5w40 rotella in wagon

[008wagon]

thimking about putting 5w40 rottella in the wagon instead of the 5 w20 . it seems to burn alot of the 20 when towing in the 100 plus heat. anyone try this stuff?

[Hilldweller]

I used to use it in my motorcycle that called for a 40 weight oil.
Our trucks don't call for that viscosity.

My PW hasn't used a drop of oil, towing or not. I've had the truck for 15 months, 19000 miles, and about 8000 miles of that is towing.
If you're using an inordinate amount of oil I'd look to something besides viscosity to remedy it.

Hilldweller's oil anecdote of the day:
I was the manager of a company and had a fleet of Crown Vics that used 10-30 oil. We had taken part in a couple of studies on oil drain intervals and were changing the oil at about 12K mile cycles right then.
One of my drivers, a well-meaning gear-head Harley-boy, thought his conventional wisdom should prevail and took his car home and changed his own oil to his favorite 10w-40 brew with same brand filter. He got 3 blocks from his home and the filter blew up.

Moral of that story was that Ford had issued a TSB about the flow dyanamics of their 4.6L engines. I had read it; the driver had not. They warned that the tollerences were tight enough in those engines that thicker viscosity oils could back-up and cause an oil filter rupture.

So, I'm just sayin' here that you can do what you want with your truck. My oil pressure is fine with 5w-20 oil. I've run high performance engines with 0w-10 oil.
Don't confuse viscosity with quality or try to use it to solve problems it won't solve...

[TwinStick]

My truck burns zero oil, at this time. I tow at max load. I use 5w/20 or 5w/30 full synthetic.

I have also used Rotella 5w/40 full synthetic in our 04 Toyota Corolla from new to around 100,000, with zero issues. Car now has 138,000 miles on it. Still runs strong. That oil became difficult to find & the price went up so much, it is not worth the effort of driving all over the place to find it. I am now using Pennzoil Ultra in it. Also of note: at around 100,000 miles, i changed the filter & oil in the Corolla to the cheapest dino oil i could find. I then added 1 qt of kerosene to the brand new oil & filter. (it only takes 4, but i had 5 in it with the kerosene). I let it idle in the driveway for 20 min. Then i drained it out. The brand new oil had turned as black as can be. I was surprised by this, since i used the Rotella since it had 500 miles on it & changed it every 5000 miles. It did not keep the inside of the engine very clean, thats for sure. So i did one more filter & dino oil change, ran it around town for a few hours, came home, drained again & changed filter & refilled with the Pennzoil & new filter.

[MSparks909]

I run Shell Rotella T 5W-40 and highly recommend it. I have a thread on here about this oil:
http://forum.powerwagonregistry.org/vie ... ?f=2&t=126
Read away and make your own decisions. IMO, 5W-20 does not belong in our engines. It's purely for CAFE requirements; that is it. In one of my posts near the bottom of page 1 I thoroughly discuss the reasons why I choose to run a 40 weight oil and Shell Rotella specifically.

[bones]

Note from the 2012 2500 manual:

NOTE: For 2500/3500 trucks with a 5.7L engine operating
under a gross combined weight rating of 14,000 lbs
(6 350 kg) or greater, SAE 5W-30 engine oil is recommended
for all operating temperatures.

[coder]

Note from the 2012 2500 manual:
NOTE: For 2500/3500 trucks with a 5.7L engine operating
under a gross combined weight rating of 14,000 lbs
(6 350 kg) or greater, SAE 5W-30 engine oil is recommended
for all operating temperatures.

Here are what the recommended oils have been for 5.7 Hemi's in 2500/3500 trucks since they came out.

2004 = 5w-30
2005-6 = 5w-20
2007-12 = 5w-20 (operating under a gross combined weight rating of 14,000 lbs or greater 5w-30)

The thicker versus thinner motor oil debate has been going on for a long-time.

Some in the "thicker is better" group say the only reason recommended motors oils have gotten progressively thiner because of government required Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) regulations.

The problem with this theory is pickup trucks and cargo vans over 8500 pounds gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) are exempt, the PW falls in the category so it does not apply.

While the "thinner is better" group say modern engines have tighter tolerances and require thinner oil to work it's way in to all the smaller parts of the engine.

The problem with this theory is many manufacturers changed their recommended oil from 5w-30 to 5w-20 for the exact same engines.

An extreme view in either direction is based on more urban legend than reality. There are a multitude of web forums and sites to support your personal philosophy in either direction.

My personal preference is to stay in the middle. I want to follow the manufactures oil recommendation if that gets me better mileage great! Because they are using thinner and thinner oils and I want my engine to last. I always use a good quality filter, a name brand synthetic oil, and follow the maintenance schedule with the most frequent oil changes.

I realize others many have a different view and that's OK too.

[LKelly]

While the "thinner is better" group say modern engines have tighter tolerances and require thinner oil to work it's way in to all the smaller parts of the engine.

The problem with this theory is many manufacturers changed their recommended oil from 5w-30 to 5w-20 for the exact same engines.

Another problem with the "tighter tolerance" argument is that it would mean that the engine wasn't being lubricated until it reached full operating temperature - because a cold 5w-20 oil is far thicker than a hot 5w-30 oil.

Personally I run the Rotella 5w-40 in my PW, but it probably doesn't matter what you run - within reason, you could probably run just about any oil between 20 and 40 weight without an issue. I've gone as thick as 60-weight oil, but I wouldn't recommend that for the Power Wagon. I've also run both 40 and 50-weight oils in the Ford modular engines (including the 4.6L) without an issue, so I'm a bit curious about the whole TSB thing. I'm wondering if the problem was running the fleet-type 15w-40 oil, which would be pretty thick on cold starts, especially in colder climates. What I can find about it online seems to suggest that that's the case, and also says that it was a design defect that was later fixed.

A lot of folks will probably disagree, but my experience - as a mechanical engineer in the auto industry - tells me that the life expectancy of your engine is probably established before it hits the first 1,000 miles. Most of the problems that occur later relate to either poor design or quality issues during manufacture, or occasionally to how the engine was broken in. By the time an engine has 50,000 miles you could probably run the cheapest 5w-30 oil at wally-world, or the most expensive super-duper-synthetic oil on the planet and it probably wouldn't make much difference.

That being said, there're a few obvious things not to do - like making repeated short trips where the engine doesn't reach operating temperature, or running the engine without any oil at all.

Big picture, I've always felt that the most effective way to spend oil dollars is probably to invest in the good stuff for axles, t-cases, and transmissions - places where the oil doesn't get changed very often.

Edited to add: after re-reading what I wrote, I decided that I was rambling and it had little to do with the original question. To answer the original poster, yes I think you could run the Rotella 5w-40...but as others have said, if you're burning a lot of 5w-20 when towing your engine has some other issues to deal with. My PW doesn't burn oil regardless of what weight I run, or if I'm towing or not. At the very least I'd recommend an oil analysis, and perhaps that'll help determine if the oil burning is an immediate issue you need to deal with, or just an annoyance.

[Hilldweller]

...I'm a bit curious about the whole TSB thing. I'm wondering if the problem was running the fleet-type 15w-40 oil, which would be pretty thick on cold starts, especially in colder climates. What I can find about it online seems to suggest that that's the case, and also says that it was a design defect that was later fixed.

I'm going from memory but, Darren drove car #44 and I believe it was a '94 Vic, one of the early-ish 4.6L engines. They were also prone to early valve guide seal wear/failure and we routinely changed the seals every 40K - 50K miles. The cars would run to well over 400K miles.
We usually used Penzoil or Valvoleen (whatever on sale at Sam's) dino oil, 10w-30, at about 12K mile intervals.
With engine tear-downs, measurements, experiments ---- we didn't see any difference in the engines with 3000/6000/12000/15000 mile intervals if the oil was a quality API/SAE oil.
We did try synthetic in a couple of cars but didn't see any improvement for wear protection, fuel economy, etc. We discontinued using the syn after a while.

[LKelly]

I'm going from memory but, Darren drove car #44 and I believe it was a '94 Vic, one of the early-ish 4.6L engines. They were also prone to early valve guide seal wear/failure and we routinely changed the seals every 40K - 50K miles. The cars would run to well over 400K miles.
We usually used Penzoil or Valvoleen (whatever on sale at Sam's) dino oil, 10w-30, at about 12K mile intervals.
With engine tear-downs, measurements, experiments ---- we didn't see any difference in the engines with 3000/6000/12000/15000 mile intervals if the oil was a quality API/SAE oil.
We did try synthetic in a couple of cars but didn't see any improvement for wear protection, fuel economy, etc. We discontinued using the syn after a while.

Thanks for the info...that seems to verify what I found about the TSB online, which states that it was the earlier 4.6L engines in the early/mid-'90s. I didn't really get involved with them until after they started putting them in trucks ('97, I think?) which would explain why I didn't run into the same issues.

[ABFargo]

I have a '10 PW. At 15,000 km oil change switched to Amsoil 5w-20 OEM and ran this exclusively until 90,000 kms.
Truck suddenly began to use 1 liter of oil per tankful. Took until 125,000 kms to finally get a dealer to listen to my issue. All other dealers sertvice managers in the area blew me off, not wanting to deal with this issue.
Per Dodge guidelines, dealer changed oil, and added 5.1 liters oil in 4000 kms. This is 5.5 quarts in 2485 miles. Dodge considers consumption of 1 qt per 750 miles to be acceptable (WTF?), or 3.5 qts in 2485 miles. Changed PCV valve prior to test as this apparently is one of the possible causes.
Dealer apparently has tried to contact Dodge for direction, but no reply in a week. (sigh).
Has anyone else experienced this, and were able to determine cause?
Please, no opinions, fact only.
Would like to add my 2 cents if and when Dodge offers their troubleshooting process.
Thanks!

[TwinStick]

??? 5.5 qts in 2485 miles ??? That is NOT normal & is NOT acceptable. Please keep us posted on this. Sorry for your troubles.

[Hilldweller]

Per Dodge guidelines, dealer changed oil, and added 5.1 liters oil in 4000 kms. This is 5.5 quarts in 2485 miles. Dodge considers consumption of 1 qt per 750 miles to be acceptable (WTF?), or 3.5 qts in 2485 miles.

That's perfectly normal. For a 2-stroke.

The oil has to be going somewhere.
Any blue smoke after idling at a stoplight and then taking off?
Any drips?
What do your plugs look like?

[TwinStick]

I wonder if this is a situation where one of those "oil catch cans" would work ??? It HAS to be going somewhere.

[008wagon]

got the rotella in running as good as new we will see if it burns any

[MSparks909]

got the rotella in running as good as new we will see if it burns any

I think you'll like the stuff. I just hit 7,500 miles on my oil/filter yesterday. Today I'm going to change the filter, use some of the "old" oil to send in for an oil analysis and then put a new filter on/top off with fresh Rotella and keep on trucking to 15,000 miles (hopefully) on my oil.

[Hilldweller]

got the rotella in running as good as new we will see if it burns any

I think you'll like the stuff. I just hit 7,500 miles on my oil/filter yesterday. Today I'm going to change the filter, use some of the "old" oil to send in for an oil analysis and then put a new filter on/top off with fresh Rotella and keep on trucking to 15,000 miles (hopefully) on my oil.

Where are you sending it?

I've spoken to a couple of the chemical engineers here at the lab about running samples on our own vehicles but we'd need too much $$$ out of our own pockets for the standards to test against.
I'll be very interested in your tbn and viscosity numbers.

[MSparks909]

I'll be sending it to Blackstone Labs. They specialize in doing oil analysis for passenger, commercial and marine vehicles. Price is reasonable for the kit. I didn't get to change my filter today. I'll do it tomorrow and try to send it off tomorrow afternoon. I'll post a new thread with the results when they email me back! I, too am looking forward to seeing the results.

[Hilldweller]

I'll be sending it to Blackstone Labs. They specialize in doing oil analysis for passenger, commercial and marine vehicles. Price is reasonable for the kit. I didn't get to change my filter today. I'll do it tomorrow and try to send it off tomorrow afternoon. I'll post a new thread with the results when they email me back! I, too am looking forward to seeing the results.

They're good; been doing it forever.
I've spoken to their chemists and they have a solid methodolgy ---- I don't like their choice of solvent and would use a different one, but I'm not a "professional" when it comes to oil analysis....

[MSparks909]

Changing filter today; will use some of the oil from the old filter to put into the sample bottle since I'm not draining the oil. I think Fed-Ex closes early today so I may just mail it out on Monday. I'll post a new thread when I get the results emailed to me. I'll be doing a TBN on this sample (7,600 miles) and I'll ask Blackstone if it's "safe" to top off with a quart or so of fresh oil and push on to 15K.

[MSparks909]

Sent results in today via UPS. Hopefully I'll hear back within a week! 7,650 miles on the sample. Changed oil filter and topped back off with 1-1.5 qts. fresh oil.