Towing with GM Light Duty 3.0L diesel

Thin oils are being used increasingly for no other reason that emmissions and fuel economy. Thats a fact, there's no other way around it.

Yes, engines can and do live perfectly reasonable lives on 20 weight oils.

But there's nothing wrong with going a bit thicker, especially if the engine is worked hard. I haven't noticed any change in fuel economy in my half-a-Duramax-3.0 since going to Mobil1 0w40 ESP.
Do you Olán on sending a sample when you change your oil
Next? We sure need more 3.0l UOAS
 
If a 30 shears to a 20, what does a 20 shear down to? Hmmm...

I never have and never will put 16 or 20 weight oils in an engine of mine. The automaker may care about 0.002 MPG for CAFE scores, but I don't. I want longevity.
Depending on the oil a 5w30 or 10w30 has VI improvers in it get that hot 30 weight. It is not a shear stable oil compared to a 0w20 which is extremely likely to use better base stocks, less VI and be more shear stable. This is certainly a very general way of describing it as add packs come into play as well. Also pressure & oil flow are affected by viscosity and with the wrong oil you could even be hitting the relief in the oil pump and bypassing the filter especially on a cold start. There is also the dual pressure oil pumps in use now as well. There are way more factors to consider...
 
Do you Olán on sending a sample when you change your oil
Next? We sure need more 3.0l UOAS

I do about 25,000miles per year. I've already put 2300miles on the car in 4 weeks.

I did an oil change at 1,000miles and plan on doing another at 5,000miles and then every 5,000miles after that.

I'll probably wait until the 10,000miles oil change before I do a UOA to hopefully see the wear metals settle. And UOA every 10k after that.
 
Hey all, I am new to the forum (have just been reading for quite a while) anyways I want to buy a new 3.0 but I’d love to hear an update from all the people that own them and those that are running a 30 weight or heavier. Also I haven’t seen it brought up here but other owners seem to be consuming a lot of oil. I am very interested to see if the thicker oil solves the problem. Here’s a link to some of the comments about oil consumption
 
Any oil starting with 0W... will be synthetic and so give a better protection at higher temperatures.
I'd go with a 0W30 if not enough go with a 0W40 although a 40 weight when hot may be too thick for some passages.
 
Any oil starting with 0W... will be synthetic and so give a better protection at higher temperatures.
We should be more clear about "better protection" from what?

Synthetics could provide better oxidative stability, depending on how they are formulated, but 0w oils will almost always have a lower HTHS, which could be an indicator of a lower ability to protect, again depending on how the oil is formulated. Just stating that a synthetic oil provides better protection, is vague at best.
 
Hey all, I am new to the forum (have just been reading for quite a while) anyways I want to buy a new 3.0 but I’d love to hear an update from all the people that own them and those that are running a 30 weight or heavier. Also I haven’t seen it brought up here but other owners seem to be consuming a lot of oil. I am very interested to see if the thicker oil solves the problem. Here’s a link to some of the comments about oil consumption
I would honestly just run whatever it says in the manual if it’s new and under warranty let the dealer worry about repairs. After run whatever you like
 
Hey all, I am new to the forum (have just been reading for quite a while) anyways I want to buy a new 3.0 but I’d love to hear an update from all the people that own them and those that are running a 30 weight or heavier. Also I haven’t seen it brought up here but other owners seem to be consuming a lot of oil. I am very interested to see if the thicker oil solves the problem. Here’s a link to some of the comments about oil consumption
I have not seen any excessive oil loss and I’m a little over 16k miles. 1/2 qt low once after about 4000 miles. But I had done a mid-cycle change without a filter—-drained and dumped 6-1/2 qts back in it. May have been a bit low to begin with. I was in a hurry, parked on an incline and forgot to check it the next day at work. It did smoke a bit during break in but nothing I’d call excessive.
 
Any oil starting with 0W... will be synthetic and so give a better protection at higher temperatures.
I'd go with a 0W30 if not enough go with a 0W40 although a 40 weight when hot may be too thick for some passages.
Too thick for some passages when hot?
 
I have not seen any excessive oil loss and I’m a little over 16k miles. 1/2 qt low once after about 4000 miles. But I had done a mid-cycle change without a filter—-drained and dumped 6-1/2 qts back in it. May have been a bit low to begin with. I was in a hurry, parked on an incline and forgot to check it the next day at work. It did smoke a bit during break in but nothing I’d call excessive.
Are you still running 0-20? There was a tab for broken welds on some cam covers but some people seem to be losing oil and supposedly don’t fall under the part number range for the issue
 
Any oil starting with 0W... will be synthetic and so give a better protection at higher temperatures.
I'd go with a 0W30 if not enough go with a 0W40 although a 40 weight when hot may be too thick for some passages.
I do think 0w30 would be a good starting point, although I would personally feel even better working this little engine hard with a 0w40 or possibly even 5w40. I’m interested to see if the too thick argument Holds any water, I agree that it must be hypothetically possible though I also haven’t heard of a 5-40 grenading any engine. Another side to that would be that like others have pointed out there have been many other engines that spec a 0wXX but also allow for thicker oils with severe use. I personally doubt using thicker oil will cause any harm and will likely help but what I’d really like to know is if it stopped oil consumption for anyone who was experiencing it with the 0w20. A quart every 1-2k miles is pretty sad for a new engine in an expensive truck.
 
I do think 0w30 would be a good starting point, although I would personally feel even better working this little engine hard with a 0w40 or possibly even 5w40. I’m interested to see if the too thick argument Holds any water, I agree that it must be hypothetically possible though I also haven’t heard of a 5-40 grenading any engine. Another side to that would be that like others have pointed out there have been many other engines that spec a 0wXX but also allow for thicker oils with severe use. I personally doubt using thicker oil will cause any harm and will likely help but what I’d really like to know is if it stopped oil consumption for anyone who was experiencing it with the 0w20. A quart every 1-2k miles is pretty sad for a new engine in an expensive truck.
Hey so I’m about to my 5500 miles on esp x2 and I’ll be sending in another analysis. My truck has been worked about 50% of that.
Hell the last trip to the in-laws we battled 20-30mph head winds and at 75 that’s basically like towing a trailer.
It’s like clockwork. I use about .3-.5 in 5k.
I’m not sure what it would do towing max for real long periods but .3-.5 in 5k doesn’t bother me non at all.

I’ve been very curious if these trucks could run 0/5w-30 or 40 with no adverse effects. Obviously I would take protection over mileage any day.
My thoughts where GM clearly focused on efficiency first. And then what. Strain on the oil pump belt? Or would the raised viscosity result in less flow to certain areas? There’s some people on this page way smarter than me when it comes to how viscosity/flow/pressure and how they all effect each other.

For example esp 5w30 with a cst 100c of 11.8 vs the 0w20 at 7.9

That’s a increase of what. 35%? But if the truck can lubricate itself with cold 0w20 then obviously that increase really shouldn't matter.

But on the other side of things many vehicles have had better results with 0w20 than other heavier oils and there’s UOAs that back that up on this forum.
It’s the thick vs thin just with a new platform.
I really wish we knew what was best. And what exactly GM went through when they decided on their dexos D spec.

It is weird amsoil now says their 5w30 DP530 meets and exceeds the decos D spec but I can’t find any specifics for dexos D yet. One can assume it’s an hths 2.6-2.8 and
At the end of the day we know esp x2 holds a top spot among modern oils so I’m not terribly worried but I can’t wait to see what the next UOA looks like. Frankly
I haven't seen many for this engine yet either and most seem to spit out quite a bit of metal. But no samples have been taken on trucks with more than 15k miles.

Long story short. I love this power train and this is far from a closed discussion frankly.

The one thing I notice with the ac delco and esp x2 is they have a huge load of boron. And if I was to run another HDEO I would find one with .8% or less ash forsure. These trucks have what they call a SCRF so dpf and scr combined into one and it’s pretty small so even that 20% more ash I think long term could cause issues.
 
@sixinarow i welcome you to spend the next 3 weeks going through thick vs thin debates. Lol at the end of the day you have to decide for yourself whether you want to follow the manual or go on your own path.

And even if I switched to esp 0w30 you bet **** well my receipt from my supplier still will say 0w20 esp.

It’s like all the guys who spend big money on short oil changes on the 6.6l trucks and then our company uses fleet cj4 10w30 or 15-40 depending on when the service was performed and the trucks are 100% intact and every one from 2008-2018 have cruised passed 260-350k miles issue free. And those towed skid and minis about daily .
Be careful…. if you get to wrapped up in oil stuff you will spend hours scouring the web when you could be sleeping….. ask me how know.
 
@MNTIM
I am too certainly curious about the answer here, but one thing I struggle to imagine is how the bump to 0w30 could ever result in an adverse effect other than .001mpg. I don’t have any scientific evidence but one thing I would say is that if we are supposed to be able to tow and work this engine like it’s big brothers, why would this engine be protected by an oil that would certainly be in larger diesels if it had no adverse effects. If 0-20 was in all the big diesels towing all day without issue I’d be more inclined to believe that it’s up to the task. I have started digging into this endless debate haha, though I haven’t seen anyone segueing that all the one ton diesels would be better off on 0-20, or maybe all the semis for that matter. Of course things aren’t even close to equal, that being said though I would love to see this one engine be equally treated with the big boys when it comes to prioritizing longevity.
 
@MNTIM
I am too certainly curious about the answer here, but one thing I struggle to imagine is how the bump to 0w30 could ever result in an adverse effect other than .001mpg. I don’t have any scientific evidence but one thing I would say is that if we are supposed to be able to tow and work this engine like it’s big brothers, why would this engine be protected by an oil that would certainly be in larger diesels if it had no adverse effects. If 0-20 was in all the big diesels towing all day without issue I’d be more inclined to believe that it’s up to the task.
A lot of big Diesel fleets are running FA-4 oil because it actually makes a 1-2% difference which is a big deal when you consider how much fuel a fleet of long haulers are using. The successor to FA-4 and CK-4 will most likely introduce a version of 0W-20 for heavy duty diesels.
 
A lot of big Diesel fleets are running FA-4 oil because it actually makes a 1-2% difference which is a big deal when you consider how much fuel a fleet of long haulers are using. The successor to FA-4 and CK-4 will most likely introduce a version of 0W-20 for heavy duty diesels.
I suppose the question will really be if the fuel savings will outweigh any other costs incurred. It seems to me that oil consumption, and premature wear or failure surely won’t be able to go up much at all for the savings to hold. If this ends up being the case I’m all for it. If the big boys end up with notably more iron in their oil and extreme increases in oil consumption I just don’t see how it could be worth it. That being said there of course isn’t any solid evidence yet that higher viscosity oil will solve these issues in the 3.0, it would sure be a simple answer compared to the alternative though.
 
I have a GM 1500 truck with light duty 3.0L diesel. No problems with using the recommended 0w-20 oil in winter when not towing, but in summer (where it gets up to 100F here) while towing an 8K lbs trailer, I'm thinking I need something more heavy duty. I do OCI every 5K miles regardless of anything. What would you say is best from the following list, and do you see any problem using any of these besides the recommended oil:

Mobil 1 ESP 0w-30
Penzoil Ultra Platinum Euro LX 0w-30
Castrol Edge Euro Formula 0w-30
Valvoline European 0w-30

Mobil 1 is the most expensive by far, so would prefer to use one of the other three if they are comparable.
Hope you have your answer with 8 pages of varying opinions !
 
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Seams to be pretty light oil for a diesel
Meh! I looked at those and found out the oil pump is belt driven!! You're supposed to "inspect" the belt at 150k miles. OK... but wait, the transmission is in the way so you need to drop that first.

How heavy can you go with the oil before you over stress that belt over the life of the engine?
That would be a no go for me
 
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