Dirty Oil

[Babaganoosh]

Is there anything I can do to get the oil cleaner? I'm running a AC Delco filter and Mobil 10w30 on a 2009 L76 6.0L. It has 7 thousand miles and the oil has been change at 500, 1000, 1500, 3000 and now doing 3k intervals.

I have seen a hand full of these same engines doing the same thing. One is my bosses truck that is running mobil 1.


Thanks

 

[DEMON44]

do regular oil analysis between changes. thats the only way to know if somethings wrong. not the color of the oil.

 

[Babaganoosh]

Would I have to send that out or is that something I can do at home?

 

[DEMON44]

definately not at home. any heavy truck shop can get you an analysis. most sill probably send it out to a lab. some have the machine that can do it in house. theres 1 HD shop near my shop that has the machine. its $20 a pop. any fluid. they give you a little bottle, you get your truck to "pee in the cup" and it done within the day usually. it breaks the oil down to give you your TBN remaining, current viscosity rating, fuel and gylcol tests, and a chemical spectro analysis. by grouping the chemicals it'll tell you whats in your oil. bearing material. dirt. water.

This is the thing about a preventative maintenance schedule versus a reactionary maintenance plan. you can usually catch a major engine bearing failure before it happens. if you have a regular analysis schedule. sure it costs a few bucks every time. but you can run your oil until the Total Base Number and viscosity readings say you have to change your oil. thats usually far longer than a regular interval oil change. and when the metal percentages start to shoot up. you can be certain a bearing is on its way out.

 

[Babaganoosh]

I figured it was a send out thing.


Thanks for the tip.

 

[DEMON44]

and/or you can put a 2 micron (absolute) bypass oil filter on it too.

 

[4xcrazy]

is your oil dirty now? or are you just trying to prevent the oil from getting dirty?

 

[Babaganoosh]

Preventing the oil from getting dirty

Every time I have changed the oil it looked like diesel oil coming out.

 

[4xcrazy]

wow, with that short of intervals???

i check mine regularly and keep it clean by just changing it when it starts to turn colors, may not need it, but hey, it's always clean and new.

BUT i have never had my oil look that bad in the 2500 mile changes that i (usually) do.

something different goin on in these new motors?

 

[Babaganoosh]

No Idea it just appears to be a L76 6.0 engine thing.

I see a lot of gm engine oil daily as well.

 

[DEMON44]

oil analysis will tell you exactly whats in it...............combustion bypass or whatever it is.

 

[Babaganoosh]

oil analysis will tell you exactly whats in it...............combustion bypass or whatever it is.

Yup, When I get back to work I'm going to look in and see if we have any vendors I can send a sample out to.

 

[Thunder]

The 6.0 is well known for exessive oil consumption. Your oil is most likely getting dirty from combustion gasses leaking thru the rings. Not much you can do about it. Doubt if GM will help you either.

 

[Babaganoosh]

The 6.0 is well known for exessive oil consumption. Your oil is most likely getting dirty from combustion gasses leaking thru the rings. Not much you can do about it. Doubt if GM will help you either.

Is that good or bad?

 

[apache]

"The 6.0`s are known for high oil consumption?? never heard that one before"??.
I have a 07 Silverado HD I picked up new with the 6.0/auto/4.10`s and 30K on it now and typically only use it to haul a camper or trailer or 80/90 mph up and down the freeways and its never used a drop of oil. I run 57060 Wix filters with anything from Chevron 5/30 to Castrol 5/30 or whatever every 4-5K,the oil looks almost the same on the way out as it did on the way in. For one of the oil s very dirty Id say the filter isnt doin its job,the engine is already a sludged up inside and the good oil your now using is cleaning it or theres some other problem. I will add the tiny oil filter sucks but its Al Gore freindly using less metal to make. BTW, Try Blackstone for oil analysis.

 

[Thunder]

I know the early 6.0s had problems with piston slap and oil consumption because GM used pistons that were a little too small for the bore. I am sure they have fixed the problem. But GM did issue TSBs on the 6.0 that stated thet 1 quart per 2K miles was normal consumption.

RE: Bens truck. I am thinking that the rings may not be seated yet. I doubt if you have sludge problems on a new engine. But if the rings have not seated. Blowby of gasses past the rings will turn your oil dirty fairly fast.
Are you using synethetic or regular oil? You should always break your truck in on regular oil. Then switch to syn oils around 10 K miles.

 

[80' 427]

Switch it to propane.

 

[76zimmer]

when I worked at GM dealership, they wouldn't do anything if your engine used 1 qt. every 750 miles....2K don't seem so bad...look at the 8.1's 1qt every 1K or so.

 

[Babaganoosh]

Not sure if the rings have seated or not but my boss's truck with 30k same engine has black oil as well.

 

[Russell]

my Father runs 13 - 15 000 miles on an oil change in his 08 6.0L truck, and it comes out looking just like he put it in there. My 07 duramax LBZ diesel goes about 7000 miles before the oil starts to turn dark. We both run Amsoil synthetics in our rigs. I change mine when the oil turns dark, he changes his when the lab results tell him to.