Fleet maintenance question

[JBLU24]

hello all...I've lurked in the past but decided to finally join...
wondering what the gurus around here think:
I run a taxi fleet of 51 cars in NYC..mostly crown vics and just 2 Escape hybrids and 4 Highlander hybrids...
I use Motorcraft oil for all of the cars.
The vics get 5W20 and then later on say at about 100k I currently switch to 5W30 (or 10W40 if the car burns oil and we havent gotten around to doing the valve seals yet.)
Service is done every 2 weeks which equates to about 2500-3000 miles maybe 3500....
the MC 5W20 and 5W30 is Semi Synthetic and the 10W40 is reg. oil

My question is for the climate in NYC I think 5W30 would be better in the winter but is it enough for the summer? or should I reconsider 10W40 in the summer??

Again, this is for the cars over 100k-350k when they get retired.....

Thanks for any insight.

 

[salesrep]

You could run the blend 5-30 year round.

I cannot resist. With your current maintenance program you are changing oil 25 times per year times $10 in oil, times $5 a filter, times $40 in labor. Let's just say you went to a 5-30 that would go 5-6k between intervals. At $4 a quart 1/2 the oil 1/2 the labor and 1/2 the filter cost.
You would save $28,750 per year with 50 vehicles.
But Schaeffers save money.

 

[simple_gifts]

Wondering if it was ever verified the OCI is a reasonable one?

 

[Gary Allan]

Do a used oil analysis on a couple of the higher usage units and then do a fuel survey over the same mileage. That will give you an idea of what 2500-3000 miles REALLY means in terms of oil fatigue.

I don't think any visc shift will have a down side in your usage (in the CV's anyway)

 

[Pablo]

First of all - the cars shouldn't be burning oil at 100K. That seems odd, right there.

Second you can go with a full synthetic 5w30 and go 2 months (at least) changes with zero issues, plus save some real cash.

The engines will still be fine at 400K. Can't speak for the body.

Let me know.

 

[widman]

I would pick a few typical cars and do UOA at each change for a while. With the proper items identified, you can run different oils in each and determine the right interval. I would think you could get a lot longer intervals out of them with a lot less wear. I ran 5w30 group II in a 97 Ranger with the 4.0 V6 for 250,000 miles of deliveries on dirt roads and sold it before it ever used more than a 1/4 inch on the dipstick in 4000 mile changes.
It is fleet service that UOA works well.

 

[Steve S]

Is there a scheduled mechanical or safty inspection done?

 

[HM12460]

I'd keep the oci's close to where they're at without benefit of used oil analysis. i would imagine they idle a lot? i'm sure nyc traffic qualifies as severe duty. excellent choice of fleet vehicle's too, btw. motorcraft oil and filters are an excellent choice from a cost/quality point of view.

 

[Rolf]

Originally Posted By: JBLU24
.... I run a taxi fleet of 51 cars in NYC..mostly crown vics and just 2 Escape hybrids and 4 Highlander hybrids...
I use Motorcraft oil for all of the cars.
The vics get 5W20 and then later on say at about 100k I currently switch to 5W30 (or 10W40 if the car burns oil and we havent gotten around to doing the valve seals yet.) Service is done every 2 weeks which equates to about 2500-3000 miles maybe 3500.... the MC 5W20 and 5W30 is Semi Synthetic and the 10W40 is reg. oil ....


Typical taxi use is just not all that hard on engines.

They're generally kept at operating temperatures for long periods, not run at high speeds, and not accelerated or deaccelerated drastically (or you'll hear from the passengers).

In the days when I had my fingers in that sort of operation we were using 5w30 bulk oil from Valvoline and our drain intervals were about twice yours. That was over 30 years ago. We ran the cabs, which were mostly Plymouth Satellites and Dodge Coronets, to roughly the 200k mark.

The current fleet I am involved in is quite different. There are Chevrolet Malibus, Toyota Camrys, Hyundai Sonatas. Some are driven like taxis, basically 24/7, and others are used like commuter cars - driven two or three times a day for short trips and parked. Most are four bangers but there are a few V-6s.

We had a number of problems trying to come up with one answer for the entire fleet and brought a consultant in.

After running a number of tests with different oils and blends of oils, here is the weird solution that seemed to work the best for one size fits all:

50% Mobil 1 0W-20

25% Redline 5W-20

25% Delvac 1 5W-40

This provides an unused elmental oil analysis that looks like:

Molybdenum 190
Boron 130
Magnesium 130
Phosphorus 940
Zinc 1120
Calcium 2490

We change it per the manufacturers' requirements while they're under warranty, and then go to a one year or 10,000 mile interval.

We're using Luber-finer filters by Champion Labs.

Some of the heavy use vehicles have hit 200k plus on this brew and so far none are showing signs of excess engine wear.





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[salesrep]

Rock n Roll Rolf. Few would go to this effort to find the right fit for them.