Had a friend look at my truck yesterday to see if anything needed to be done. Turns out all it needed was oil and plugs. Truck has 52,000 miles on it. He checked the spark plugs and said they were incredibly dirty and he's surprised they weren't missing. He also checked the oil and it was apparently the dirtiest oil he's ever seen. I put Valvoline Full synthetic in it 5000 miles ago. He put Castrol Syntec in it, told me to change it every 3000 miles and not 5000, changed the plugs ($5 per plug x 16 plugs = my god that's expensive), and told me to run nothing but premium in it from now on. Any ideas as to why the oil and the plugs (100,000 mile plugs) would be that dirty? Maybe it is the lower octane gas? I don't take it offroad and I clean my CAI regularily.

By the way, he put 5w-30 in it and told me from now on to put that in it and not what the manual says. For the winter he said use 5w-20 if I want to. This guy has been working on vehicles and building them from the ground up for the last 40 years so I think I might listen to him. Any feedback?

 

what kind of plugs were in it? copper plugs are every 30k

 

I never bothered to check but he told me that they really good spark plugs and shouldn't have to be changed that soon.

Whatever plugs he put in there afterwards were $5 a plug for an auto shop to buy.

 

ok well if there were platinum they do last longer but the hemi runs better on copper ones. platinum ones really dont have a benefit on the hemi

 

I didn't check that much into it but what he told me the best things I can do for it are to change the oil every 3000 miles with castrol syntec, run premium in it and good on me for having a CAI.

 

well I have the pleasure of living beside a 60 year retiree of a refinery in south LA and my grandpa worked for almost 50 years at UOP (universal oil products) heading up the lab there.

These two guys pretty much know anything you would ever desire to inquire about when it comes to gas/oil. Its all in Japanese when they talk about it, and both build and rebuild vehicles for a hobby (and extra money). And yes they both served in WWII so they are at least that old haha.

Of course they both agree that diesel is the way to go....they say that our gas engines are extremely inefficient (somewhere around 30% efficient on energy) and also that ethanol is a horrible idea (also extremely energy intensive to make and very inefficient per gallon)

Both also say that there is no reason to change oil every 3,000 miles in a modern engine. My grandpa has almost 380K on his izuzu with *******ly no problems. The other guy's F-150 has almost 300K. Both change oil on their birthdays every year, no earlier regardless of mileage. Both also drive to South LA about once a month.

I would never do this, and act like I agree but change at 5000K with RP. Im just letting you know what a UOP Chemist and a Exxon Engineer say on the matter

 

Well now, I'll tell ya...as far as the oil goes If your gonna run Castrol Syntec then, yes, you should change it every 3K. Me personally, I'm a RP guy myself changin every 5K. But thats just me. As far as the plugs go I say copper for a HEMI, but there again thats just me and my opinion. As far as the gas goes unless you have a tuner and its running a 93 or 91 octane tune then I say run the 89 that the manufacturer recommends for the HEMI. I really don't see the need for 93 or 91 fuel unless like I said you have a tuner or you have spark knock. Now knowing what you know about the plug condition and such I would run a fuel system cleaner through it like Marvel Mystery Oil and it wouldn't hurt to put some of the MMO in the crank case either.

 

Does your truck have MDS? If it does then you need to run 5w-20 don't you?

 

I had a tune-up done almost two months ago on my truck. Plugs replaced, and the mechanic was saying that the Hemis just need to have them replaced every 30,000 miles. Just the way it is, and also to use Copper plugs.
It kinda sucks, the tune-ups are expensive as hell.

 

Bear, why do you say change the castrol full syn every 3000 miles?