What oil to use in 5.9L Cummins?

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I have a 2006 dodge ram with the 5.9 cummins. I was using amsoil series 3000 5w-40 but had bad oil reports from blackstone. showing high iron wear and high calcium levels. they recomended to switch to shell rotella oil, and i have had better test results. I would like to run synthetic. I just was wondering what everyone is using in these trucks... thanks
 
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Synthetics: Rotella T Synthetic 5W-40, Mobil Delvac 1 5W-40, Amsoil AME 15W-40, and Schaeffer's 9000 Series 5W-40. These are some that come to mind, but I'm sure there are more.
 
Valvoline Premium Blue Extreme 5w40, The Cummins oil! is another one.
For the summer you may consider going to one of the brands conventional 15w-40 as well, that engine will not likely notice the difference as indestructible as those tend to be.
 
Originally Posted By: jc49
I have a 2006 dodge ram with the 5.9 cummins. I was using amsoil series 3000 5w-40 but had bad oil reports from blackstone. showing high iron wear and high calcium levels. they recomended to switch to shell rotella oil, and i have had better test results. I would like to run synthetic. I just was wondering what everyone is using in these trucks... thanks


Any chance you could post the oil reports you mentioned as bad?
 
Originally Posted By: D-Roc
Originally Posted By: jc49
I have a 2006 dodge ram with the 5.9 cummins. I was using amsoil series 3000 5w-40 but had bad oil reports from blackstone. showing high iron wear and high calcium levels. they recomended to switch to shell rotella oil, and i have had better test results. I would like to run synthetic. I just was wondering what everyone is using in these trucks... thanks


Any chance you could post the oil reports you mentioned as bad?



not sure how to do it...??
 
Originally Posted By: jc49
Originally Posted By: D-Roc
Originally Posted By: jc49
I have a 2006 dodge ram with the 5.9 cummins. I was using amsoil series 3000 5w-40 but had bad oil reports from blackstone. showing high iron wear and high calcium levels. they recomended to switch to shell rotella oil, and i have had better test results. I would like to run synthetic. I just was wondering what everyone is using in these trucks... thanks


Any chance you could post the oil reports you mentioned as bad?



not sure how to do it...??



Many here on the board, including myself just type the wear metals and other readings out as per the UOA
for example:
Fe 19
Al 2
Pb 1

and so on.
 
usually, high wear iron in a CTD 5.9 is due to a poor performance air filter not removing the fine particle dirt, ie silicon.
can also be a leak in after filter tube to turbo intake.

will show high silicon also

hard to beat the stock CTD filter for cleaning the intake air and long engine/turbo life. if you've got money to burn, can't beat the Amsoil EAO air filter

sucking in dirt also destroys turbos. early stages of the blades going will show high aluminum from intake turbo impeller ending up in the oil
late stages end up with turbo blades in engine and rods out thru side of block
 
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Quote:
late stages end up with turbo blades in engine and rods out thru side of block

crazy2.gif
 
I'm running the Banks Ram air filter, similar to the K&N style filter..

Here are the oil report findings from Blackstone:

JOHN: You switched to a different brand of oil, which shows up in the higher calcium additive. This Amsoil
was in use for 5,500 miles and engine wear increased above universal averages for the Cummins 6 BT.
Some diesels don't do well on synthetics, and yours may be one of them. But another reason for the wear
increase could be anti-freeze, if that's what potassium is. But we think it's more likely potassium is from the
EGR cooler and should improve next time. Change this oil, try going back to Rotella, monitor the coolant
level, and check back in 5K miles.

Diesel
Amsoil Series 3000 5W/30
0 qts
04/11/08
25,288 miles
 
Cummins with 30,979miles

Alum 8 high
Chrom 2
iron 55 high
copper 7
lead 7
tin 0
moly 2
nickel 1
mang 1
silver 3
ti 0
potassium 47 high
boron 7
silicon 5
sodium 5
calcium 3213 hign
magnesium 11
phosphorus 1039
zink 1207
barium 1

this was amsoil ser 3000 5w-40. i now have rotella in with better results
 
Run a few more changes with the Amsoil, to get a more accurate reading. It's probably just cleaning out deposits. Trending is important, as I have found myself.
 
Originally Posted By: jc49
I'm running the Banks Ram air filter, similar to the K&N style filter..

Here are the oil report findings from Blackstone:

JOHN: You switched to a different brand of oil, which shows up in the higher calcium additive. This Amsoil
was in use for 5,500 miles and engine wear increased above universal averages for the Cummins 6 BT.
Some diesels don't do well on synthetics, and yours may be one of them. But another reason for the wear
increase could be anti-freeze, if that's what potassium is. But we think it's more likely potassium is from the
EGR cooler and should improve next time. Change this oil, try going back to Rotella, monitor the coolant
level, and check back in 5K miles.

Diesel
Amsoil Series 3000 5W/30
0 qts
04/11/08
25,288 miles

First off, I don't really understand why you're running 5w/30 oil. Second, Blackstone's comments about potassium coming from your "egr cooler" makes me worry about Blackstone since your 06' Cummins doesn't have one...? We do have an oil cooler... if that's what they meant.
 
I am sure Dave will chime in here, but I would say along his thought processes and from I have learned myself using Amsoil for the last 5 years. I love Amsoil and like synthetics, HOWEVER, if you are not going to do longer OCI's, synthetics don't provide the amount of protection commensurate with the money you pay. You would do more than fine using something such as Valvoline Premium Blue Dino (Cummins factory fill)and running for 7.5-10k miles and spending less money. I ran my last diesel (Cummins) for 380,000 miles before trading it in and it was still running frickin' fantastic. I ran VPB 15w-40 at 7k mile OCI's and had NO problems engine wise. This is just something to think about. Synthetics provide the ability (sometimes) to run longer change intervals, not better protection over Dino HDEO, which are all very capable oils, IMO. And just on a personal note, I no longer use Amsoil. I switched to using Dino last month by realizing the the UOA's, inconvenience of having to order online, and not always getting comfortable results with UOA's, that I could just run a good dino, change every 10k, and be more than happy and well protected. Good luck on your search.
 
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