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That old timer who said OTR trucks need oil changes every 10k miles was dead wrong
I was at a TA in Jersey last week and overheard this retired fleet manager telling a new guy that anything past 10k miles on an OTR rig is asking for a rebuild. I've been running my Cummins ISX on 25k intervals with oil analysis for 5 years now and it's still pulling strong. Pulled 386k on the last head gasket change and the bearings looked clean. Has anyone else had better luck stretching intervals with proper sampling?
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olivia_bailey1mo ago
That old timer probably ran his trucks on the old 15W-40 dinosaur oil with no sampling... times have changed. My cousin runs a fleet of Paccar MX engines and he swears by 30k intervals with Blackstone Labs checking everything. He sent me a report last year where they found some fuel dilution but the wear metals were actually lower than his shorter interval trucks, weird how that works.
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ben20614d ago
Man, that's the truth right there. I actually read a white paper from the American Transportation Research Institute a couple years back that showed the same thing. They had data from like 500 trucks running extended drains with analysis, and the wear rates were basically flat up to 40k miles on modern synthetics. The old timers forget these new engines have way better filtration and tighter tolerances than the stuff they learned on back in the 80s. @olivia_bailey's cousin is spot on about the fuel dilution thing too, I've heard that can actually help with cold start wear in some cases. It's all about the data now, not the old school rule of thumb.
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piperwhite1mo ago
Did your friend's oil analysis show any increase in metal particles at those longer intervals?
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