More of Ford's paranoid schizophrenia, now in video format ... I wonder how they came to this conclusion of "accelerated wear"? ALTs? I have a general dislike of ALTs; they often skew things towards a desired result or, at the very minimum, induce a bias never experienced by Joe trucker. ALTs do a great job of showing a disparity in performance for some condition that rarely if ever sees the light of day in real life.
Further, if I understand the video, they only tested the new CK-4 on the 6.7L engine. They did not show, nor mention, any testing on the 7.3L, 6.0L, 6.4L engines. But they make the blanket statement to not use the new CK-4 in "any Ford diesel engine" (video at 2:00 mark). How do they know that ALL their engines are affected, if they didn't test them? Also, they said "... some CK-4 formulations" oil were tested, not ALL CK-4 oils. (Likely because they only tested one or two lubes and not the entire market place offering).
I must confess I don't know details about how Delvac, Rotella, Delo, VPB and others are actually field tested, but I suspect that they are often put into large OTR fleets and large earth moving units, and spend very little time in light-duty diesel engine tests. The primary market for Big Oil HDEO is big equipment, not LD pickups. But I do find it more than a bit perplexing the contradiction of Big Oil claiming less CK-4 wear, and Ford claiming more CK-4 wear. Has Ford unintentionally discovered a way to make a diesel engine so narrowly focused that it's that susceptible to the nuance of shifting a few hundred ppm of Phos? And that the other things in CK-4 cannot compensate for this change, in the 6.7L design? Typically, when an engine design has an Achilles heel, it's universal and not brand/grade specific. Of the engine issues we know of (Saturn SL ring coking, Toyota engine sludging, 6.0L PSD oil cooler issues, etc), there is no propensity for any brand/grade selection to become the savior where all else failed. Did Ford stumble upon a design that is so singular that it is the only design that cannot tolerate CK-4? I find that hard to believe, but not impossible. I would need to see the raw data, and understand the testing, to put my faith into their statements. I am not saying they are wrong; I'm just not convinced they are right, in the absence of details. And it does not go unnoticed by me that Ford blankets CK-4 without any attention for base stocks. So take note, ye whom profess that a syn can overcome any obstacle! Not in Ford's wheelhouse, anyway.
What will be interesting to see is how many of the lube companies try to either fudge their way around this topic, or comply and make a specific Ford-licensed offering? I'm sure some company (likely Conoco?) will make Ford's official "Motorcraft" oil any way that Ford pays to have it put in a bottle. But on the open market, which of the big companies (XOM, SOPUS, Ashland, Chevron, etc) are willing to take their CK-4 fluids, and then tweak them to comply with the Ford product spec, officially gaining license rights? If I understand it correctly, Ford wants more Phos, above the new CK-4 phos limit? Is that right? You cannot have a product that meets a hard limit, but also exceeds that limit, right? IOW - there will be two options for Big Oil to respond with:
a) make two diesel oils moving forward; one that is licensed to Ford spec levels, and one to CK-4 levels for the rest of the market
b) make one oil for all, and take the "meets/exceeds and is recommended for ..." approach, not paying for Ford's approval but offering coverage of application anyway
Ford is a big player in the diesel pick-up market; no denying that. They have some ability to leverage customers with statements of "recommendation". But they are not THE BULLY they'd like to believe they are in the entire diesel engine market. Mack, Volvo, Cat, Kubota, Deere, Cummins, and a whole host of others all have a say in their own right. If the majority of the market is going to accept CK-4 as is, then Ford is going to be very lonely sitting in a corner by themselves. And they are going to make their customers very itchy, wondering why their engines are so unique that they cannot play well with other lubes. Or, why cannot Ford address this, and update the design/component/material to make it more universally friendly to CK-4?
GM got away with it, sort of, for a while, with DEX VI. But now there are companies that are realizing the risks of not being licensed are overblown. Most customers (read as most non-BITOG lube bigots) don't pay much attention to these topics. If a product says "universal" and has a brand name they recognize (such as Prestone or Valvoline), that's good enough for them.
Time will tell.