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NMTRUCKER said:
Well I guess you could call me a nerdball but I would consider most truck forums are for nerd balls anyway. Just mention oil type or viscosity, or oil change interval and let the nerdballism begin. 🫢
This 2 year review was meant to give folks some perspective on longer term ownership of the GM 3 liter diesel. Many people complain about the high cost of diesel maintenance but to do an oil change, air and fuel filter change is about $112.
What does it cost for a 2025 RAM RHO oil change for comparison purposes.
Oil: 0w-20 full synthetic 7.5 quarts- $57 using Mobil 1; oil filter is $7.65; air filter- $19.63. Could not find fuel filter cost but these maintenance costs are not very different from a 3 liter diesel. Also the HO HURRICANE requires premium fuel which is about equivalent to diesel fuel. The big difference would be fuel efficiency which the diesel far surpasses the Hurricane. Then there’s DEF. At 0.33 cents per mile (not towing) that overall cost is fairly insignificant. My own thoughts on towing is if you do it a lot over 5,000 pounds buy a 3/4 ton.
Yes and then there’s the dreaded emissions equipment that everyone wants to bitch and ditch. The GM engineers built the diesel emission system to work intimately with the engine. The emission system is not some afterthought thrown on the engine. Does it add complexity, sure. Does it reduce emissions, absolutely. Can it break, you bet. But it’s like any of the thousands of parts on any modern vehicle. Any of it could break at anytime. End of rant.
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You’ll love a video I worked on today pitting a GMC Sierra AT4X AEV edition with the 3.0L Duramax diesel vs the Ram 1500 RHO I bought. Price difference was about $3k.
 
Excellent write up! You're going to make me buy a 3.0l diesel if this keeps up hahahaha.

What type of driving do you mostly do? Country roads, highway, around town? 27.9mpg is insanely good for 19 000miles driven and hand calculated. For my co-citizen, this is 8.4L/100km over 30 000km.
 
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NMTRUCKER said:
I think your math is wrong. Ok, so let’s look at it like this; $4 equals 400 pennies; take 400 pennies divided by 1200 miles and you get 0.33 pennies per mile. Voila.
I would say my driving is 80% highway and 20% city. My shortest commute is like 35 miles one way.
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You are a 100% correct on the math. Sorry about that, I will edit my post.

That's a nice split for commute. I wish I was able to rent a truck for a week for cheap to see what it would be like. This would really help me decide on my new truck.
 
Fantastic insight! Thank you for all of the data.

I love my 6.2 but there is a small part of me that really wanted the 3.0 but in 2021 I just wasn't sold. I am now, especially with the tweaks they made. It's a solid engine and would be the front runner for me if I went 1/2 ton again.... I think my next truck will be a 3/4 ton though.
 
Fightnfire said:
Fantastic insight! Thank you for all of the data.

I love my 6.2 but there is a small part of me that really wanted the 3.0 but in 2021 I just wasn't sold. I am now, especially with the tweaks they made. It's a solid engine and would be the front runner for me if I went 1/2 ton again.... I think my next truck will be a 3/4 ton though.
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Any reason you're thinking of upgrading to a 250/2500?
 
TheDo114 said:
Any reason you're thinking of upgrading to a 250/2500?
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I tow a 29' travel trailer a lot and the truck pulls it fine, easy really. However, I don't like the payload limitations or the range issue you get in a 1/2 ton. The TT weighs about 6,500 empty and my truck has a payload around 1,500. Put me, my two sons (16 & 14) and some gear in the back and we're approaching payload pretty easy. Gear is a generator, camp chef stove and accessories, some wood, 5 gal gas can and propane tank some other basic camp stuff.

When I'm towing I usually average around 10mpg which in my truck means about 225 miles of range. GM doesn't offer a larger tank that I am aware of or I would have tried to option that. I'm 230ish miles one way to one of our regular spots on the SW Washington coast, I hate having to stop and fill up as we approach. I would much rather unhook and fill up in town without the trailer and then hook back up and head home.
 
Fightnfire said:
I tow a 29' travel trailer a lot and the truck pulls it fine, easy really. However, I don't like the payload limitations or the range issue you get in a 1/2 ton. The TT weighs about 6,500 empty and my truck has a payload around 1,500. Put me, my two sons (16 & 14) and some gear in the back and we're approaching payload pretty easy. Gear is a generator, camp chef stove and accessories, some wood, 5 gal gas can and propane tank some other basic camp stuff.

When I'm towing I usually average around 10mpg which in my truck means about 225 miles of range. GM doesn't offer a larger tank that I am aware of or I would have tried to option that. I'm 230ish miles one way to one of our regular spots on the SW Washington coast, I hate having to stop and fill up as we approach. I would much rather unhook and fill up in town without the trailer and then hook back up and head home.
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Sounds like a 3/4 ton truck would be perfect for you.
 
NMTRUCKER said:
UPDATE: I was in Wally World today and came across Mobil 1 ESP X2 0W-20 DEXOS D oil for, get this, $29.97 (as opposed to $37.99 at AutoZone) per 5 quart jug which is $5.59 per quart. Therefore, an oil and filter change, on my GMC, went from $60 down to $46.55. I bought 3 jugs enough for 2 oil changes. Such a deal.
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Great data on the regen frequency. I am at 6k miles now. Have a Idash for just over a month. Monitoring the soot level and getting just over 200 miles between regens. This is winter and a 11 mile commute with short runs in town. When I added a two hr hwy run it went up 60 miles just before it needed to regen. In a few weeks I will be giving it a long run and will see what it does. Still on the first tank of DEF. Dealer added 1 gal at the free first oil change. Have two jugs of Mobil 1 ESP $28 each shipped from from Wally W sitting on the shelf for the next change.
 
NMTRUCKER said:
Just got back from a 700 mile road trip and had 1 REGEN. Glad you’re tracking your trucks performance. It would be great to give the forum members a performance evaluation on a truck that is driven on a lot of short trips. Chaseydog is a forum member that short trips his truck but he hasn’t posted in a while. Hopefully he’s OK.
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I'm still around, just got caught up in life.

For the longest time I was averaging 165 miles between regens. Over the last 6 months I've been averaging 240 miles between regens. No real changes in my driving habits.

What did change? There was an ECM update for the 24 LZO and I started using Archoil AR6400-D Diesel System cleaner every 5000 miles. Of the two the ECM update seems the more logical reason, but I didn’t notice the improvement until after I started using the Archoil.

To date I've done one long highway run from NC to NJ and back, about 700 miles each way. On those runs I was seeing 350 miles between regens.
 
NMTRUCKER said:
I posted a 1-year review of this vehicle in the GMC Sierra 1500 subforum topic. This is my 2-year review of this same truck.
So at this point I have driven just over 19,000 miles without any mechanical or electrical problems. There was one GM factory software update that was performed at the local dealership at no cost but other than that absolutely no issues.
During this second year of ownership I added three aftermarket items. The first was a RETRAX Pro MX manual retractable tonneau cover that has aluminum slats. This cover does not vibrate at highway speeds and you can distribute 500 pounds over its surface. The only disadvantage of this type cover is you cannot add a headache rack. The second addition was a set of Gatorback mud flaps to both front and rear. These are custom made for this particular truck and are 12” wide and are very well made. The front flaps really help keep the mud from depositing onto my side steps which the factory splash guards failed miserably at. The final addition was some carbon finer trim pieces that were placed on the center console and dash and they really help keep the sun’s reflection out of your eyes.
So what about fuel mileage? Over the 19,000+ miles I have averaged 27.9 mpg hand calculated. What about maintenance costs? Oil change takes 7 quarts of a 0W-20 DEXOS D rated oil and an oil filter. I have been using Mobil 1 ESP X2 which is available at AutoZone in 5 quart jugs for $37.99 which is $7.60 per quart. I also use an AC DELCO UPFF-66 heavy duty oil filter which you can get from Rock Auto for $7.40. Total cost for oil change is about $60 DIY. What about DEF useage? I don’t tow so I have been averaging about 1200 miles per gallon of DEF. I have been using the AC DELCO DEF which cost about $10 per 2 1/2 gallon jug or $4 per gallon. This equates to 0.33 cents per mile. Air filter (AC DELCO) replaced at 2 year mark was $24. Fuel filter, replaced at 2-year mark, was $28. No other maintenance items were required.
What about emissions related stuff like REGENS? In the included graph I show distance between REGENS versus REGEN number. So in the 19,000+ miles the truck has REGENED 42 times. Up to REGEN 36 the mean distance between REGENS was 369 miles. At REGEN 36 I added the Archoil Diesel System Cleaner (6400D). The subsequent REGENS all fell above 600 miles between REGENS. I also use Archoil 6300 antigel addive at every fillup. Does this additive work? I would say the data shows the answer.
I had an oil analysis done at my last oil change and all parameters were in the normal range. Fuel dilution was <2%; oil soot percentage was 0.4%, water was <0.1%, and the oil total base number was 4.64 (I think the starting value is like 8 (fresh oil)).
Finally the total engine hours is 470 out of which 60 are idle hours or about 13% which is considered normal.
Hopefully this gives the reader an idea of the longer term performance of the LZ0 3 liter diesel.
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The fuel mileage and low maintenance costs are definitely a plus. Also, it’s cool to see the Archoil additives having a positive impact on the REGEN frequency.
 
NMTRUCKER said:
It’s interesting that your REGEN frequency is so much different than mine. I was averaging 369 miles between REGENS then used the ArchOil 6400D after which every REGEN has been above 600 miles. That also might have something to do with your fuel economy being just above 23 mpg while mine is 27.8 mpg.
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Regen frequency is likely closely related to the type of driving you are doing. My guess is that someone who drives a lot of highway milage is more likely to see pasive regens which would extend the time until an active regen is required. I'm probably not seeing any passive regens and mine are all active.
 
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