Oil life question

[donjetman]

07 Yukon Denali 6.2L L92 w/193k miles.
Here's what my OLM has indicated over the 5+ yrs and 63k miles that we have owned it:
35% remaining after 7800 miles
50% remaining after 6200 miles
25% remaining after 8100 miles
25% remaining after 8600 miles
13% remaining after 10,200 miles
31% remaining after 6750 miles

We do alot of hwy driving

 

[iboughtatahoe23]

07 Yukon Denali 6.2L L92 w/193k miles.
Here's what my OLM has indicated over the 5+ yrs and 63k miles that we have owned it:
35% remaining after 7800 miles
50% remaining after 6200 miles
25% remaining after 8100 miles
25% remaining after 8600 miles
13% remaining after 10,200 miles
31% remaining after 6750 miles

We do alot of hwy driving

Impressive. See that’s why I don’t think something is right with my oil life monitor. I checked the oil. It looks good as you can see in the photo. I’m at 37% after 1749 miles and you were at nearly 7k! I do not do highway driving though.

 

[Marky Dissod]

I do not do highway driving though.

If you can afford to just
"slap a new engine in it and go"
change your oil whenever you
"want to say I'm good".

If not, change your oil when your oil life monitor hits 33%. You do not do highway driving. Those are the best miles one can put on an engine.
Does your engine reach spec operating temp before you shut it down? That would also lower the miles between oil changes considerably.

If you turn on your engine cold, then shut it off before the temp needle points straight up, that might also make oil changes happen sooner.

 

[wjburken]

I want to say run it because my job uses all third Gen Tahoes and suburbans for our shop trucks because we travel around the state and we sample grain from grain elevators and we’re partnered with BNSF railway and agtegra locations

Anyway, these are invincible you know we run the oil up to 10 K miles some times. Highway miles tho. And they’ll take the beating no issues and if anything happens, we just slap a new engine in it and go.


I want to say I’m good and it’s just due to the cold weather and idling and a lot of stop and go traffic because I do not travel outside of town at all guys.

The 2008 Burban is pushing over 300k at my job lol

With all the posts you've made regarding weird knocking and such coming from your motor, I would definitely be erroring on the side of caution when it comes to oil change intervals, but that is just me.

 

[the 18th letter]

If you let carfax tell it I only change my oil every 10k since I only get the dealer to do every other change only because they rotate tires and check stuff I don’t. But I do it every 5k.

 

[iboughtatahoe23]

If you let carfax tell it I only change my oil every 10k since I only get the dealer to do every other change only because they rotate tires and check stuff I don’t. But I do it every 5k.

Looks I will be doing it every 2-3k

 

[iboughtatahoe23]

If you can afford to just
"slap a new engine in it and go"
change your oil whenever you
"want to say I'm good".

If not, change your oil when your oil life monitor hits 33%. You do not do highway driving. Those are the best miles one can put on an engine.
Does your engine reach spec operating temp before you shut it down? That would also lower the miles between oil changes considerably.

If you turn on your engine cold, then shut it off before the temp needle points straight up, that might also make oil changes happen sooner.

No it doesn’t reach temp half the time I have to drive to work a mile and shut it off and go into work and then repeat on way home. And it’s usually like below zero out. I try to run errands or take it on a nice drive if I can to let it warm up and breath all the way.

I’m just confused why my oil looks better than the actual oil life??

 

[Doubeleive]

Not sure why the text didn’t upload but:

Oil life seems a bit low for only 1749 miles since last change. (2014 Tahoe)

Changed it at 168,832 miles. 2014 Tahoe 5.3 v8 doesn’t burn or leak oil. I can’t recall oil I used but iit was a decent synthetic brand and I used the right weight and all that. Added the right amount etc. typical oil change. Not to hard can’t really mess it up.

Anyways: for in town driving would this much oil life be acceptable for 1749 miles? I don’t ever travel. Just driving to work and stuff like that. And sometimes I let it idle for a bit to warm up. Maybe 5-10 min. My oil PSI is good too. And inspection on it recently

it's probably a good idea to make it a habit of changing the oil sooner on these vehicles to hopefully prevent sticky lifters
my recomendation is always 3k, not everyone agree's and that's fine.
I also drive my vehicle's pretty hard so I follow a extreme use interval, seems like the same would apply if the vehicle is not getting heated up properly and burning off condensation.
flip the oil cap over and if you see snot looking stuff inside that would be a indication of too much moisture in the oil.

 

[Fless]

Send a sample to Blackstone or some other place for a used oil analysis. Hard to tell what condition oil is in just by looking at it.

 

[Doubeleive]

Send a sample to Blackstone or some other place for a used oil analysis. Hard to tell what condition oil is in just by looking at it.

I was just going to come back and say the exact same thing...beat me to it

 

[iboughtatahoe23]

I was just going to come back and say the exact same thing...beat me to it

Thinks it’s worth it opposed to just changing it every 3k?

 

[Doubeleive]

Thinks it’s worth it opposed to just changing it every 3k?

I would get it tested just to see what it says even as a baseline if you have never had one done

 

[Doubeleive]

a test result would look like this, my sample had water contamination so they didn't check for fuel but was still fine

 

[iboughtatahoe23]

a test result would look like this, my sample had water contamination so they didn't check for fuel but was still fine
View attachment 418767

Really nervous to open my oil cap…

 

[Doubeleive]

Really nervous to open my oil cap…

just pull it off and flip it over, should be clean as a whistle, but if you are only driving short distances I have seen them look gooey, all you can really do about that is just go drive it around, take a road trip now and then, Take the wife out to dinner out of town or something.....

 

[iboughtatahoe23]

just pull it off and flip it over, should be clean as a whistle, but if you are only driving short distances I have seen them look gooey, all you can really do about that is just go drive it around, take a road trip now and then, Take the wife out to dinner out of town or something.....

So it isn’t necessarily a bad sign

 

[Doubeleive]

So it isn’t necessarily a bad sign

no not unless you are loosing coolant then you have to decide how to proceed from there. the wifes 04 had a small internal leak and I used some bluedevil on it and it worked great. those kinds of snake oil things only work sometimes.
when I treated hers I made absolutely sure it wasn't leaking anywhere else and it even passed a pressure test and a combustion leak test so the leak was pretty small.

 

[iboughtatahoe23]

no not unless you are loosing coolant then you have to decide how to proceed from there. the wifes 04 had a small internal leak and I used some bluedevil on it and it worked great. those kinds of snake oil things only work sometimes.
when I treated hers I made absolutely sure it wasn't leaking anywhere else and it even passed a pressure test and a combustion leak test so the leak was pretty small.

You did this yourself? If push came to shove I’d just take it to the shop. Got money I save just for this damn Tahoe haha.

 

[Doubeleive]

You did this yourself? If push came to shove I’d just take it to the shop. Got money I save just for this damn Tahoe haha.

ya you can rent the pressure tester from most auto part stores like auto zone it's free they just take a deposit and then when you return the tool they give you the deposit back, same with the combustion tester but generally you have to buy the fluid seperate a bottle of it was like $10 and would do several test.
the bluedevil is not exactly cheap it was around $50-60 for the required amount, you have to follow the directions otherwise you are just wasting your money
it gets poured in a COLD top radiator/hose, then you go drive it around for like 30 minutes and it's done. It activates with heat, so pouring it in a hot engine/coolant is not going to work. the general consensus on the bluedevil was to use the one you leave in, they also make one that you use and then drain the coolant and start over with fresh coolant. I left the permanent one in for about a month then flushed everything. That stopped the leak for good.
the bluedevil is only for head/block leaks, not for anything else unless they sell something marketed otherwise.
I did that versus spending a lot more time and money to tear it down and have the heads checked, engine had around 230k on it at the time
the caveats to that are that it "could" clog up stuff inside. when it activates it turns into a glassy looking material, I had spilled a little on the engine and aftwards i could see how it changed and became a solid, it was then stuck to the metal but I could chip it off with my fingernail. I guess that's how it seals a leak just puts a layer over it.

 

[iboughtatahoe23]

ya you can rent the pressure tester from most auto part stores like auto zone it's free they just take a deposit and then when you return the tool they give you the deposit back, same with the combustion tester but generally you have to buy the fluid seperate a bottle of it was like $10 and would do several test.
the bluedevil is not exactly cheap it was around $50-60 for the required amount, you have to follow the directions otherwise you are just wasting your money
it gets poured in a COLD top radiator/hose, then you go drive it around for like 30 minutes and it's done. It activates with heat, so pouring it in a hot engine/coolant is not going to work. the general consensus on the bluedevil was to use the one you leave in, they also make one that you use and then drain the coolant and start over with fresh coolant. I left the permanent one in for about a month then flushed everything. That stopped the leak for good.
the bluedevil is only for head/block leaks, not for anything else unless they sell something marketed otherwise.
I did that versus spending a lot more time and money to tear it down and have the heads checked, engine had around 230k on it at the time
the caveats to that are that it "could" clog up stuff inside. when it activates it turns into a glassy looking material, I had spilled a little on the engine and aftwards i could see how it changed and became a solid, it was then stuck to the metal but I could chip it off with my fingernail. I guess that's how it seals a leak just puts a layer over it.

Interesting.

Would you say I could rule out the coolant thing than if I I’m not experiencing loss of coolant or overheating? Or could it still be a concern with the oil life and oil itself etc. I will check that cap asap