where did the oil go?

Update to my original post. I had the oil changed since my original post at the same dealership, synthetic blend. I noted it was about 1/8" below full mark after the change. I have driven approx 1000 miles since the oil change with no noticeable use of oil. There was no towing in those 1000 miles but it did involve a round trip to Jax Fl running 70-75 at least part time. We will be towing TT to the NC mountains in a couple of weeks. Guess I will find out then if the oil loss was due to the "stress" of towing. I suspect there will be some oil loss, but we shall see. Will update when we return.

Passin Thru wrote:
I an Airplane mech and I highly recommend you get a sample kit from
http://www.blackstone-labs.com/what-is-oil-analysis.php or a sismilar one and check your oil through them. Use an independant lab, not one like AMmsoil etc as they just try to sell their product. My most recent one said, Wow, Quite a bit of metal in oil. Recommend you change it sooner, could be just breakin or beginning of a problem. Do'nt use additives or products that promise renewal. If they did what they promised, we would'nt wear out engines. If the products are so great, why are they not apprved by the FAA?

x2 on blackstone. after several consecutive analysis by blackstone I'm now convinced that the longer oil change intervals on newer vehicles are still VERY conservative, at least for our driving. Even at 10K miles on my duramax and mercedes (about when the change oil usually comes on), the analysis indicated that everything was still very good and the additives still strong and they indicated I could easily go at least another 5K before changing if desired. I'll stick with the 10K, nice number to remember. previously I was in the 3K for cars, 5K for my truck camp. Clearly that was vast overkill with likely no long term benefit.

to the OP if your concerned about oil consumption, send a sample to blackstone lab when you change oil and they will give you an analysis of the oil and highlight any concern areas and give you a good comparison of what typical number are for your particular engine. In most cases they have enough data on various engines to give a good comparison and they also often know what to look out for with various engines. They also offer the same service for transmission fluids.

I an Airplane mech and I highly recommend you get a sample kit from
http://www.blackstone-labs.com/what-is-oil-analysis.php or a sismilar one and check your oil through them. Use an independant lab, not one like AMmsoil etc as they just try to sell their product. My most recent one said, Wow, Quite a bit of metal in oil. Recommend you change it sooner, could be just breakin or beginning of a problem. Do'nt use additives or products that promise renewal. If they did what they promised, we would'nt wear out engines. If the products are so great, why are they not apprved by the FAA?

Gale Hawkins wrote:


If that was technically a true statement then one would have a blown engine because they all use at least a few drops. :B

This is where a few of the arm chair technicians were going at with me. But i'de like to think they knew what i was getting at?!

In the late 60's we had a 1953 Chevy pick up at used a quart every 40 miles.

Two stroke? LOL :B

In the late 60's we had a 1953 Chevy pick up at used a quart every 40 miles. It was 20 miles to town so we made sure it was full before we left and just added a quart on return without checking the dipstick. :)

Even with some tool and die background I am still impressed internal combustion engines can hold together and keep running hour after hour the way they can do for many years.

While burning a quart every 40 miles is excessive in my book it still meant a poor dirt farmer had a usable truck. Gas was $.25 a gallon a quart of oil was no more than that.

I do think vehicles that need oil before they burn a tank of gas is a pain because you have to check the oil between fill ups. We have one truck while we do not have to add oil we still check the oil because it may set 4-5 months between usages just to be on the safe side plus the hood needs to be opened to check for animal nests.

Needing to add a quart every 900 miles is a non issue except for bragging rights at 'My engine does not use any oil'.

If that was technically a true statement then one would have a blown engine because they all use at least a few drops. :B

A kwart in 900 miles but maybe it wasn't topped off just right isn't something to worry about - that's not really "using oil..."

We had a 91 Chevvy K1500 - it could use 1 liter every tank of gas towing at about 6 mpUSgal...

THAT is more like using oil... :)

dodge guy wrote:
I'm done! Appearantely there are quite a few manuf. representatives here that don't like what i'm saying!

It's not about liking or disliking you or what you're saying, so please don't take it personally.

There are quite a few well-educated folks here who disagree with your conclusions for a variety of logical reasons, and who fail to draw a hasty conclusion about all engines from one particular design problem with a Chrysler engine. Painting all engine designs with that broad-brush is a hasty generalization, in my opinion.

There may be one particular engine for which your oil consumption parameters may hold water, but that's simply not applicable to the Ford modular motors in question (unless you know something the engineers who designed, developed, and tested the engine don't know...)

joshuajim wrote:
Yes the lawyers do set some "technical" specifications. A good example is the Ford fuel pump. Early claims were honored under warranty. Then excessive claims came in and the lawyers decided that the problem was "water in the fuel, a customer responsibility.

Yes, lawyers and bean counters DO change specs for the companies benefit.

Again, conspiracy theory. The early ones were honored under warranty because nobody knew the root cause of the failure. Once the root cause of the failures was determined to be water in the fuel, which is not a material or product defect, claims began being denied if there was evidence that showed water in the pump. (We did a lot of that testing here in our lab). It had nothing to do with the lawyers.

gijoecam wrote:

joshuajim wrote:
I believe that the Lawyers have set the "spec" for oil consumption in some engines rather than the engineers. Engineers would most likely not "design" around that high a figure unless the bean counters got involved.

Typical, "make it the customers problem, not ours".

Riiight... Lawyers set the oil consumption levels? That's. Just. Awesome. Got any more conspiracy theories to share with us?

The number for the OP's Ford comse from hundreds of thousands of hours spent testing and MEASURING the oil consumption rate to determine what was excessive and what was normal. It's not some number an attorney pulled out of thin air because it represented the maximum cost to benefit ratio of warranty claims. Lawyers don't write the service manuals; most lawyers I know wouldn't know most of what's in the service manual to start with, let alone be able to write it!

Yes the lawyers do set some "technical" specifications. A good example is the Ford fuel pump. Early claims were honored under warranty. Then excessive claims came in and the lawyers decided that the problem was "water in the fuel, a customer responsibility.

Yes, lawyers and bean counters DO change specs for the companies benefit.