BITOG Recommendations - Oil and OCI for F250

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Old member who had to re-account here.

I have a question for the BITOG experts: I began a new career which wildly affects my commute and commuter vehicle. I was traveling ~150 miles per day or more and had a reasonable commuter car for that job. I now travel 1.5 miles each way to a job in town, and use my truck, a 2014 F250 w/ 6.2L gas engine with 34k miles (yes, super low), to go to work and back. I typically travel to the gym in the morning as well, so picture multiple cold starts and short trips per day.

The short trips get punctuated with longer highway trips on the weekends once in while. IE went on a 6hr trip (both ways) this weekend.

Been using an Amsoil 5w-30 (LS) or 0W-30 (MS) European spec oil (my wife's car takes this, so I stock for both). Oil seems good, no noticeable usage but gets dark and thick fast. The current fill is MS and has 2500 miles on it. Its as dark as molasses and seems noticeably thicker than new. Also concerning is the noticeable gas smell of the oil when checking. The trucks history was as a plow truck prior to my buying it last March, with only 24k miles on it. While in great shape in general, the truck has some significant idle hours (400 out of 1200hrs). Been using K&N silver series (black can) or Wix filters.

Off the top of my head I don't remember the number of months between changes, but it feels like about 6 month OCIs.

So... my question for BITOG, with so many cold starts, should I look at changing the oil by time vs mileage? I feel like that may be more appropriate. Maybe do a seasonal change with a less pricey oil? Maybe try Valvoline R&P? Seems like its as popular as the old Castrol 0w-30 green gummy-bear oil of years past!
 
I’d look into a bike or an electric scooter first.

I know it’s not always practical, but short tripping a pig of a vehicle like that isn’t great for anything.

Because it’s likely to have negative effects, I’d want to quantify how bad. That means UOA for a few runs, ideally getting the winter run so you can see conditions that are notionally the worst for condensation and poor combustion. Then you can decide from there. Cheaper oil changed more often could be better.

My mother used to have a very short commute. What we found via UOA is that she could run non-severe OCIs using synthetic oil and ensuring that occasionally a “get it hot” cycle (call it 150 miles) was done to ensure everything had good time at temperature. YMMV.
 
So... my question for BITOG, with so many cold starts, should I look at changing the oil by time vs mileage? I feel like that may be more appropriate. Maybe do a seasonal change with a less pricey oil? Maybe try Valvoline R&P? Seems like its as popular as the old Castrol 0w-30 green gummy-bear oil of years past!
What do cold starts do to the oil? Are you asking about fuel dilution or excessive moisture?

If you are starting below -30 so then use an oil with a 0W winter rating. Above that an oil with a 5W rating is acceptable.
 
Thanks for the replies folks!

To answer some questions:
- I should have worded that better. Its not the cold starts but the quick heat cycles that do not burn off the moisture and fuel dilution. That's my concern.
- An electric bike would be nice, and a strong possibility in the future. Of course the commute is short, but not a very reasonable walk. Country roads with no shoulder or sidewalk, lots of blind curves and lots of speeding commuters.
- I use the 0w-30 only because my wife's car requires that. I keep it on hand and its simple. I'm not married to it and am happy to use a 5w-30. We live in the northeast, so it gets cold but not often below zero.
 
I bet it'd be fine with normal synthetic 5w-30. About 19 a jug at walmart so you can cheaply dump it out constantly. I wonder if you have an injector issue since it seems to be dumping a bit much. Sure it's normal with short trips but not so much in a non gdi engine unless you let it idle a lot before driving. Also are you running e85 since the 2014 6.2 can run it.
 
Short tripping in cold weather cause sludge.
You might want to use Kirkland or Super Tech Synthetic and change oil every 6 months regardless of how few the miles are.
 
if you already use AMSOIL, just use the 5w-30 ss in your truck and a good filter, change out annually as you have low miles. Some good fuel/injector treatment maybe a good idea too.
 
Any low cost 5W30 full syn seasonally should be fine.

Our Hyundai is all short tripped and I’m using NAPA currently for fall/winter with Supertech on deck for spring/summer. New filter every other change since it’s only going 1500 miles a year total.
 
Another vote for 6 month change intervals. Spring and fall. If it was mine, I'd probably use an 0w-20 since it rarely gets warmed up. My calculous would favor more changes with cheaper oil over longer OCIs and expensive oil.
 
Great questions. I would like to know more about fuel dilution and if changing oil more frequently actually helps. Specifically I wonder what the fuel dilution rate of change is. Does fuel dilution % tend to stabilize when it reaches a certain level? How fast does the fuel/oil ratio re-acquire that equilibirium after an oil change? Maybe there are too many variables from engine to engine and application to application for any definitive statements to be made. If the fuel dilutions tends to stabilize in your engine at, say 5%, and even after an oil changes goes right back to 5% within 5 hours of engine operation, was there really any tangible benefit to a 3000 OCI vs a 5000+ in terms of engine wear? I don't know.

This post by user jag talks about fuel/oil saturation

You could do a used oil analysis at your next oil change through Amsoil/Oil Analyzers/Horizon labs to check for fuel dilution. Be sure to request gas chromatography. If there is more than say, 2%, you're probably already doing the best thing you can do by running the euro oil and changing the oil at 3000 miles. You could go with 100 hour oil changes if wanted to. Here is a recent thread about run time based oil change intervals , including a comprehensive list of other threads on the topic.

Here is a a post by High Performance Lubricants stating that changing oil based on amount of fuel used is best. So if you have, say a 30 gallon tank you could change the oil after every 10th tank of gas and that would be roughly equivalent to a 4000-5000 mile oil change for a normal commuter that averages 15 MPG or so, even if it might only be a few thousand miles for you with all the idling.

I wouldn't worry about the using a 0W vs a 5W, either one should be fine for your area. It's possible for some 5W's to actually crank/pump better than some 0W's all the way down until the 5Ws start to become a gel at, or slightly below -22F/30C. . That said, oil can slip a winter grade in service. Even so, if a 5W becomes a 10W after aging, it would still perform adequately down to -13F/-25C. For synthetics, it seems that the cold weather performance is a wall that they hit when the gel up, and you can't really draw conclusions about their performance even a few degrees warmer than that gelation point, which happens suddenly when they cool below their winter rating, not gradually.

While it's not always true, 5W oils also "tend" to have higher HTHS and KV100 than their brand-equivalent 0W versions which helps fight fuel dilution and overall wear. There doesn't seem to be a huge difference in these properties between the 5W and 0W Amsoil Euro products though.
 
Great questions. I would like to know more about fuel dilution and if changing oil more frequently actually helps. Specifically I wonder what the fuel dilution rate of change is. Does fuel dilution % tend to stabilize when it reaches a certain level? How fast does the fuel/oil ratio re-acquire that equilibirium after an oil change? Maybe there are too many variables from engine to engine and application to application for any definitive statements to be made. If the fuel dilutions tends to stabilize in your engine at, say 5%, and even after an oil changes goes right back to 5% within 5 hours of engine operation, was there really any tangible benefit to a 3000 OCI vs a 5000+ in terms of engine wear? I don't know.

This post by user jag talks about fuel/oil saturation

You could do a used oil analysis at your next oil change through Amsoil/Oil Analyzers/Horizon labs to check for fuel dilution. Be sure to request gas chromatography. If there is more than say, 2%, you're probably already doing the best thing you can do by running the euro oil and changing the oil at 3000 miles. You could go with 100 hour oil changes if wanted to. Here is a recent thread about run time based oil change intervals , including a comprehensive list of other threads on the topic.

Here is a a post by High Performance Lubricants stating that changing oil based on amount of fuel used is best. So if you have, say a 30 gallon tank you could change the oil after every 10th tank of gas and that would be roughly equivalent to a 4000-5000 mile oil change for a normal commuter that averages 15 MPG or so, even if it might only be a few thousand miles for you with all the idling.

I wouldn't worry about the using a 0W vs a 5W, either one should be fine for your area. It's possible for some 5W's to actually crank/pump better than some 0W's all the way down until the 5Ws start to become a gel at, or slightly below -22F/30C. . That said, oil can slip a winter grade in service. Even so, if a 5W becomes a 10W after aging, it would still perform adequately down to -13F/-25C. For synthetics, it seems that the cold weather performance is a wall that they hit when the gel up, and you can't really draw conclusions about their performance even a few degrees warmer than that gelation point, which happens suddenly when they cool below their winter rating, not gradually.

While it's not always true, 5W oils also "tend" to have higher HTHS and KV100 than their brand-equivalent 0W versions which helps fight fuel dilution and overall wear. There doesn't seem to be a huge difference in these properties between the 5W and 0W Amsoil Euro products though.
Your HPL quote is the same link as the previous link. Was curious about it and looking forward to reading 😅. Can you check and fix @2.7ecoboostFordBronco
 
Thanks 2.7!

I used the calculator and found that the mileage at which I should change based upon fuel used was about 3700 miles. With nearly 2700 on this change now, I feel that 3000 OCI with a less expensive oil will be my best option. I'll save the Euro spec for the wife's Atlas.

I'll check too with the hour meter. It never occurred to me to track that.
 
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