I switched from Delo to Rotella 5w-40 at 28K, mostly for winter. The 28K running Delo, I never used any oil whatsoever. Since the change to Rotella Synth, I seem to be using oil. There are no leaks that I can see, no smoking, and the engine runs smooth and quiet. I just put about 1/2 to 3/4 quart in at 29.5K, and I will keep an eye on the oil level. Anyone have any ideas on what to check, or am I just being paranoid.

 

Here is an Idea, Synthetic oil tends to Stick to parts of the engine more than Dyno. Your probably not using ANY oil, just a half a quart is sticking to the Internals of the engine and not all going back to the pan. I always ck my oil level about a half hour after shut down and it is perfectly on the FULL line. If I let it sit over night " Somewhere" it loses a half quart or so on the dip stick. So Oil does expand and contract. I have not noticed any differences between Dyno 15/40 and the AMsoil 15/40 Synthetic I am running now..

 

I like your theory, ypu could be right. I may have waited too long to check the level. I will keep an eye on it, and make sure I check at the same interval. Thanks

 

Perhaps only coincedence but I switched to Delo 5W40 Syntetic on the last change and just had to have my front crank seal replaced.

 

Thats what I would do, everyone seems to think if you wait LONGER to ck the oil level it will be more accurate. Which makes sense. But for me, if I let the engine get TOO cold, it actually moved DOWN off the full. If I ck it about 1/2-1 hr after shut down, On the full! Make sure your on level surface as well. Even my air bags make a little difference!

 

My CTD uses some after oil change. It slows usage as accumulate more miles on change. 3 qts in 20,000 miles of hard towing doesn't seem bad to me.

 

I have always check mine after its sat overnight and its always on the full mark. BTW, it does say in the manual to wait a minimum of 15 minutes after shut off before you check your oil to allow the oil time to drain back in to the oil pan.

 

Like most things, Oil expands as it's temp rises.

Nick

 

The same thing happened to me. I had been running conventional Valvoline Premium blue oil, and switched to synthetic Rotella at about 20,000 miles.

I took a trip shortly after that pulling about 8,000 lbs, and ended up using 2 quarts of oil in 2,000 miles. I attributed part of this to the synthetic switch, and part to having more blow-by under sustained load.

Either way, by the next oil change (again with synthetic Rotella) everything was fine, and oil usage is negligable now.

Kind of off the topic, but I had Blackstone labs do an oil analysis on my second go around with the synthetic Rotella, and wear rates came back unusually high...so much so, that I've now switched to a real synthetic oil with a heavy dose of moly (Schaeffer's 9000).

I plan on doing another oil sample in a few thousand miles, and compare.

--Eric

 

enafzige, you have set my mind at ease and freaked me out at the same time. I have not heard anything bad about Rotella Synth, and it was rated very high on TDRs oil report.

 

Me too...somehow, it just didn't seem to work for me very well.

Here's a copy of my numbers from the Rotella. This was at 10,000 miles, no no makeup oil, running Donaldson Endurance primary filter, OilGaurd bypass filter, and filtermags on the primary canister.



The iron and lead values in bold are much higher than they should have been. However, the filterering system seemed to do as well as anything I've every seen. Here is the particle count:



The filters were working very well, and so I couldn't figure out what else it could've been other than the oil itself. With a bypass system, 10k miles isn't out of line as far as oil change intervals go, especially when running a synthetic.

I'm not saying the Rotella's a bad oil, but after having such high metal wear indication, I decided to go to a real synthetic.

--Eric

 

The high wear rates could have been because your engine was still breaking in. They take at least 50K miles to break in.

Nick

 

IIRC normal Iron count is between 10 and 40, but 90 is very close to an abnormal Iron count according to Oil Analyzers. I took a look at my Iron count when I changed the oil last fall and my engine only had 20,032 miles and it was 41. I've talked to a guy who had 50 Iron count (from a Blackstone report) and were very upset at their Iron number, they switched oil to see if it was the oil or the engine. BTW the person who had the high Iron count had used Amsoil 15w40 for the first time on that UOA. The next UOA with different oil the Iron it went down so he is now back to Amsoil 15w40 to see if it will climb back up or stay down.

My $0.02

 

My truck has never gone down more than 0.5L until I used Amsoil and it went down over 1L in 7500miles. I will have that oil analysis done next week....Shaeffers rocks I just wish I could get it...KS

 

This iron seems high (even at 35k on engine) especially with a bypass.imo