Best Oil & Additive For Diesel Engines

Best diesel engine oil and additives for Duramax, Powertroke, or Cummins! How to get to 1 million miles out of your diesel engine

The owner of the million mile Cummins RAM hauler shared his fountain of youth secret formula with us. So we're going to share it with you:
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[clausschmidt]

A huge factor for the longevity of this Million mile engine is the operating regime. 10k in a week means very few cold starts. In the old days, Mercedes handed out badges for every 250k and most taxis with the famous 4 and 5 cyinder pre-chamber diesels had several of them stuck on the radiator grille. Those engines were not shut off for several days as several drivers would operate the same taxi owned by the dispatcher. The current Mercedes-Benz High Mileage champ is Gregorios Sachinidis, a Greek taxi driver who holds the known record of more than 2.8 million miles in his 1976 Mercedes-Benz 240D. I can guarantee that he did not use the current Lucas additive.
Rotella is premium stuff - no argument there. We need a comparison between two identical trucks, driven in a very similar way, one with Lucas the other one without to see what difference the additive makes.

[tartarsauce]

"There's a million mile 6.0 or 6.4 out there but I think big foot drives it." I have to start taking notes of all the shit diesel people say.

[AK-kikz]

I have on 2002 5.9 2wd auto trans - I bought it with 450, 000 km - my friends and family thought I lost my mind. I don't drive a ton, but it now has 650 on it. Runs like a top! It hauls my 5th wheel and my boat and is my daily driver. LOVE my truck! I've only ever used Rotella - and now will be adding Lucas! My older brothers 5.9 had close to a million when it got in o a collision and wrecked. I will have this truck til the day I die!!

[DavidMoore-brge]

Gotta love when you watch deboss's video and he tells you to use the additive and oil that you've been using all along👌

[natehawkins]

I’ve always ran Shell Rotella in my diesels. Using 5w40 synthetic now. I’ve always used Mobil 1 5w20 and Lucas engine oil treatment in my 2004 Honda. It now has 485, 600 miles on it and I bought it new!

[johnm]

Up here in salty Minnesota you'd have a hard time finding a Dodge with a worn out Cummins that still has a body left.

[rustyaucoinii]

Got 950000 on my 7.3 all stock 1 owner its all in how you drive and how well you maintenance your truck.

[robertschiedeck]

My 90 12v has 900, 000 on it. only run rotella . Changed every 5000 miles the engins is dynoed at 254 hp .love my Cummins

[blazebox]

I will say I've always used shell rotella t6 in every diesel I've ever had and my family has ever had and I have never had an issue what so ever in my opinion as a heavy equipment mechanic shell rotella t6 is by far the best diesel engine oil out there

[jeremysmith]

My Good friend has a 96 f350 with a 7.3 it is 1.45 million km on it still running strong never been rebuilt

[andrewsanders]

I run mystic and Lucas my 12 valve has 1 million 300 thousand pulls a 32 foot cow trailer 6 days a week has never had the head off

[ontariocashcropfarmer]

2002 Chevy HD 2500 I haul RVs as well little over 800, 000 kilometers bought the truck brand new Shell Rotella 15 w40 and Lucas Oil additive use stana dyne fuel additive still running strong lb7 Duramax no tune swap the injectors out once.

[jbscustoms]

As an individual who works at a Ford dealership as a diesel mechanic, I've grown a new hatred of the 6.0/6.4 powerstrokes. Mostly because it's pretty much all I get to work on. They are complete junk and I have my doubts that even Bigfoot could squeeze a million miles out of one. But that's just my two cents

[richardc]

I've been a mechanic for 42 years now with most of that time as a mechanic working for construction companies and fleet operations.
I worked for a large asphalt paving contractor doing roads and large parking lots when I first got into heavy equipment repair. They had over 100 pieces of equipment and a dozen or so pickup trucks.
The equipment ran from small riding compactors to Cat D9s, Scrappers, loaders tracked excavators, large air compressors running 6 cylinder diesel engines.
When they switched from petroleum lubricants to Amsoil products through the entire line from the office runner car to the heavy equipment and class 8 trucks. We switched everything to Amsoil, engine lube oil, transmission fluid, gear oil, hydraulic oil, grease and used their filters.
The company kept very detailed maintenance logs on every thing.
At the end of the 1st year they saw cost reduction on oil changes intervals extended on the oils ( we no longer changed oils by hours or miles but pulled oil samples at set intervals and changed only when reports showed )
The savings in cost reduction paid off in the 1st year the cost of the Amsoil products. Next was a major reduction in down time, lost time, major increase in production time per machine and a huge savings in fuel cost.
Ever machine ran longer on the same amount of fuel. The dump trucks and haul trucks all saw on average of 2 to 4 mpg increase.
Same with the pickup trucks and the cars.
After 3 years of running Amsoil they charted a 40% maintenance cost reduction about the same in fuel purchases, 60% increase in production per machine with a corresponding reduction repair cost.
Why, because Amsoil is one of the few oils that are tier 5 oils. Regular oils are tier 3, the on the shelves synthetic oils are most all tier 4 oils, which before the oil industry lobbied the FTC to allow the name game.
Meaning that companies can claim their products synthetic even when it really is not.
Tier 4 oils are refined to a higher level with an advanced additives package blended in. Under the old standard the label would have been " para synthetic oil"
Tier 5 oils are not from petroleum
In the case of Amsoil they design the oil from the molecular level up.
They do everything in house to control the quality.
Looking at petroleum oils through a microscope it looks like goathead stickers. Looking at Amsoil you see prefectly round molecules that leads directly to reduced friction.
Amsoil film strength is 10 times stronger than petroleum oils which makes the oil highly resistant to shear under high loading.
Further there are no impurities in Amsoil like with petroleum oils.
Amsoil pour point is far superior to petroleum oils meaning on those cold sub zero morning start ups the oil flows easily getting to the bearings faster. 50 of engine wear happens in the 1st 30 seconds of operation due to the oil having to reach all moving parts.
Amsoil ability to cling to surfaces are suprior at 10, 000miles on the oil than petroleum oil right out of the bottle. That leads to reduced wear inside the engine.
Amsoil is far more stable at both cold extremes and high temperature extremes.
I started using Amsoil products 30 years ago because of what I saw working for the paving contractor. I use it in everything I own.
And many customers through the years switch to Amsoil as well.
When running Amsoil engine oil or ATF in automatic transmission by adding in their oil filter system the oil change intervals go way up.
I've personally had customers who never changed the oil.
They would have an oil sample tested once a year just before they changed the filters. Changing the bypass filters once a year or 25, 000 miles, change the engine mounted filter every 6 months or 12, 500 miles and keep going until the oil testing says to change it.
I have put well over 100, 000 miles on the oil before changing.
Also due to the oils being so stable they resist breaking down, and burn off far better than petroleum oils.
Changing to Amsoil can be done even in high mileage engines.
When I do that for a new customer I 1st run Amsoil engine flush in the engine per the labe.
Oil consumption also drops in engines that we're burning oil.
I have had nothing but great experience with Amsoil products as well as my customers.
Hope this helps.

[davebeck]

I run Delo 400, 15w - 40w and I have had great luck with it.
All Ford Powerstroke trucks since 1997.
Changed my oil and filters @7500 miles.

[chrisrhudy]

I have always wondered what these million mile cummins drivers used for oil so thanks rich

[motorheadscottie]

My 6.4 powerstroke had 386k miles on original motor and 5r110 torqueshift. All that and on a 250hp H&s tuner ran like a cougar on meth. Truck had so much wear it would haze at idle when warm from the pcv. ( mainly because its whole lift had a coldair intake k&n filter that polished the bores of cross hatch.) this truck earned my respect, my trust and my love. I pulled the motor and went ballz-to-the-wall. Fully blueprinted the block, bored .40 over, decked block, new rods, new delipped flycut maxforce7 pistons with ceramic coating, crank and rotating assy vsr balanced, new heads with orings ss valves, cometic head gaskets, chromoly push rods, callies stage 1 billet cam, HD moroso oil pan, billet oil pump, new injectors, new harnesses, new engine loom, new hpfp, new turbos, all mew sensors, and arp hardware top to bottom. Truck dynoed at 900whp last month on the 386k transmission LOL.

[Slugg-O]

I bought a 74 Chevy C10 with a 454 and 103, 000 miles on it. Previous owner said he used oil in the green jug but never said what brand it was.

Due to the age of the gaskets and the flat tappet cam I started asking for oil recommendations. Have a trucker friend who routinely gets a million+ miles out of an engine before having an in-frame done and he recommended Rotella 15-40. His last Cummins ISX had 1.4 million miles on it when it had an in-frame rebuild and the mechanic told him the rod and main bearings were good enough to be re-used. Of course they weren't reused but the mechanic was impressed with the condition of the engine. Seems a lot of hot rodders also use Rotella for big block gas motors so I switched.

The "green jug" oil the PO had been using didn't look dirty but now that I'm using Rotells I've increased the OCI because it gets dirty quick - like black in 500 miles quick. I figure the detergents are cleaning out 44 years of sludge so as long as it keeps turning black I'll keep changing it. I've done 3-4 oil changes with Rotella and the oil is now staying cleaner longer so I take as a good indication it's working.

[offthegridoutdoors]

Same here rotella and Lucas are the best have over half million miles on my Cummins with it and my dad's semi has 1.2 million miles on it with rotella and Lucas since new and the motor has never been cracked open. That's pulling lowboy all it's life with oversized loads grossing 100-150k combined weight still runs like new. Thanks for the great content.

[notdavid]

My family has always just used TCW3 2 stroke oil in the fuel. three trucks with 1.5+ million on them. Pretty great for pre-emissions diesel's IMO!