used for this purpose. In-line oil filtration, which comes installed on your engine from the factory, filters oil entering the engine down to roughly 30-40 microns (millionths of a meter). This is about as finely as in-line filtration can filter, because when the oil is cold or the filter is partially plugged, a finer filter would cause too great a pressure drop, forcing open the filter by-pass valve and allowing unfiltered oil to circulate through the engine. By-pass filtration works differently. When this type of auxiliary system is installed, some of the sump oil by-passes the in-line filter system, passing continually though a by-pass filter and then returning to the oil sump. Using this method, sump oil is constantly being cleaned any time the engine is running, and it can be filtered down to a very fine size. All you have to do to maintain the system is occasionally change the by-pass filter. Not only do the by-pass filtration units cleanse the sump oil of blow-by and oxidation products, they also reduce wear metals and silicon accumulations, both of which are abrasive. Oil does not wear out. Its usefulness is limited by contamination. By-pass filtration removes most of the contaminants. How long can an oil fill be run using by-pass filtration? We've heard claims of large (Class 8) diesels going 1,000,000 miles on the same fill of oil with no harm done to the engines. We have analyzed oils which have been in service 240,000 miles and found nothing unusual in the analysis, other than higher than average iron and lead (from steel parts and bearings), and these wear accumulations were not intolerably high. After having run many tens of thousands of diesel engine oil samples, it is our opinion that a by-pass oil filtration system is one of the most important factors in extending oil drains. If you are interested in extended oil drains, we suggest you investigate adding this type of system to your engine."

---Blackstone Labs

So it reads like if I put a bypass system into my F350 I could get by changing oil 15K or more.