TNDODGE

I have heard many of you getting your oil analyzed at each change. Where do you get this done. From what I understand, you send a sample somewhere and they send you the results. It cost around $20 or so. Thats all I know. Can someone give me more info?

Tony T.

I use Blackstone Labs, it's $20.00 for a analyze. They will send you a oil sample kit for free on request. Just do a Goggle search for them I don't have the link available at the moment. I've done two oil samples at 10K intervals with Blackstone. I usually do oil changes at 5K intervals myself.

Tony

Buffalo

There are quite a few Analysis Labs around.

You might want to go over to "bob is the oil guy.com" & look under the "Used Diesel Engine Oil Analysis" forum. This is a free website but, you will have to register to communicate on the site. Blackstone Labs is probably the most advertised lab, on that site. If you don't understand what the numbers on the analysis mean, there is a guy there, Terry Dyson, that will give you a complete explanation of what is going on in your engine & give you recommendations. He uses Blackstone for his analysis's.

I would recommend reading about the diesel motor oils for medium duty trucks. If you read enough, you will begin to see trends towards certain oils. For instance, in conventional oils, Chevron Delo-400, 15W-40, CI-4+ is considered, by many, to be a very strong, robust motor oil with high quality additive packages. Probably stronger than most of its competitors. Recently, they started adding Moly & Boron, which, adds another protective layer on metal surfaces in addition to the normal additives.

There is a ton of good information on lubrication related subjects, over there. You will learn as much as you want.

Joe F.(Buffalo)

XZILR8N

Oil analysis is very popular within the aviation industry. In aviation it is important to monitor the health and trends of aviation engines via oil analysis. Certain metals present in used oil can be an early indicator to abnormal wear and other developing issues. Oil analysis is good insurance and a good practice in aviation where you are dealing with ~$30k engine rebuilds plus the fact that you can't just pull over to the side of the road if your engine suddenly seizes.

Now, the $64 question:...Is it worth the price to do for auto's/trucks? Some say "YES", some say "NO". It really depends on what you want from it and how long you intend to keep your truck. If you want to go with extended oil drain intervals and let the analysis tell you when to change your oil, then it's probably worth the price. Or, if you plan to keep your truck forever and want to establish a baseline of numbers to compare over it's lifespan you will have fun reading spreadsheets full of numbers with lots of decimal places.

However, if your like me and change out your oil every 5k miles and use a top brand oil I really don't see it being worth the time and money. I like knowing my oil is dumped every 5k along with any contaminents and all that black soot held in suspension is purged. Futhermore, I would rather throw the $20 oil analysis fee towards my next oil change. You can go over to the BITOG and review UOA/VOA and get a lot of free info on how various oils perform in our diesels and make a better informed decision on which oil to use and how frequently to change it.

Anyway, that's just my 2 cents on oil analysis - YMMV!

Buffalo

Good points, XZILR8N.

I've had two analysis done at the local Caterpillar dealer's lab. Ran the oil to 8303 miles the first time & a bit over 7900 miles, the second.

Many, such as yourself, believe in the 5000 OCI's(oil change intervals). Dodge recommends 7500 miles (Schedule B-Severe-duty) & 15,000 miles (Schedule A-Normal-duty), on my '03. It has been suggested that the newer motor oils are of superior-quality & that early OCI's are not necessary.

Since I wasn't sure if 5000 mile or premature OCI's was a good idea, or not, I thought I'd have a couple of UOA's (used oil analysis) done to confirm what some are saying about the superior-quality of today's motor oils. The analysis's showed that the oil was still in good shape & was doing its job. With this information, I feel comfortable with going beyond the 5000 mile OCI.
I'm thinking about stretching the OCI out to 9000 miles with this information.

I'm not criticizing your decision to do the 5000 OCI's. You certainly can't do any damage by overdoing OCI's. Since I do my own oil changes, I was interested in seeing if I could get "more value" out of an oil change & spend less time under my truck.

Joe F.(Buffalo)

N.Johnson

Another way to look at oil testing is to check wear metal levels that will give you a very good idea what's going on with bearings, seals, headgasket leaking etc. I sent a sample to the lab when I was confident that full breakin had occured. I have done it once and the bitog crew said that is as good as it gets when I posted my results. Now I've got a baseline to compare as the miles go by. I'm not interested in extended OCI as the test results can't measure sludge, varnish buildup that can and do occur with long drain intervals. Hey everyone has an opinion on this subject, I've given mine take it or leave it

TexasCTD

http://www.blackstone-labs.com/


I use Blackstone also. You can contact them and they will send you free bottle sample packs.

I don't sample every oil change. I did a couple back to back the last two changes just to get a good baseline as I move forward. Probably will do it about every 20k from now on just to get a good feel for what is going on with it.

They will tell you if you have any moisture, diesel or antifreeze in your oil as well as look at wear metals and silicon coming in. My last one showed my AFE Stage 2 was filtering the air better than the stock filter. Wear metals were very low and showed the engine to be well past break-in.

I still do every 5k oil changes and the lab tech guy at Blackstone told me I could easily lengthen that interval. But, he disagrees with long long drain intervals by some.

skindaddy

how long does it take to get results back

Geico266

About a week, they usually call you if something is really bad.

rammtuff

As mentioned oil analysis will report engine wear. Can you tell engine wear with your 5k oil changes? You feel "good" because you think you are doing the best for your engine. If your bearings are wearing it doesn't matter if you change the oil at 1k intervals. You will run it until it knocks and need a crank. Oil sampling would show the wear metals and you could get away with a bearing roll. Money saved. If your vehicle is ingesting diesel fuel or antifreeze can you see that with your 5k oil changes? If you truly care about the inside of your engine you will oil sample. Spending money needlessly on 5k oil changes hurts the environment (if you are a tree hugger) and hurts your wallet. You can easily travel 15 to 20k on good dino oil in these Cummins engines. But the oil companies (you know the guys with record profits) won't tell you that.

Herr Diesel

It would be interesting to hear how long you could safely "go" with a synthetic & oil tested (of course after break in) of course 1 part is what filter is being used. Some are better than others.

XZILR8N

Ok, in the interest of a good debate on the pro's and con's of oil analysis here goes...

I may be the exception, but I am not too concerned with engine wear on a stock cummins motor, especially with our massive rod bearings. All engines wear and will show wear metals in oil analysis - but who cares? Yes, oil analysis can "sometimes" show trends that can raise questions about increasing wear rates that require further interpretation as to what that might mean. However, premature wear does not seem to be much of an issue with a well maintained cummins engine. Many owners are reported to be happily running in the 100's of thousands of miles and many beyond 500k miles without an engine overhaul.

If the engine is ingesting diesel fuel or antifreeze into the oil it is usually headed for a catastropic failure long before most people are able to do their scheduled oil analaysis, especially at 15 to 20k oil changes. Hopefully those that are relying on oil analysis to do extended oil changes are taking oil samples more frequently than that for analysis. Personally, I would rather save the $20 fee, for each analysis, and put that towards my next oil change.

Regarding the environmental aspect - I for one don't pour my used oil on any trees...it gets recycled! On the otherhand, all those oil samples for analysis have to get transported to the labs and those lab workers drive polluting cars to get to their labs and need electricity to run their lab equipment and cool & heat the lab...

Maybe I have not been reading these forums long enough but I have not noticed many, if any, posts that an oil analysis prevented anyone from having a failure or saved their engine. Typically its a sudden fuel delivery problem: lift pump, CP3 or stuck or cracked injector or dropped valve seat that kills the 3rd Gen cummins. An oil analysis is not going to predict those types of failures. The best and quickest "fuel in oil detector" is my dipstick. If my oil level begins to rise I know I've got problems and I can check that at any frequency I want to. Sure an oil analysis could pick that up but the way these injectors seem to go it seems pretty quick and nasty.

The cummins 600/610 motors with the 3rd injection event really seem to put a LOT of soot in suspension in the oil in a short amount of time. Those oil molecules may still be good at 5k but the oil is getting thicker and thicker as the soot load increases in addition to increasing contaminents from dust, moisture, fuel blowby and normal wear metals. That can't be too good for lubrication or fuel economy. However with that said and the cost of oil rising I may just go to 7,500 miles between changes. However, I do a lot of short distance driving now and it looks like 5,000 to 7,500 miles is going to put me right around 6 months between oil changes. At six months I begin to get concerned about the effects of short trip induced condensation/moisture and would sleep better changing it every six months regardless of mileage.

The main benefit I see from guys doing oil analysis seems they are using it to determine how long they can run their particular brand of oil before the chemistry goes bad and it's time to change it. BITOG has pages of free reports on VOA's as well as UOA's subjected to the rigors of the cummins. That eliminates much of the guesswork over which brand performs well in the cummins and how long it can go.

I guess its all a matter of how you choose to spend your money. Either way you are spending $ to analayze it or $ to change it out more conseratively.

All things being equal, I would lean towards buying a used truck listed for sale that can show more frequent routine oil changes versus one with extended oil drains determined by oil analysis.

Anyway, that's just my opinion of why I am not that enamored to do routine oil analysis. Flame suit is on, tell me I am all wet.

Equalizer 2

My dad worked for ADOT and when they got a new fleet of trucks in they were told they could go a long ways between oil changes. These were big engines so they used oil by the gallons. I don't remember the interval but something on the order of 15,000 miles between changes. They ran analysis on the oil and ended up with something like 6500 miles on the intervals due to the results of the analysis.

Not pushing or deriding doing analysis but just another opinion. I think I will look into doing one now as I am coming up on 35,000 miles and haven't checked it yet. I do change oil and filter at 5000 mile intervals. A nice easy number to remember.

trik396

I use BlackstoneLabs regularly. My feelings are that I want to know how my very expensive engine is doing internally. And heaven forbid, something starts going awry, I can catch it early enough, hopefully. And I'll have the documentation to back up the situation at hand. Cheap insurance, I say... And the more paperwork you have to show a dealership, the better off you might be in a warranty situation.

Totallyrad

You can also use the local Cat dealer. The one here in Birmingham has the lab on site. Results in a week.