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I decided early this year that I would not be using my 2016 GMC this year. I had the oil changed by the dealer in late February and parked it in the garage. I have driven the truck less than 30 miles since the oil change, but I have started it and let it idle once a month in order to keep the battery’s up and the fluids circulated. My total idle time is around 2 to 3 hours since the oil change. This practice has degraded my oil by 35%.
There is no doubt that I could have driven thousands of miles before reaching 65% on my oil gauge. One can surmise the obvious, the practice of idling your newer diesel is hard on the oil and it will quickly degrade it. Additional maintenance will be the end result.
This information is a direct result of my experience while owning my truck. My experience with my work truck is different since it has no oil use gauge. The Freightliner/Detroit combo is on a service schedule, however it is set up to shut down after only a few minutes of idling.
Those of you who have Dodge and Ford trucks I invite you to share your experience with the board.
From what I’ve read in the past, idling is hard on a diesel due to high levels of soot build up in the crankcase, EGR cooler and DPF, but this also makes me wonder just how the oil sensor goes about measuring oil longevity?? Starting the engine occasionally for only a minute or so may be the best ticket just to ensure that the internals surfaces remain lubricated…
On a different note, now on my third Cummins I much prefer the DEF since emissions (mainly NOx) is now being treated chemically within the exhaust tract and much less so under the hood by soot producing EGR. This method results in much less soot build up in the turbo, EGR cooler, DPF and crankcase oil as opposed to the former scheme of lowering combustion temps (to reduce NOx) and increasing soot via EGR recycle…
Still not as maintenance free as my older 5.9 but a worthy improvement for sure…JMO
Surely the oil use gauge is no more than a time gauge?
I assume your saying that your oil ‘degraded’ by 35% is based on what the gauge shows and not on you sending a sample in to some lab? I assume that taking it out for a 15 minute spin every two weeks would be preferable but what do I know?
When I worked at Prudhoe Bay in the winter we would drive back to where we lived, put the rig in park, and walk away. A crew came around all night long endlessly filling the hundreds of gas tanks. Most of the rigs were gassers but there were diesels, if pre-any-emission-controls. Would love to see data on those rigs’ longevity. There probably isn’t any as ARCO sold them when they got 3 or 4 years on them. Many Alaskans were very happy to buy those rigs as they were well maintained and were sold at very fair prices.
It’s good to be a n00b - so I can aspire to be just stoopid.
Monrovia, CA
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