Use 5W40 for the winter and 15W40 for the summer. Drain your oil into a clean container and use it in your lawn equipment.

 

Going with 5w40 or sticking with 15w40 is a personal preference. Your truck will start just fine with either but a little bit easier with the 5w40. As far as the block heater, unless you are plugging it into a outlet that the city or someone else owns get yourself a timer and have it come on a couple of hours before you need your truck. If you want it plugged in over night all the time then figure on a extra $30-$60 on your power bill each month depending on what your electrical rate it.

I have always ran 15w40 in my truck since it was new. I live at 6500" elevation in Colorado where the temperatures get down to a -30 quite regularly in the winter and only plug the truck into the timer when I know that I'll need the truck the next morning and I have never had a problem starting the truck in the winter, except when my batteries were dead last January or 11 years ago when the glow plug relay went out.

 

I live in northern Iowa which is north of you and I run 15w-40 dino oil since new. 121,000 miles so far. I have never plugged the truck in yet. When it gets below zero it will romp a couple times. It has never seemed to bother the truck yet. I am not a big believer in syn oils. I think their is a lot of hype in them so everybody thinks they are getting a better product that they pay twice as much for. My local parts house runs 4 delivery vans that all have over 400,000 miles on them and have never had anything but dino oil in them. Isn't it amazing that they can do that without using these new high priced miracle oils. But use what you want as it is your truck and you have to only satisfy yourself, not anybody on this site. If it absolutely has to start in the cold a 5w-40 or a 0w-40 oil would probably let it start better.

 

I ran rotella 15-40 in my truck when I first go it (115,000) without any problems. I was happy with it. I noticed the same issues you are during cold weather. Not a big deal. I had to do an oil change in Dec. so based on what I read online I decided to spend the extra money and go for the Rotella T6 synthetic 5w-40. I could tell a difference in the cold weather starts. the motor turned over quicker. since then I have stuck with the T6-5w-40 year round. since it is a synthetic I just increase the drain interval to between 5,000-7,500 miles depending on use. It helps ofset the extra cost a little bit.

But I definitely like it for cold weather start ups.

 

If you're going to plug it in each night, you can run 15w-40 all you want.

You could probably run gear oil if you plug it in each night.

 

Thanks much for the replies guys. So are the lopes/romps I get an issue (will it damage the engine)? I am wondering if I have a glow plug issue...

 

The romps won't hurt your engine, but it may cause it to die if the rpm oscillations get too high. But it still won't hurt it. You'll just have to restart it.

Checking your glow plug system isn't that hard to do. Check the Hard/No Start link in my signature. Bad glow plugs or a bad GPR could cause the engine to romp a bit.

 

Rotella T6 is good stuff

 

Your owner's manual states 10w30 for the temps you will have in the winter. As said, if you are going to plug it in every night, 15w40 will work year round. Walmart occasionally has the 10w30 Rotella in the winter but it's more miss than hit.

I agree with Klhansen, check your glowplugs, use his link and Ohm them out through the valve cover harness. If your GPR has gone south, it pretty much will not start at even 30 degrees without cranking/restarting a couple of times.

JMHO.

 

But then, if you get the romps, you can put pressure on the accelerator a little bit to prevent the RPMS from dropping.

 

True.

FWIW, I run 15W-40 year round here in the Alaska banana belt, and don't always plug in (sometimes power is just not available).

 

Thanks again for the help. I will check out the glow plugs. Boy the diesel world is so much different to what I am used to!!! I have lots to learn.