Mike
Well-Known Member
Sounds easy dont it, fact is its not. You will 8 times out of 10 be in the shop, a tech will tear all apart and not find the root cause. You'll spend thousands believing he did, but he just threw parts at it.
In today's world, the sensitivity of these engines along with diagnostic troubleshooting tools, youll know you have a major issue LOOOOONG before you see anything substantial in a "oil sample "
Why don't guys do oil samples on transmissions and rearends? I mean if they are so accurate? Not being a smartarse, just making a simple point.
On the first part, if the numbers on diagnosis were that bad, I would find a new shop as my trust in that one would be gone after the first or second misdiagnosis.
As for sampling transmissions and axles, I'm content with visual samples and monitoring temperatures. Rebuild costs is far less on those.
If I had a DD15, with a oil change interval of 70k, I don't think I would be concerned with messing with extended oil drains. That said, I would still sample the oil to catch potential problems before they shut me down on the interstate and forced me into a shop I had no trust in. We're talking, in my case, about 3 oil changes every two years, and 8-9 oil changes before I ended up trading the truck away because I have no desire to take a modern emissions equipped truck to high mileage.