Detroit Diesel Corporation (DDC) announced its engine production has made a significant change by moving its factory-fill engine oil to a low viscosity FA-4.

As of early January, Detroit has started using FA-4 engine oil for factory-fill on the Detroit™ DD13®, DD15® and DD16® heavy-duty line of engines. Prior to this change, Detroit™ engines were factory-filled using CJ-4 engine oil.

Along with this change, Detroit Engineering has issued two new fluid specifications for the use of the recently introduced PC-11 category. DFS 93K222 covers CK-4 engine oils which replace CJ-4 as the industry standard, while DFS 93K223 covers the FA-4 engine oils with an emphasis on fuel-economy improvements.

Detroit Diesel says that this change in factory-fill oil has allowed its maintenance intervals to be extended on all new Detroit Heavy-Duty engines. Changing to FA-4 engine oil for Detroit engines helps further benefit improve fuel economy with an added benefit of longer maintenance intervals.

“At Detroit, we are focused on improving our customer’s ownership experience. Our new extended maintenance intervals will help improve their overall cost of ownership by keeping their equipment on the road longer,” said Ed Byk, Detroit Heavy-Duty Engine Product Marketing Manager.

Using PC-11 engine oil will also provide the same extended drain intervals for all existing Detroit DD13, DD15 and DD16’s currently in service. The low-viscosity FA-4 engine oil is backward compatible and can be used in older model-year Detroit heavy-duty engines going back to EPA 10.

On top of this, a new maintenance interval category is being introduced for the DD13 and DD15 which will be referred to as “Efficient Long-Haul.” This oil change interval will apply only to those over-the-road duty cycles that exceed 7.0 MPG. For the DD13 this means that it can travel up to 65,000 miles between oil and filter changes and for the DD15, up to 75,000 miles.