As most Isuzu owners with more than 5 miles on their rig, my Rodeo has had a ticking lifter since I bought it with 56K miles on the odometer. I replaced a blown head gasket at roughly 60K miles, and I had the true feeling that some antifreeze contamination of the oil had caused the tick, so I didnÆt hold much hope on it ever going away. I have religiously changed the oil every 3K miles, and I have been using 10w40 with the hopes that the tick would subside. Also, living in South Florida, I like the comfort level that a heavier oil provided to me driving in stop and go when the temperature starts to climb into the 90Æs, which is usually the temperature during a cool evening with a strong breeze down here.
For the past 60K or so I have been adding a quart of Lucas Oil Stabilizer along with the oil change. Again, I like the comfort of the heavier oil in the summer, and the sales display at the parts counter looked so cool, I just had to try the darn stuff. The display had little gears showing how the Lucas oil could ôclimbö up the rotating assembly, and while I wasnÆt sure where exactly in my drive train I had little plastic gears with a hand crank I wanted to make sure if they were there that they were all well lubricated just in case.
Well, while planning to change the oil last evening (2 jobs, 2 kids, a wife and a dog requires planning and I still manage 40 hours of TV viewing a week :-)) with my normal 10w40/Lucas cocktail inspiration hit me. Along with some of the feedback from the board, I decided to drop oil weight to 10w30 (IÆm still too much of a wuss to go to 5w30). Well, for the entirety of my morning 60 mile, one-way commute to work, I noticed that there was a noise missing. No, the whistling of the door mounted, rear view mirrors when driving over 3 mph still existed. And, the ever-present, almost melodic squeak from the spare tire mount still permeated the passenger compartment. But, what was missing was the lifter tick that I had grown to love and admire. I admired the fact that it resisted every attempt to be fixed, short of replacement, and that is indicative of the true American diehard spirit.
So, I guess the real question is if anyone else has tried Lucas, and did they find that an oil stabilizer had any positive effects for them? Or is it just a bunch of hooey?
