Why you should change your oil

[Diamondpilot]

Chris, don't you feel a little bit responsible here?
With all your knowledge and all, didn't you explain to your
brother in law the consequences of oil neglect?

I had no idea. Its a beautiful truck with a lift, 35" MT tires, and super clean. I bet he has $4000 worth of extas but was too cheap or lazy to change the oil.

Looking at it you would never know its not taken care of. Like mentioned above, this is the risk of buying a used vehicle.

Chris

 

[Diamondpilot]

Did it have a cheap filter on it?

It apperars to be a filter from a quick lube place. Called a Lubeliner.

Chris

 

[Deere Dude]

Like mentioned above, this is the risk of buying a used vehicle.

Buying used is maybe fine if you know the person selling and know he is up on maintenance, and know he wouldn't sell something like that for conscience sake. But people like that don't come around very often. That is probably the main reason I won't buy used.

I had a friend in the 1980s who had a car with 120,000 miles on it and we were talking maintenance. He was bragging on how reliable his car was and that he didn't ever have to grease the tie rods and the stuff in the front end and he hardly ever had to change the oil. I thought to myself I better not buy a car from him, but there are probably a lot of people like that.

 

[RobertBrown]

About how much oil was in the crankcase whan you drained it?

 

[Diamondpilot]

About how much oil was in the crankcase whan you drained it?

It holds 7qts and I got 6 out of it and another 1/2 qt in the filter. It had not used or lost any oil and I am fairly certain he did not check it because it took some effort to get the dipstick out. It was corroded in place.

Chris

 

[VA MTN MAN]

]I'll give the opinion that one late oil change in that number of miles isn't the cause of all the metal[/COLOR]. Its probably more the long term neglect that caused the problem. I had a co-worker that had a jeep and we had to push him in the parking lot one day. It turned out it he had bought it used, ran the thing for over 3 years and 40,000 miles and hadn't change the oil. That in itself was bad, but he also wasn't checking it so he ran it dry. This guy had a 4 year engineering degree, but no common sense. Of course the engine was toast. Some people just don't keep track of that kind of stuff and it has long term affects.

I agree with dave 18000 on an oil change wouldnt cause all that metal, some makes advise 12000 between changes.

 

[aczlan]

I agree with dave 18000 on an oil change wouldnt cause all that metal, some makes advise 12000 between changes.

With synthetic, yes. With dino oil, 7-8k miles is pushing it in many cases.
I know someone who offers a 100k mile warranty on his rebuilt Diesel engines as long as you do 25k (yes, 25,000) mile oil changes with Mobil1.
Personally, I change the oil (Mobil1 Synthetic 5-W30) every ~10k miles when I put the snow tires on in Nov.

Aaron Z

 

[murphy1244]

With synthetic, yes. With dino oil, 7-8k miles is pushing it in many cases.
I know someone who offers a 100k mile warranty on his rebuilt Diesel engines as long as you do 25k (yes, 25,000) mile oil changes with Mobil1.
Personally, I change the oil (Mobil1 Synthetic 5-W30) every ~10k miles when I put the snow tires on in Nov.

Aaron Z

I use the same oil and change at 7500 used to change at 5000

 

[bp fick]

With the right set of circumstances?, 18,000 miles could compute to well over two years, of abusive driving, winters, hot summers, traffic, over towing, heat gauge pegged, etc, etc. Just saying 18,000 without knowing the time and potential abuse meted out over that time is tough to make big claims about what's what here. Having done "maintenance" on folk's abused and neglected stuff over the years, just about your worst nightmare is entirely within the realm of possibility. For all Chris knows, it went 40,000 nasty miles before that last one, 18K ago, at the cheapo Quick Lube place and who knows what oil they even put in that thing? Was it to spec for that engine?

Far too many variables, but there's one known fact. The oil that came out crap. That's for certain. You'll find that filter was crapped out when you cut it open, Chris. For sure.

 

[94BULLITT]

I agree with dave 18000 on an oil change wouldnt cause all that metal, some makes advise 12000 between changes.

Hard to tell how many miles he put on the previous oil change. Who know when he was going to change this time even.

 

[94BULLITT]

It apperars to be a filter from a quick lube place. Called a Lubeliner.

Chris

So it was a cheap filter that was probably not really good for 3k. I have noticed alot of those quick lube filters are smaller than a quality filter like a wix, hard to tell what they look like on the inside. Alot of the time those quick lube places just throw whatever oil in too.

 

[Diamondpilot]

As promised I cut open the filter and changed the air filter today between battling a blizzard. Here are the pics.

Chris

 

[94BULLITT]

I was surprised the filter actually had a spring in it. I bet the trans has never been serviced either.

 

[puckgrinder85]

Im a technician and actually just put in a 3V 5.4 in a ford truck a few weeks back. Pulling the cab is the way to do it, quite straight forward and only takes a few hours to do so. These crate motors are EXPENSIVE! I think we billed ours out close to 6-7K$ when we were all said and done with a ford reman. The 5.4 3v has cam issues (typically the passenger bank as the way the oil is fed through the motor, the passenger bank is the last to get oil and if your metal chips arent ferrous I'd bet thats mostly cam journal wear. Not good at all.

 

[Diamondpilot]

Im a technician and actually just put in a 3V 5.4 in a ford truck a few weeks back. Pulling the cab is the way to do it, quite straight forward and only takes a few hours to do so. These crate motors are EXPENSIVE! I think we billed ours out close to 6-7K$ when we were all said and done with a ford reman. The 5.4 3v has cam issues (typically the passenger bank as the way the oil is fed through the motor, the passenger bank is the last to get oil and if your metal chips arent ferrous I'd bet thats mostly cam journal wear. Not good at all.

I called my buddy and he priced us a reman at $4400 with a $1000 core charge. He said the core can not have a thrown rod. He said a days labot to change it.

The metal in it is what appears to be about 1/2 steel (magnetic) and the other 1/2 bronze.

I rented the little lady a car today, a Subaru. Tonight I got a call from the body shop and its already done. Not bad considering we took it in last Saturday and the holidays and all.

I am going to trailer the truck back tomorrow the 120 miles and then trailer the BMW home.

Chris

 

[mikehaugen]

where was he driving to have the air filter look like that? Even if he never changed it, that is only 68k on an air filter... still surprising to see it that black. I live on a gravel road and am exposed to a lot of dust. I change the air filter around 15-20k and it never really looks like it needs to be changed. Never had even come close to anything like that.

 

[Diamondpilot]

where was he driving to have the air filter look like that? Even if he never changed it, that is only 68k on an air filter... still surprising to see it that black. I live on a gravel road and am exposed to a lot of dust. I change the air filter around 15-20k and it never really looks like it needs to be changed. Never had even come close to anything like that.

Not sure where he drives. He lives on the north side of Cincy.

Chris

 

[john_bud]

He's not lazy, he was just stimulating the economy. Why spend 50 bucks on filters, oil and grease when you can spend 8-10K on a new engine? If more people would be the good citizens and spend all that extra money, our economy would be humming along fine! Truckers delivering engines, service techs yanking out old clunkers, etc etc.

 

[Markcuda]

Now John, you got the right out look

 

[crashz]

When you get to Cincy, give your BIL a kick in the pants for this. Of course a $5400 bill is probably gonna hurt just enough to change his mind.

When I met my wife, she had a 1998 VW Beetle. It went 32K miles on one oil change. But like a good Beetle owner, she always stopped at a gas station and added oil when the light came on.

While dating I would hear questions like:
"Why won't my car pass inspection?"
"Why does oxygen sensors cost so much and why do I need one every year?"
"Why does my car always smell funny?"

Remarkably, I was able to nurse the 2.0L back to better health with many changes of 15w-40 Delo, some MMO flushes, cleaning the intake, plugs, wires, filters, etc. Still drank oil though. The rings must have look like coal.