2005 F150 5.4 Triton unknown oil/oci

[Danimal1q2w3]

Buddy's truck he bought used. Oil was changed "recently and that's all we know. He put 3k on the oil so it has at least that many miles. We filled with RGT 5w-30 and a fram ultra. The filter we removed was a fram tough guard. We are going to change at the recommendation of black stone at 5k.

Thanks for looking.

 

[CharBaby]

It was a good idea to start out with a UOA report and it does indeed look good.

 

[dnewton3]

Looks fine. I'd double the OFCI to 10k. Serious; not joking here. That, or don't spend so much money on the lube and filter, because 5k miles on RGT/ULTRA is a waste. If you don't trust what the UOAs tell you, why pay for them?

This oil has, at a minimum, 3k miles on it, and only 6 ppm of Fe. And we know that wear rates go down as the OCI goes up. So it's averaged 2ppm/1k miles ... at 10k miles that would only be 20 ppm, and the BlkStn UA is 20ppm at 5800 miles. So this engine is wearing quite well.

 

[SubieRubyRoo]

OP, you won't get much better free advice than what dnewton just gave. Tell your friend to save some money, stretch this RGT OCI to 10k, and do the UOA again, then go from there.

 

[FastLane]

I sure wouldn't go over 5000 on a modular Ford. Start googling how to change a timing set......

 

[HyundaiAbuser]

My father is a CO-OP manager and resides over multiple branches in Kansas where their fleet trucks are all ford 5.4s. This is secondary testament from someone who is not the most mechanically inclined or maintenance oriented, but over the 7 or 8 trucks that they have, I have been told the ones neglected to roughly 8-10k have all needed a new engine around 150k. Whereas the more strictly maintaining branches have gotten up to 250k on theirs. There is also the large caveat that these trucks are driven like they are not owned by those driving. They also see fairly hard miles and your mileage may vary. However if your particular one is holding up well and can withstand it push as far as you can before wear gets excessive.

As stated this is not by any means a scientific input to the your UOA but an anecdote that supports the 5k oci.

 

[panthermike]

I agree, I wouldn't push it too far on the 3V 5.4. Although, you may be able to push it past 5K, I wouldn't go as far as 10. Most other motors yes, but these are are "sensitive" to failure. My longblock was just replaced at 103K in a 2010. Not sure what caused the failure in this case, but the new block will be getting 5w30 synthetic or 0w40 changed at 5-6K intervals. Overkill? Probably, but these engines can be fickle and cost 7K to replace!

 

[HyundaiAbuser]

Originally Posted by panthermike
I agree, I wouldn't push it too far on the 3V 5.4. Although, you may be able to push it past 5K, I wouldn't go as far as 10. Most other motors yes, but these are are "sensitive" to failure. My longblock was just replaced at 103K in a 2010. Not sure what caused the failure in this case, but the new block will be getting 5w30 synthetic or 0w40 changed at 5-6K intervals. Overkill? Probably, but these engines can be fickle and cost 7K to replace!

+1 on 5w30, just recently made my step fathers 04 5.4 much quieter (almost sounded like a diesel at idle) and has increased the overall smoothness of the engine at 200k miles.

 

[JLTD]

If the oil is still good and wear remains low, why not extend the interval?

And I totally agree that a 20 great oil is too thin for these engines… Despite being back spec'd.

 

[dnewton3]

So the commonly accepted theme is that the 5.4L engines need frequent oil changes; we've heard that before. But why?
None of you can say for sure. It's anecdotal. It's a myth that got started and now won't die.

There are examples of 5.4L 3v motors that have failed with sustained longer OCIs.
But there are also examples of 5.4L 3v engines that have failed the timing chain VVT even though they got religious 5k mile oil changes.
And there are examples of 5.4L engines that have sustained 10k mile OCIs for a long time, without VVT failure.

Case in point above ... quoting panthermike ... "My longblock was just replaced at 103K in a 2010. Not sure what caused the failure in this case, ..."
He's got no idea what cause the failure, but by gosh he's 100% sure that syns and short OCIs will stop it from ever happening again.

There are admittedly things that UOAs will not reveal easily, or at all. UOAs won't necessarily find issue with VVT system failures. But then again, can anyone point to PROOF that an OCI of X,xxx miles = a duration of YYY,yyy miles on an engine???? No - you cannot.

The wear rate on this engine is quite impressive. There is no indication that there's imminent failure of anything. That does not mean something won't fail soon. But there's also no assurance that a shorter OCI would prevent the failure, either.


Watch this video:
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?...3259FEA528923CC055153259FE&FORM=VIRE

I was curious about this truck, so I actually called the tire sales place (Total Tire) where the maintenance was done. Wanted to understand what made that truck run so long. Here's the WHOLE, COMPLETE story I got after speaking with the service manager ...
- first 5.4L engine failed around 100k miles; the owner did not want downtime for a rebuild so they sourced a used 5.4L out of a salvage yard - got him on the road quickly
- engine #2 went about 1,000,000 miles; eventually it failed, and was replaced with another unit pulled from a wrecked truck (that's a million miles)
- engine #3 went another 1,000,000 miles; again - failed (another million miles)
- engine #4 went shy of another 1,000,000 miles; truck was totaled in a wreck and scrapped out (yet another million miles)
when this news story was done, it was only on it's second engine just after the first 1M miles, but the total miles on the truck was around 3.1M when it was tossed out after the total.

Now, all the 5.4L engines got the same routine service using "normal" products. Jobber oil filter and dino Havoline 10w-40, about every 7-10k miles. Nothing special. Not super frequent oil changes. Not premium syns and expensive filters. Just routine maintenance. So, if it's long OCIs with jobber products that killed the first engine in 100k miles, can someone explain why the next three engines went about 1M miles each, using the very same cheap products on the very same OCI plan?

I'm not saying all engines will last 1M miles. But there's not proven correlation between OCI duration and the failure of the 5.4L VVT system.
And without correlation, there can be no causation.
I have seen ZERO evidence that leads to a logical conclusion that OCI duration can cause or deter the VVT issues in the 5.4L.

 

[panthermike]

Originally Posted by dnewton3
So the commonly accepted theme is that the 5.4L engines need frequent oil changes; we've heard that before. But why?
None of you can say for sure. It's anecdotal. It's a myth that got started and now won't die.

There are examples of 5.4L 3v motors that have failed with sustained longer OCIs.
But there are also examples of 5.4L 3v engines that have failed the timing chain VVT even though they got religious 5k mile oil changes.
And there are examples of 5.4L engines that have sustained 10k mile OCIs for a long time, without VVT failure.

Case in point above ... quoting panthermike ... "My longblock was just replaced at 103K in a 2010. Not sure what caused the failure in this case, ..."
He's got no idea what cause the failure, but by gosh he's 100% sure that syns and short OCIs will stop it from ever happening again.





What makes you assume that I believe this will prevent failure in the future? Never a good idea to assume anything. My reasoning for short OCI's with syn are the HOPE(I fully admit this) that the engine will last or that it will help. Don't get me wrong, your arguments are sound. But this is my preference with this particular engine.

 

[dnewton3]

Originally Posted by panthermike
What makes you assume that I believe this will prevent failure in the future? Never a good idea to assume anything. My reasoning for short OCI's with syn are the HOPE(I fully admit this) that the engine will last or that it will help. Don't get me wrong, your arguments are sound. But this is my preference with this particular engine.


There's absolutely nothing wrong with doing what you want, with stuff that you own.

But my assumption is based on your statements; you're going to use syns and OCI manipulation to avoid a future failure, yet you admit you have no idea what caused the failure. It is a proper inference I took from your statement that you believe syns and OCIs can avoid failure. Why else would you post a statement like that, unless you have belief that the products and process you select are going to avoid the condition you're trying to avoid???

Again - I don't have any ability to dissuade you from doing what you want. In fact, I support any choice a person makes, as long as they understand that others may not agree with it. Your path of short-cycle syns is not at all "wrong". But there's no proof it will be "right", either. And even if you did have success with syns and short OCIs, it would be anecdotal, just as your failure was.

For anything to be proven to have effect, two things must be in place:
1) correlation
2) causation
You (and everyone else for that matter) have no proof that the OCI duration or use of syns will avoid/delay the VVT issues. Because there is no correlation between the OCI and lube base-stock in the VVT failures, there can be no logical conclusion that either of those can cause, or eliminate, the failure mode. And considering you have no idea what the failure mode was on your previous engine, you don't even have a basis for comparison.

I'm unwilling to get wrapped up in your game of semantics. The reality is that a normal person would interpret your previous statements as an inference that you believe shorter OCIs and syns are going to help save your new long-block.
I simply am pointing out that there is no solid proof that those choices have any bearing on the topic of 5.4L failure.