wadem

hi guys, great site,just bought a new 2500 laramie with the 305hp eng,great truck. my question is that there seems to be some confusion as to what the actual requirement is in order to maintain warranty with oil change times and mileage.

i am from Canada, but i think the owners manuals are all the same. the actual owners manual says that if you are following sked "b" which iam, then the oil needs to be changed every 12000 km. there is no time frame, ie months. the dealership that i bought my truck from, gave me a maintenence schedule that follows "b" but has a note beside the filter and oil that says 12000km OR 3 months, who puts 12000ks on their truck in 3 months? I DONT!!!!! the owners man says that this is what is required to maintain warranty, but so does the seperate maint schedule. which one is correct? i sure dont want to be changing oil every 3 months,,, i mabe put 17000 km on my trucks in a year.

it also states that genuine mopar parts must be used, can i not use a after market oil or fuel filter that is warranty approved?

is it alright to go 12000 km between oil changes? seems like alot
but then again iam used to gas engines.

last thing, first service check has you cleaning the water in fuel sensor, where is this located and how do you clean it?


once again, great site and thanks for the input

stevenknapp

I can't help ya with the time requirement for the service, I thought it was just mileage based? 3 months seems really short anyways. 6mo or a year maybe? How often to change the oil is like religion. Everyone has their own viewpoint, and they are all right. My take, if Dodge says 15k mi for 'standard' service and 7500mi for extreme, I'll take their extreme use advice and apply it to my standard use.

For fuel/oil filters you can go with any GOOD filter. I thought I saw a list somewhere. Don't go Fram. I'll use fleetguard stratapore filters. Fleetguard is Cummins house brand for filters. I mail order them, but a cummins shop should be able to order them for you too. Mail order they are reasonable (~10USD). There are a number of good online vendors. http://www.genosgarage.com and http://www.scheiddiesel.com/ are two I've used.

The water in fuell sensor is supposed to be visable when you replace the fuel filter. Near the bottom of the filter housing, two metal pins sticking out. I've not had to see mine yet, but I'm told it's there!

Mike12345

Howdy Wadem,
Do not sweat the small stuff!
Follow the "B" maintenance schudule and have no worry. I drive my baby about 10,000 kms and nearly all of that is towing a 10500lb. fifth wheel, and I do my own oil and filter changes. Oil and filters are cheap. Surely there is a Cummins dealer in Calgary-you even have a choice of oil filters approved by Cummins. Why not invest some money and buy the Sevice Manuals from D-C and learn about your truck--well laid out manuals with lots of good pictures. Explains where items are and how to sevice them.