Chuck FB

A young newlywed couple wanted to join a small church. The pastor told them, "We have special requirements for new parishioners. You must abstain from having sex for two weeks." The couple agreed. Two weeks later they returned. The pastor asked them, "Well, were you able to get through the two weeks without being intimate?" "Pastor," the young husband replied, "I'm afraid we were not able to go without sex for the two weeks." "What happened?" inquired the pastor. "My wife was reaching for a can of corn on the top shelf and dropped it. When she bent over to pick it up, I was overcome with desire and took advantage of her right there." "You understand, of course, that this means you will not be welcome in our church," the pastor responded firmly. "That's okay," said the young man. "We're not welcome at the grocery store anymore either..."

I wasn't sure if that Ford was part of the company or just happened to be a nephews personal truck but with that type of miles accumulated means its been on the road some and hard to say where the idling hours are at. That seemed to be one of the issues or at least before that TSB/recall Ford put out about updating software that in some cases increased idle speed but also from my understanding programmed the variable vane oil pump system to supply more oil at lower engine/idle speeds. Engines are not happy with lack of oil lubricating the parts apparently !. And also who's to say that due to ( making the assumption ) that Amsoil was being used and that it may have helped prolong the engines valve train life further out.

Do find out as that would be interesting if they have been using any L8T engines or for that matter have been running any of the Ford gas 7.3 to see how they have been panning out. I assume your nephews engine replacement was on his dime as the regular warranty would have long past unless he had some form of extended warranty that covered such events. That shows though and may depend on the year of the build that failures are occurring with the valve train well beyond the warranty distance and more than likely so will others have that sneak up on them.

I realize this is an old post and its probably been talked about since then on this forum and I may have mentioned it myself but the Chev multi flex tailgate on the HD trucks are all aluminum so there is that one item that I am aware of on a current GM HD truck that is aluminum but if its the standard tailgate then its still a steel unit as far as I am aware to current 2026 model year.

I am surprised it didn't pop back up some just in time for the end of school/summer holidays and July 4th time period. Here in Alberta it hit its low coming off the high back a week before the end of June or so and has been creeping back up some and would equate roughly to around 20 cents per gallon increase. Of course there are various factors and one is the games they typically play with wanting to capture that holiday vehicle movement but also our government directly causing our Canadian dollar to drop ( a polite way of explaining the real picture ) causing our prices to go up rather than continue down like it should have, and even though we are sitting on the crude.

I will say though that the 5.00 a gallon for only one fuel stop while on the Number 1, that privilege of driving from the point of Paso Robles ( where I fueled up before crossing to the coast ) and all the way up ... across the Golden Gate where I stopped and walked on the bridge ( and someone jumped off the bridge opposite the side I was on ... never saw it happen but the tow truck/paramedic told me ) and continued on north back onto No 1 and all the way up to where it connects to 101 and also explored some of the Red Woods although had been through some of that before. The fantastic view of that scenic ocean route was most certainly worth the extra dollars I spent on fuel. Just prior to that I had driven through Death Valley and that was some experience in the middle of July, then spent a couple of days in Yosemite and hiked to the top of Half Dome. The summer of 2007 was very memorable for what I saw and experienced in California.

That brings me back to the summer of 2007 when I drove up a portion of scenic highway 1 and not sure if it was Big Sur or one of the other stations along the road but it was right at 5.00 a gallon for regular, however it was also 5.00 a gallon at the one and only service station that same summer in Aspen Colorado, probably to make all those California movie stars with fancy shacks in Aspen feel like a home away from home . I don't recall the price ranges along the normal non touristy highways over the few western states I drove but it was certainly far less in some area's but California would have been the highest state in general I happened to be through then. I felt so ripped off in 2007 paying 5.00, that I do remember !.

I know from past four wheel drive vehicles and if not using the front axle that much with power flowing through it, the oil tends to stay very clean ( certainly after the initial wear and oil change ). The rear is often very different though just because its being worked all the time but would depend how hard the vehicle gets worked and todays synthetic oils stay cleaner longer vs the regular oil that breaks down quicker. The High Country automatically comes with the 4 auto/high/low transfer case where as I think the LTZ can be had with ether transfer case. The idea seems nice and yes it does indeed work good but long term reliability with a lot of use of that feature while on icy roads causing it to work the crap out of those clutches is definitely questionable so I had been told by a local tranny shop. Fortunately it sounds like the 6L90 trans in the gas truck can have the pan dropped without some major ordeal with the exhaust system, that is a real downside of the L8T with the 10 speed due to the exhaust routing vs the Duramax to service the transmission.

Would this be the first time both the diffs and transfer case oils were changed ( that is if you know the history of the truck since new ) and if so how many miles are on the truck now. Also and of course that would make all the difference if this was the factory oil or had been changed prior, what volume of wear metal fine paste like substance were on the rear vs the front diff cover magnets. So far I have drained the rear diff oil and the transfer case as I said above at 9000 miles but don't have a clue what would be on the front diff magnet and would be speculating to guess it surely couldn't be near as much as what the rear diff magnet had on it due to it going along for the ride a large part of the time. The transfer case I have has the 4 auto feature which I have tried to avoid using as much as possible due to warnings about the clutch pack slippage wear that takes place, certainly I saw some discoloration of the oil but it still easily identified as red fluid but the fact it has no magnet isn't impressive but I think most transfer cases over the years never had a magnetic plug.

There would be one way of determining the quality of the factory oil although probably more than a typical oil lab test, and that would be to draw out some oil from a new truck and send a sample to a lab that could do a more elaborate test of the oil. The issue with too little oil in the diff may not be the lack of lubrication of the diff bearings and gears themselves ( although a lack of oil volume for cooling ) but the wheel bearings because at some point the oil would be too low to properly get onto the spinning axle or fed along the axle tube. That was the claim by the local dealer from a couple of trucks in recent years that had the wheel bearings fail and they figured from lack of sufficient oil due to a severe underfilled diff and some of the bearing material made its way to the diff and it got damaged as well so the axle housings were just replaced on warranty. But your right that if the diff is over filled by whatever margin that it causes more churning of the oil than is desirable and that is no good either and can cause a pinion seal to leak. Also old oil I believe can tend to loose some of its properties like antifoaming and another good reason to change the diff oil every so often.

Through the years it hasn't been my typical method as I tried to drop oil on an engine that was hot from having been worked, however that was not always practical and had to fire up a unit and let it warm up reasonably well and drop the oil when I had the time to do it but am referring to not only vehicles but a variety of farm equipment and highway tractors etc. However on a vehicle where one is crawling under it and the exhaust is nearby to ones body and if wanting to pull the plug without danger of being hit with boiling hot oil or attempting to remove a HOT oil filter, its sure safer and easier to not have everything smoking hot and can remove the filter right away when under the vehicle and let it all drain. Of course its not the end of the world if a bit of oil stays in the engine that might have eventually found its way out, I like to get out as much as possible but any oil changes that take place in shops would rarely be sitting around for very long at all before the plug is thrown back in and filter slapped on and oil poured in and sent out the door quick like. There would be very little time spent ( assuming they even did it ) in starting the engine with oil to fill the filter, then waiting to verify the level on the stick. A good reason to check ones oil level shortly after a shop changed the oil on a vehicle just to make sure its correct and to look under for any oil around the drain plug or filter.

I changed the factory fill oil in the rear diff of my truck for the first time today and the miles is close to 9000 on the truck. There was a lot of fines on the magnet, a very thick layer but working it through my fingers it all felt like mush and as most know it appears like graphite, so no surprise chunks anyway. Certainly was time to do it from my thinking and could have been done sooner but the oil didn't look awful but sure wasn't new looking and never expected it to either. I did use some solvent to help me clean out the bottom area of the axle housing, just get any other stuff settled at the bottom washed and wiped out of the housing for the bit of effort it takes. I used Amsoil Severe Gear 75W90 in the easy packs to try out what they are like and I used up 4 packs and didn't spill much at all in the process but did take all four of the packs and go to the work bench and emptied them into a measuring container and there certainly was some in them that added up to something, then poured that into one of the easy packs and squirted in what I could get out of it. I would say the level is within 1/8th of an inch of being level with the threads at the fill plug so just the perfect amount. Once again, more than what GM says the fill volume is but computes with what others are adding to their rear diffs as well.

So speaking of oil consumption with my L8T as I just changed the oil yesterday and made the switch over to Amsoil SS 0W-40 from the Mobil 1 5W-30 Truck and SUV I just dropped out. 2900 miles on that oil as well as 68 hours on that oil ( so used to equipment with an hour meter and that becomes valuable information to compare with others as well ). Once again the oil use was so very little, I am going to say it dropped under 1/16 of an inch on the dipstick. No towing was done and this interval was from early spring until now. One interesting item to note is that going by the 5 quart jugs I was using before from Mobil, it was showing that I was putting in 8 US quarts to bring it to full if not slightly over the full mark according to their jug markings. Granted I did allow more drain time this time and in part because the engine oil was only lukewarm as I started it and let it idle and not for long enough to get the oil itself hot ( the engine was up to operating temp ). The oil in that state just seemed to take forever for it to drip out but not only at the drain plug but at the oil filter housing as well, perhaps I had never quite gotten all the oil out before and I could have still waited longer but as it was I waited well over 3 hours. I think next time if I have the time I will do an experiment by dropping the oil and lets say leave the pan under it for 15 minutes, then switch to another pail and let it drip out overnight and measure how much more oil comes out. So this time and yes I ended up getting it just over the full mark as I was experimenting with trying to get the level to the add mark after I had run it and then waited some and then added a bit and waited for a certain amount of time for it to settle to the add mark. I very well may not have waited long enough for that experiment but I got to the add mark, then dumped in a full quart and waited some and checked and then waited some more and it crept up more ... and then finally oops, it was slightly over full some hours later when it really had settled all it would. I find this engine sure takes time for the last bit of oil that gets poured in to finally make its way into the crank case. I can only guess at how much too much I added as per maybe a 1/10th of a quart. I had poured in 8.5 quarts going by the quart containers as per 8 quarts and 16 us ounces. I was shocked at how much this was off compared to the prior oil changes and if those larger jugs and they are not marked accurately enough or they contain slightly more than what they say, or the drain time factor made that much of a difference. But I know on this forum there have been others who have said they have put well over 8 quarts in their L8T and now I have also going by the Amsoil true quart containers. Its a confusing convoluted mess up here in Canada with some oil manufactures packaging is in true US quarts, some is also in true US quarts containers on an even number of quarts but also marked in liters which becomes the odd ball volume of a fractional amount of liters. Then there is the Liters only containers, no US markings as its a true metric container and only measured in Liters to an even number of Liters. But remember we used to have Imperial Gallons and Imperial quarts as well !.

LOL, its thrown a few people because this item is being talked about in the gas part of the HD forum. Probably wouldn't be a bad idea to put a very brief wording in your profile with the year/GM or Chev/2500 or 3500/ and yes the 6.6 Duramax. When I joined this forum I could see the confusion ensuing for my own truck unless I had it listed with my chosen name handle unless one has a few vehicles that apply to a GM forum as that becomes confusing as well. Anyway its all good, makes for a little forum excitement

The sad part is that sensor would have no issues probably for the life of the truck if it wasn't for the crap emissions they force down its throat. It certainly makes sense that a sensor that is just so clogged up with a thick layer of exhaust particles is going to have a tougher time sensing as well as one that is clean.

How many miles were on the truck when you bought it and was there some form of oil change history generated through a dealer or an independent shop although not much would show up if the owner had changed their own oil. Just curious if it was a maintenance issue or if there was something off from the start, surely one would think the original owner would have realized it was using a lot of oil, its hard to go back in time and find out the true story of mysteries like this. Well hopefully the warranty company will go for it and just install a new engine, that would be the ideal outcome. I still have so few miles on my truck as per not quite 9000 and will be changing the oil shortly which has around 2700 miles on it or so and its down so little on the dipstick from where it was at the beginning of this oil change that I could make the "claim" that it uses no oil but in reality would be a very small amount, less than a 1/16 of an inch. Just driving empty/not towing and easy driving so hard to say what it would do if it had a load behind it for oil consumption. So far very impressed with the very minimal oil usage.

For sure its been the theme of any high profile vehicle to really suffer with fuel mileage the faster one goes. That isn't to say a fairly aerodynamic car isn't affected as they are but not to the extent a pickup is and big heavy LT tires with many plies takes power to flex vs a thin P rated tire. I've never driven a diesel pickup enough to have taken notes as per a turbo diesel pickup to get a reading of the turbo boost on flat ground with an empty pickup at various speed increments but I expect it would show up on the gauge. Highway tractors certainly do and lets say its pulling an empty grain trailer so the same wind resistance is there but its not dragging that massive weight, exact same area of a highway and same direction and no wind and its amazing the difference on the boost if one is going 70 vs 65 and then 60 and then down to 55 ... its just putzing along with the boost WAY down at 55 as its not working the engine at all but get to 70+ and the boost is much higher and it takes fuel to make boost. A non turbo gas engine as no tattle tail to let one know how much power/fuel is being asked of it. So pulling a high profile fifth wheel RV trailer would just amp that wind resistance factor right up there and people used to drive slow with such units because pickups didn't have a fraction of the power that todays turbo diesel pickups have to ever think of driving fast or passing a turtle on the road !. I bet if the tires were pumped up hard like I hate to do because of the ride and our crap roads, and if driving along a flat straight highway near the coast ( sea level ) and puttering at 55 mph consistently, that's where the fuel mileage would take that extra jump up. Not a realistic scenario for most people but no doubt that would be the trucks happy place for the least fuel used.

I would have to read back to get a better picture in my mind of some of the other comments and what they were using for a driving scenario they based the fuel mileage off of. That is why the fuel mileage conversation is extremely difficult to make fair comparisons from. If I was to be living in town and only driving around town, light to light and some longer stretches that doesn't have a light every block, and the usual stop at a grocery store and the bank and so on and so forth, my fuel mileage even during the summer time would be so bad with my truck I don't even want to know how bad it would be !. Then add in winter time and idling to warm it up to clear the windows and driving through snowy streets etc, large heavy trucks with gas engines have NEVER been worth crap for fuel mileage and why some little pot licker of a car with wheelbarrow tires and a 1300 cc four cylinder non turbo engine was the ticket to using a mere fraction of the fuel over a full size pickup. By the way my truck has the 34" tires as its a HC but not the BFG KO3 tires ( that was an option for my truck but the sales guy couldn't figure out what the tires actually were so that never got on the order until it was too late to change the truck order ). So what fuel mileage your getting actually sounds good for "town driving" and with my truck when I go to town the fuel mileage keeps increasing as I get closer to town because it takes quite a while to get the driveline oils warmed up ( and why it always shows better fuel mileage on the return trip from town because its already warmed up ) but once I am in town that fuel mileage average just keeps dropping the more I mess around town and then has to recover back to something reasonable again by the time I get home for an over all average. I'd be curious what your sticker says for the factory weight of your truck, mine is close around that 7700 lb due to the options it has. But anyway the long and short is, vehicle weight, higher rolling resistance heavy tires and a hefty driveline and a relatively large gas engine make for crap fuel mileage in stop and go scenarios, all one can do is drive it easy off the line at each stop and as my dad had said over the years, drive like a raw egg is under your foot and that's the best one can do. Years back with a carbed engine and if the carb was getting a bit out of tune etc as would the ignition system, the fuel mileage on pickups with larger engines was just awful compared to what your getting. We pay the fuel price penalty for driving HD trucks over some little vehicle, that is the reality.

There are probably a few threads talking about fuel mileage but this one seemed to fit the stats I have seen based on my typical local driven route but with different outcomes based on different seasons/temperatures. I have a few hundred pounds of items that consistently ride on the truck at all times such as a bak flip cover, rubber bed mat, tools and extra fuel so I would be something over 8100 lb without me in the truck. All these examples are based on a 100 mile round trip to a town plus running around town so maybe 110 to 120 miles in total for a trip. Using regular fuel and I assume it always has some ethanol in it but don't know the percentage they blend in. Also speed wise I am going at 62 mph and non aggressive driving although less speed yet if its crappy winter condition roads. I am going by an initial reset of the computer generated fuel use numbers averaged over a couple of thousand miles or so for each weather/season so they may be more optimistic then actual hand calculated numbers. Basically this is painting a picture of doing the same drive but seasonal conditions and temperature being the major variable to the end result. Oh and although I am in Alberta Canada, I am converting it to miles per US gallon so there is no confusion. So winter time it gets cold here, no real surprise there and the roads can be clear at times but also often have packed rough snow or are are driving through loose snow ( they do a poor job of plowing the highways ) and yes this includes the extra idle engine time due to trying not to freeze ones butt off. 12.7 mpg is what I was getting during the winter months on average. Then during the spring when it was around the freezing point and the highways are clear of snow, I was getting around 14.25 mpg. Summer time, I have been getting around 15.15 on average but certainly some of the trips showed quite a bit better fuel mileage, so much depended on how much or little I had driven around town and number of engine restarts after sitting for a while at each location. But stating a best fuel mileage trip to town pretending that is what the truck gets on average is fooling ones self for sure !. As I said in a different post, I had driven a 645 mile trip over a couple of days stint to a different destination then these other daily to town examples above, and was done during the summer with nice weather and not bucking a head wind, also keeping at 62 mph and its a rolling landscape type highway drive ( this isn't southern Alberta or Saskatchewan flat lands ) Hand calculated fuel mileage in this case though and it came out to 17.65

This video may not be the exact content for the joke thread but its a lot of laughs so here it is, I've only watched a portion of it so far but if anyone is looking for some light hearted good soap box driving action, its here. As a note in the upper left of the screen it shows the number out of 100 to refer back to any particular vehicle for comment !. https://www.facebook.com/reel/1351928276956715

I thought I would use your thread and add to it as I just did my first longer drive with my truck in the last couple of days. I drove from the Grande Prairie area of Alberta down to Edmonton and most of where I drove in the city was the ring road so fairly free flowing but a bit of stop and go as well in the city. Stayed the night and returned home and not too many stops along the way each way but every restart and certainly every cold start sets it back for fuel mileage. Why I say that is I see some people will cherry pick a fuel mileage leg after the vehicle had been warmed up driveline wise before hand and its a forgiving ( easy rolling drive leg for example ) and call that their fuel mileage which can give a false perception of reality. I was not heavily loaded at all but never the less the flip bak cover, rubber bed mat, various tools etc and extra jerry cans of fuel all way up to a few hundred pounds of dead weight so its not an empty truck. The cold inflation tire pressures are set more near the freezing point so once they are warmed up driving I was showing 45 front and over 40 rear and realize high inflation pressures would help a little in fuel mileage but certainly not the ride on our crap sections of highway. The weather was good so was not raining as that can really drag mileage down, in fact I had a bit of a tail wind on average driving home. Most people on here would never have driven on that freeway to visualize it but its got a fair bit of rolling type of landscape with numerous river valleys. For the most part I had it on cruise set to 62 although kicking it off if I caught it in time before it started down shifting and self braking going down the grades. Most of the more substantial grades its shifting into 7th I believe as 8th just doesn't have it. Total distance round trip was 643 miles and my overall average and I did refuel three times in all, figured out to 17.65 miles per US gallon. My best fuel mileage section refuel within all of this figured out to 18.46 and these are all hand calculated figures. I find if anything that the trucks computer can be over optimistic, sometimes its pretty close but other times its stretching it. On paper persay in theory the truck would have just about made it on fumes for that whole drive without refueling once. Which made me think of the topic thread of the wonder if these trucks could do 20 mpg and that is a good question, certainly would have to be on an easy going flat highway, no head wind, the right temperature, not packing around a bunch of dead weight and puttering along even slower than I was I would suspect and going steady and not stopping to smell the flowers or take a piss !. It probably is possible but not without effort to attain that with the wind resistance and weight of these trucks. Of course on my drive most people are passing me if they have the power as per loaded highway tractors, never mind a lot of speedy vehicles but the speed limit is 68 and most are at or well over that.

Yes I agree, its what amounts to free advertising to let people know about his UOA testing company, and not that there is anything wrong with that but certainly that is a motivator for putting out videos about the science of oil as well as other topics such as oil and air filtration etc. The interesting part I found with his last video is not only the physics behind the reason for the varying wear due to a diesels working torque range causing more bearing load and that higher viscosity oil is of benefit, it was also that the chemistry behind the GM Dexos 0W-20 and the Mobil Dexos licensed 0W-20 are far enough apart that its showing up with a difference in wear even though the two oils are matched in viscosity and in that comparison viscosity was not having the finger pointed at it. There are a few youtubers out there or one anyway that I have watched a bit of who has gone through the pains of accessing various countries manuals for a certain engine platforms and while in the US/Canada it may say use 0W-20 or what have you for some Toyota product, in some other countries it sings a very different tune for the very same engine with the typical traditional oil viscosity/ambient temperature charts to help choose which oil viscosity is correct for the conditions the vehicle will be used in and in some cases its taken an engine in a US manual that states only use 0W-20 as per warranty coverage and yet that same engine in certain other countries may have up to a 15W-40 etc oil option that meets the spec. Another words the guy who is driving through Death Valley or Phoenix and south weather at 120f is often being fed a line of bs by the US system that has forced vehicle companies to restrict the warranty to a specific low viscosity oil for anterior reasons as well as the long drain interval suggestions. I haven't come across anything yet with proper information to back up what GM says is ok to use for viscosity in some of the very hot climates of the world, I don't know how many GM pickups would end up in such countries to be honest and this isn't information that just jumps off of the internet, its in manuals only distributed in said countries. That was why I mentioned Toyota as per the youtuber that physically was over in some of these countries in some situations or was also able to get someone in said country to send him an excerpt of the oil information in that country. Thankfully youtube is free ( yet anyway ) for viewers to sift through information and of course comes with the good and the bad ( truth and lies ) and we can choose to turn off/not watch what a person finds is bs or just not interested in the topic.