Very small construction fleet. What oil would YOU use?

Welcome!

Your post was a bit confusing, you said that 5w-40 doesn't come cheap but also that you are "dumping" your oil at 5000 miles. 5000 is easy to remember but is probably costing you $$

In your place, wanting the same oil year 'round and (probably) wanting your expensive equipment to last, here is what I would do. It will require some record keeping and startup effort, but will save a lot in the long run:

Go with Schaeffer Oil. Get on their oil analysis plan and safely extend your intervals using their excellent diesel and hydraulic oils. Available in 55gal drums I believe and with the right rep your motor oil cost should be around $6.60 per quart and possibly lower. You can probably safely run your oil well over 10,000 miles, which makes it less expensive per mile than Rotella. 5w-40 or 15w-40 are available(as are 10w-30s), depending on your temps and pan heater plan.

But don't take my word for it. There are numerous testimonials from various industries on Youtube. Some are running their oil in excess of 15,000 miles and cut their maintenance budget by more than half with less part failures.

If this is something you might entertain, BITOG member salesrep is a Schaeffer rep, or you can shoot me a PM and I'll be happy to give you the contact info for mine.
You're confused by my wanting fresh oil at reasonable intervals in my $200k worth of equipment? 5,000 is not only easier to remember, but every 5,000 miles my stuff gets new oil. New oil is better than old oil, analyzed or not, as best I can tell. Better yet, I can focus on running a business instead of mailing out endless samples of oil and maintaining whatever records come with that world of tedium.

The OP stated my intention is not to extend OCI, and that I'd prefer to change the oil and be done with it.

If I did want to sample my oil for the purposes of extending my drain intervals, I could do that with, well, any oil, including T6, which I can readily purchase for less that $6.60/quart.

Nothing against Schaeffer's. I've been considering it. There's just something unlikely about finding the word "testimonials" in a piece of genuine advice.

Nothing personal, of course.
 
You're confused by my wanting fresh oil at reasonable intervals in my $200k worth of equipment? 5,000 is not only easier to remember, but every 5,000 miles my stuff gets new oil. New oil is better than old oil, analyzed or not, as best I can tell. Better yet, I can focus on running a business instead of mailing out endless samples of oil and maintaining whatever records come with that world of tedium.

The OP stated my intention is not to extend OCI, and that I'd prefer to change the oil and be done with it.

If I did want to sample my oil for the purposes of extending my drain intervals, I could do that with, well, any oil, including T6, which I can readily purchase for less that $6.60/quart.

Nothing against Schaeffer's. I've been considering it. There's just something unlikely about finding the word "testimonials" in a piece of genuine advice.

Nothing personal, of course.
Nothing personal taken. You asked what I would use and I gave my opinion.

But I can feel you bristling from here; no need for that, especially since you never actually said you were not interested in extending -- only that you dumped your oil at 5,000 miles because it was "intuitive".

I will say that with the varied ways in which your equipment is used, fleet management could be a little complex, but then again you wouldn't have to extend all the equipment at once.

5000 on synthetic is conservative, very simple, very easy and will keep fresh oil in your equipment.
 
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We have a similar fleet of equipment. Couple skid steers, couple excavators, a handful of trucks, and some tractors. I live outside of Dayton, Ohio so in the summer we get warm and in the winter we can get cold. For brand of oil i just buy whatever is the best deal, try to get 15-40 for $10-12/gal, and 5-40 for $20/gal. Currently using Delvac 15-40 and T6 5-40. Skid steers and excavators only get 300ish hours a year, so they get 5-40 and changed once a year. The trucks vary a bit. 7.3's get 15-40 every 3500 since they just chew it up and leak it out, 6.0's and my 6.7 that tows get 5-40 every 5k, and the 6.7 that doesn't tow gets 10-30 when the dash says to change it. And we have a 313k mile LB7 Duramax that we've had since new and lives on 15-40 even in the winter as a plow truck, it gets changed whenever i remember to change it. Lastly everything gets Wix or Motorcraft filters, and Mystick JT-6 grease.

I know i could extend OCI's a bit with oil samples but not worth the extra hassle for me. Plus by being conservative with the OCI's it leaves me a cushion to run past the hours/miles if i don't have time for service. This winter my 6.7 got ran up to 7500 miles by the time i got around to changing it and i was still comfortable with it.
 
Hello, newly minted member here.

I own a small wrecking company and I'm trying to decide on an engine oil for the diesels, as part of an effort to create a robust (i.e. foolproof) maintenance program. I'm based in New England.

The diesel "fleet":
(2) newer 6.7l powerstroke superduties. One is an F350 that is used variously as a daily driver/sales vehicle and regularly tows between 5k and 10k lb. It might spend a week hitched to a gooseneck dump trailer, during which time it's expected to start, haul a load real quick, and come back in the dead of winter. It goes to landfills a lot and sees a lot of dust. The other truck is an F550 packed with tools, fuel tank, etc. It doesn't typically tow, and is used simply to drive tools to a job site, where it stays all day.
(1) 2002 Isuzu npr diesel. Dusty tow pig, attached at the hip to a dump trailer.
(1) New-to-me 2002 cat 3126 motor in a 1995 road tractor. I haven't done much with this truck yet, but I expect to be grossing about 40k lb typically. No short trips. Hauling clean equipment, so not especially dusty.
(1) Kubota V1505 powered telescoping forklift. Enormous amounts of dust. Lots of idling. Lots of cold starts. Depending on the weather, I'll either let it idle for hours with intermittent use sprinkled in there or I will start it as needed, perhaps ten times a day. Sometimes - whether for security reasons or out of respect for neighbors- idling is not an option, so it will get started, then immediately move a big load, then shut down again. We're talking as little as two minutes of work for the machine in some cases.

I currently have Rotella T6 5w40 in everything but the cat motor (which has the previous owners oil still). I like the cold start snappiness of the 5w40, but it doesn't come cheap. And regarding OCIs and getting more out of it, I feel like dumping oil at 5k mi is more intuitive and will require less fussing around. In other words, I guess if I lived in Texas I would use 15w40 and dump it every 5k mi and be done with it. FWIW, I do my own preventative maintenance, in my shop.

I'd like to use the same oil in everything, to keep things simple. I'd really like to use the same spec year round, but we'll see. My biggest concern is my forklift getting beat to death from 15w40 in winter.

What would you do?

EDIT: typo
keep doing what you are look at a lab report maybe can go 7k on changes.
 
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