oil usage
Thread Starter
|
New User
Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 24
Likes: 0
oil usage
I recently purchased a 95 I6 4x4 m5sd with 65,000 miles. The truck looks great and the motor runs quiet and strong but it uses a little oil. I use syn in all my vehicles so I changed to that in the truck when I first got it and I've noticed it uses about a qt every 800 miles. No smoke or leakes. I've thought about changing back to dino oil to see if that's the problem but I can't see how it would be. I don't know what the previous owner used. Is mine the only one that uses a little?
Posting Guru
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 2,420
Likes: 3
From: Langhorne, PA
I think mine was tight up until my head gasket started leaking. I was not losing any oil between 5000 mile oil changes. Everything crapped out at about 120,000miles. I must not live right, I thought the engine was going to be a trooper, but developed alot of problems at 130,000miles and up, it need to be pulled at 150,000. You may just need to add some Rislone oil treatment, or whatever you think might free up your rings, improve lifter seals, and clean the valves. I am not sure if what you do, switching from oil to synth, is right. It is a foggy area, although the synthetic stuff is great. If your leak can't be stopped I would think twice about the cost of the synth.
Have you looked at the oil and lube forum yet? I think there are a couple of oil related items in the tech articles section also.
Have you looked at the oil and lube forum yet? I think there are a couple of oil related items in the tech articles section also.
Senior User
Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 125
Likes: 0
Truck below has 200,000 miles... Uses NO oil between changes.
Quart every 800 miles. Thats cause for concern. There were a couple of periods in the past where my truck seemed to be using oil. Turns out they were very small, hidden leaks. I'll assume you have been very throurough in your leak checking. First check the PCV system for blockage. The PCV valve is at the back of the engine under the manifold. Also remove the air cleaner cover and check the crankcase filter.
You may want to check for internal problems. Tailpipe - Any oil deposits? Pull a spark plug - again any oil deposits present? Pull the crankcase breather line from the valve cover while the engine is running - Is it puffing blue smoke out?
This maybe a good time for engine compression and vacuum tests.
Quart every 800 miles. Thats cause for concern. There were a couple of periods in the past where my truck seemed to be using oil. Turns out they were very small, hidden leaks. I'll assume you have been very throurough in your leak checking. First check the PCV system for blockage. The PCV valve is at the back of the engine under the manifold. Also remove the air cleaner cover and check the crankcase filter.
You may want to check for internal problems. Tailpipe - Any oil deposits? Pull a spark plug - again any oil deposits present? Pull the crankcase breather line from the valve cover while the engine is running - Is it puffing blue smoke out?
This maybe a good time for engine compression and vacuum tests.
Last edited by bigbadjs; Jan 10, 2004 at 09:44 PM.
Postmaster
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 2,711
Likes: 2
From: Pittsburgh
It's not uncommon for a high mileage motor that's been run on dino oil its entire life to suddenly develop massive leaks (or many, many, many small ones all at once) when the switch is made to synthetic. The synthetic washes all of the junk out of the insde of your motor, but alot of that junk was probably blocking many little holes in seals and gaskets. Clean your engine down and start watching for oil coming from places like the oil pan gasket, the valve cover, and the timing cover gasket. Drive it, run it, do whatever you need to get the oil up in the motor, but i bet it really is leaking on you. If this isit going back to dino won't help (even though it is a really bad idea anyway).
Justin
Justin
