20K OCI for Texas Fuzz

[texasproud]

I was in the GM dealership today and the service manager said the Texas Highway Patrol just converted to Amsoil 10-30 on 20K OCIs with a filter change every 7k and 1 qt of topoff oil. He did not know if they were doing UOAs. The officers bring in the filter(brand ?) and qt of oil for the dealership to change. That takes some cajones.....those boys are pretty tough on oil! Amsoil must have had some pretty convincing numbers.

 

[wileyE]

Sounds more like one of the good ole boys is an amsoil dealer?

 

[XS650]

quote:

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Originally posted by wileyE:
Sounds more like one of the good ole boys is an amsoil dealer?

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If it works out well, we will be hearing about it from Amsoil reps for the next 70 years, if not, we won't hear a peep. I'll vote for not a peep.

If Amsoil's owner had any cojones, Amsoil would be saying "watch this real world test".

 

[wulimaster]

Actually, I know of one police department already doing 18k oil change intervals with filter changes at 9k with Series 3000. They were doing longer with the Caprice but the Fords are harder on the oil. These are are city miles with lots of idling at accident scenes so the miles are more severe than indicated. OCI were determined by oil analysis and there is no topoff until the filter change. I suspect it is happening at many more departments but Amsoil keeps quiet because the departments don't want to answer phone calls on oil all day long.

 

[Johnny]

This one should not be to hard to find out. Since you are dealing with one of the largest state patrols in the country, the purchase order would have to be issued in Austin. The state works a lot different than local police departments. So if one of you fellows that live in the Austin are wants to check this out at the capitol, let us know. You have that right since you are a tax payer in Texas. The state usually puts this out for bids and I cannot imagen Amsoil out bidding the likes of Mobil.

 

[Bio-T]

I found this interesting note on the Texas Dept. of Public Safety vehicles, (State Troopers)


Texas Department of Public Safety
The Texas Department of Public Safety is another example where centralized service facilities don’t exist except at the state capitol, Austin. A second facility is scheduled to open up in Houston.
Maintenance responsibilities currently rest on the operator’s shoulders and a supervisor verifies proper preventative maintenance procedures, which are entered into its fleet database. It is suggested that troopers utilize a dealership for servicing, but that is not always possible. In some cases, such as West Texas, where service facilities are few and far between, the trooper may conduct his own vehicle maintenance.
Texas DPS recommends that a quality brand of oil be utilized in the weights recommended by the factory for that particular vehicle. Black and white pursuit vehicles are required to abide by the severe-service maintenance schedule. Texas DPS is now allowing districts to use synthetic oil and an extended drain cycle, however, the oil must be analyzed periodically to determine the optimum drain schedule.

 

[Fatboymoe]

It must be nice when someone else(like us tax payers) pay for something like this. I want to see them try and convince Ford or GM that a 20k OCI should not exclude them from any kind of warranty work that might be in the factory eyes oil related. This in just plain crazy. A Crown Vicky with a 4.6 at that interval is an accident waiting to happen.

 

[Johnny]

59 Vetteman: Now that is some interesting information. So large and so spread out that some of the Troopers do it themselves. Now those Troopers need to be a member of BITOG.

Thanks to THE MAN from Arkansas.

 

[TooSlick]

I don't see any issues with this service protocol, particularly since they are changing filters twice and adding a fair amount of makeup oil. In addition, the 20k miles are being put on in a very short period of time and would be mostly highway miles. These vehicles are typically auctioned off after 120k-150k miles (taxi companies buy many of them) and I'd fully expect the engines would still be in excellent shape. The only thing I'd change would be to use the even more robust Series 3000 instead of the 10w-30.

The Ill. State Police were running a similar program for 5-6 years, using Royal Purple and 15k service intervals and it worked out very well.

As for the bidding process, if you take into account the reduction in maintenance and down time, it would be very easy to show lower life cycle costs; compared to using conventional lubricants and 3k-5k change intervals....

 

[Pablo]

What's the big deal, fatboymoe and XS650?

Any decent synthetic oil could do this - 2 filter changes, top up oil, running for long periods....sheesh - "cajones" and "accidents waiting to happen".

If the engines blow - we will all know - I will post the info if no one else will.. If it goes nominally, I won't say a peep.

 

[blupupher]

59 Vetteman, I was going to reply with the same thing earlier but the thread was locked?
Many Troopers use the local city or county maintanance departments to do their repairs. A few years ago they used to have to drive to Austin to have any service or repairs done to their vehicle, and had to wait for it if they could not get a ride home.

 

[Steve S]

Originally posted by michaelc80:
It will be interesting to see the results. [/QUO

 

[ekpolk]

quote:

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Originally posted by Pablo:
What's the big deal, fatboymoe and XS650?

Any decent synthetic oil could do this - 2 filter changes, top up oil, running for long periods....sheesh - "cajones" and "accidents waiting to happen".

If the engines blow - we will all know - I will post the info if no one else will.. If it goes nominally, I won't say a peep.

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I'll agree with Pablo on this. Urban legends about the evils of synthetic aside, the stuff just plain works. Its superiority relative to dino may be negligible in the short run, but reams of evidence (with plenty of it here) show that it holds up in the long run. Those who don't want to use it don't have to. The unfortunate Indiana experience just goes to show that while good, like everything else, synthetic lubes aren't perfect, and they too have limits (they're just much further out than those of dino products, generally). Although I've used syns myself since the mid-80s (and for the longest time with 3/3 or 5/5 intervals -- hey, we didn't have BITOG in those days...), how good synthetics are didn't really sink in for me until the recent UOA we did on my wife's vehicle. Thirteen months and 10k miles of continuous short-trip driving and the GC was about half used up according to the numbers. I think the Texas Fuzz program makes perfect sense. If nothing else, I'd rather have our LEOs out there enforcing the law rather than repetitively taking time off to maintain their rides.

 

[TooSlick]

In this type of large scale, fleet operation, it would be sensible to initially do a random oil analysis sampling of 5%-10% of the engines. In this way, you could get an idea of the expected variability in terms of lubricant degradation. Based on this data, you could determine a conservative service interval which would be limited by the "worse case" engines in terms of oil life.

The recent experience of the ISP is largely due to a failure to institute sound maintenance practices, like periodically checking oil level and using high capacity, long life oil filters. I can't imagine replacing 120 engines and not doing a comprehensive failure analysis early on, that would have resulted in corrective actions.

 

[texasproud]

Pursuant to my original post, my Dad is ex Deputy Chief with the Texas DPS (highway patrol) and he confirmed that some troopers do in fact perform maintenance on their patrol cars but must use the prescribed oil/filter/OCI schedule that is policy at the time. In remote locations the supplies are shipped from Austin to local area offices for distribution.

I drove ex DPS pursuit vehicles during high school and college that my father & I purchased from the DPS at open auction. The "newest" one had 120k on it(318 Plymouth)and ran like a top for another 100K on dino. I have no reason to believe the quality of their maintenance program has degraded and I am sure the primary reason to switch to sythetic is less maint costs per mile. I do find it really interesting that Amsoil underbid Mobil...maybe Mobile was not invited ??

 

[Fatboymoe]

Pablo,
You still did not address what the factories would say for one of these vehicles under warranty. I guess it doesn't matter when it's somebody's elses money. Lets put it in perspective. Doing 4k OCI's using a good bulk oil of the proper grade and using quality filters such as Napa makes much more sense than 20k OCI's on any synthetic. Then you save the cost of a UOL.

 

[ekpolk]

quote:

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Originally posted by Fatboymoe:
Pablo,
You still did not address what the factories would say for one of these vehicles under warranty. I guess it doesn't matter when it's somebody's elses money. Lets put it in perspective. Doing 4k OCI's using a good bulk oil of the proper grade and using quality filters such as Napa makes much more sense than 20k OCI's on any synthetic. Then you save the cost of a UOL.

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Yes, let's put it is some more perspective. You probably have not examined the reams and reams of UOA data that we have accumulated. 20k is obviously a relatively aggressive UOA, but in engines that remain hot for many more hours of the day than the average car and accumulate those miles very quickly, probably not as aggressive as you'd think. As I mentioned before, we ran GC in my wife's vehicle for 10k miles, short tripping for a year -- no problem. UOA showed plenty of life left.

So, what would the factory say? It depends. You have to understand (and many don't) that in a US auto warranty claim, federal law imposes upon the car maker the burden of proving that a claimed failure is the result of some act or failure to act of the owner. They can't just stand back and say, "hey, you took the oil to 20k so no coverage." They have to prove that your extended use of the oil actually caused the failure of the part involved. If you've got clean UOAs to support that OCI, it will be very difficult (not impossible, of course) for the auto maker to meet that burden.

 

[Pablo]

I doubt a police department gets factory engine warranty.

quote:

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I guess it doesn't matter when it's somebody's elses money.

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I don't agree with you. It very much does matter. I suppose maybe you are trying to put words in my mouth or something. I think the reason fleets do extended changes, 3K OCI's becomes very expensive and inefficient - the down time is just not practical.

A UOA is never a waste of money - and as 2-slicks suggest - sample a percentage!

quote:

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Lets put it in perspective. Doing 4k OCI's using a good bulk oil of the proper grade and using quality filters such as Napa makes much more sense than 20k OCI's on any synthetic.

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I just put it in perspective. I'm not sure why you have to fight with the logic so much. Down time is down time. Have you searched and seem any extended OCI UOA's? Find my 20K mile UOA, for example. The cars won't die.

 

[Fatboymoe]

ekpolk,
I guess if you have the time to play hardball with the dealer's, be my guest. I just don't see any advantage to doing this and it probably does not save any money. A clean OCI doesn't mean squat if you can't prove that it came from a vehicle with a problem. Failure of the extended OCI is just to risky. With engine changes that cost more than 5k, you can bet your bottom dollar that the Factory will meet or exceed thier burden. What's wrong with the factories recommended service intervals?
The UOA section of this board is usefull but not all telling. Every vehicle is different, including a fleet of police vehicles. This is a gamble that most Fleet Maintance departments won't take.

 

[Fatboymoe]

Pablo,
Police vehicles do get a factory warranty, including the engine. I guess you don't have any fleet experience. Downtime is not a problem with a properly equiped fleet that is fully staffed with maintenance personal.
No, I didn't find your 20k OCI but I really don't care what you did with your vehicle. Yeah, you might of did it and your vehicle didn't die, but why? To save a few bucks? This bewilders me. I guess we will agree to disagree.