Fully synthetic Oil

MarquisTree

MarquisTree

Location
Billerica, MA
Anyone here switched their fleets over to fully syn motor oil?
We are running Mobil delvac 1300 ($11.50 a gal) we are seriously considering switching to their fully synthetic ($28 a gal).
There are some real benefits of the extended drain intervals, but the rest of the truck still needs to be serviced like usually, fully syn motor oil doesn’t make the full filters, grease, air filters, break adjustments...have any longer service intervals. It seems to me that the actually oil change of a full PM is the easiest, least time consuming part. Having the trucks running in the field for 300 hrs between service we still find all sorts of things when we go thru them, if we extended the service to 600 hrs or more as suggested with syn oil, we would still have to bring the truck in and deal with the rest of the service. Its hard to justify $280 of oil per truck if there isn’t a clear benefit.

Has anyone made the switch and feel it was justified? Fuel economy increase noticeable?
 
Wow! 300 hours between oil changes seems long, even with synthetic oil. I go every 100 with the non-synthetic but will switch over to synthetic in the winter months for easier starting. And you're right. .. Oil is spendy.
 
I have a small fleet of one truck at this point, so it's easy to go full synthetic for me.

I did it because the owner's manual called for it. Can't argue with that.

Justified? Peace of mind knowing you're voting for a more sustainable oil supply, I imagine. Def. no fuel economy increase for me, but mine's a little F350 gas engine.
 
At 300 hrs it works out to almost every 2-3 months, that's on the chippers, the trucks we shoot for 400 hrs. The only recommended oil change at 100hrs I have seen is on the first breaking oil change on a brand new motor
 
Good thread, I agree with the general servicing/timing issues. I stay with regular oil, 400 hrs in the trucks, 250 hrs in the chipper/tractor, 200 hr in stump machines. Non of them burn oil, oldest truck is 15 yrs old.
 
I use full syn amsoil with a remote dual bypass filter setup on my pickup 30-40000 miles between oil changes have 150,000 miles on it now and its running great. I know the fully syn works well and has its advantages.
we also run full syn in our crane oil changes at 600-700 hrs, I guess its just the price tag, we usually order 4 drums of oil (that's a price break point and no delivery charge) so it would be about $6300 in motor oil vrs $2500 in conventional oil.
I don't see it as much of a labor savings since the trucks would still need a service inbetween oil drains for everything else, its more of a question of quality of protection from the syn oil. Our oil dealer said with oil testing (about $12 a sample) many fleets are only draining their oil once a year, if that was the case then there would be a substantial savings using syn oil. Any one doing this? testing their oil and only changing it when oil analysis says its time?
 
I've heard that the over the road guys send in an oil sample. You guys have me reconsidering my oil changing maintenance, I guess to often is better than not enough.
 
I have a few diesel mechanic friends that work up here on all the agriculture equipment. I'm guessing that most of our stuff is more like farming equip. than over the road trucking. In their opinion and experience they have said that there isn't any benefit to the synthetic oil because of the price difference. On one end you change sooner and pay less and on the other you pay more, but have to change before or right at the point when you would save.
Having said that, I do use full synthetic oil in my Tundra pickup and other gasoline engines, but for now, with deisel, I'm sticking with conventional oil.

Great topic though. It was the first question I asked my friends when I got my diesel equipment.
 
I've heard from many people to not switch from conventional to synthetic and then back to conventional, just a warning I haven't done much research on the actual facts though.
 
http://www.genosgarage.com/GenosGarageTechArticles/TDR55_LubeOilMyths.pdf

Above is a link to a .pdf that deals with oils and additives. Hope the link opens. Lots of good tech articles regarding diesel engines found at genosgarage.com

Basically it comes down to switching from old tech oils in days gone by to full synthetic oils had a benefit. New tech oils with additional additives are better than the old tech oils and the switch to full synthetic unless you have climate concerns (i.e. operate when the temps are significantly below freezing), is a waste of money with little or no actual benefit.
Having said that, my old Dodge Cummins diesel has been running and dripping full synthetic forever. I've always run full synthethic but I live in Northwestern Ontario where -40 is not unheard of.
 
I haven't seen any of the benefits listed (mileage, etc.) but I use the synth because I believe my engine will last longer as a result. I may be kidding myself, but it's really just a few more bucks than petrol, so why not? Since I change my own, I justify the cost of the oil with the savings in mechanics.
 
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