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Where Is My Oil Going?

bassadict69

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bassadict69 Enthusiast

bassadict69

Posted
Posted

I am using Mobil 1 5w30, oil changes at about 8-9000 miles. I normally change the filter & top off the oil with the first light, reset it then change it about 3000 miles later.

 

Oil always looks good...even after 9000 miles. I am always about a quart low at the first light...where could my oil be going?

 

If this is a stupid question, please forgive me! I have never had this problem to deal with!

 

I have checked for leaks & found none!

dewhite Enthusiast

dewhite

Posted
Posted
I am using Mobil 1 5w30, oil changes at about 8-9000 miles. I normally change the filter & top off the oil with the first light, reset it then change it about 3000 miles later.

 

Oil always looks good...even after 9000 miles. I am always about a quart low at the first light...where could my oil be going?

 

If this is a stupid question, please forgive me! I have never had this problem to deal with!

 

I have checked for leaks & found none!

 

How many miles do you have on your truck?

 

As your truck ages tolerances that were once very tight become a little bit more open and allow some blow by. This will lead to older engines consuming more oil than they used to...

 

I would say a quart every 3-5 thousand miles isn't very alarming...

GeoHawk Enthusiast

GeoHawk

Posted
Posted

dewhite's right, you're just burning a little oil as it sneaks (or blows) by the piston rings. I'd be concerned if you were going through a quart every 1000 miles or so, but your oil consumption doesn't sound like anything to be worried about.

gmikejames Enthusiast

gmikejames

Posted
Posted

My '01 Z71 also uses about 1 quart every 3000 miles with 77,000 on the odometer. I read in a previous topic an issue with the PCV stock unit needing to be replaced with a upgraded version to reduce oil consumption. Any truth to this?

67ChevyRedneck Enthusiast

67ChevyRedneck

Posted
Posted
My '01 Z71 also uses about 1 quart every 3000 miles with 77,000 on the odometer. I read in a previous topic an issue with the PCV stock unit needing to be replaced with a upgraded version to reduce oil consumption. Any truth to this?

 

 

It's called the "fixed orifice" PCV. My Z71 was having serious oil usage. I was going through a whole quart every 1000 miles, sometimes less. It turned out the cheap autozone PCV I bought was already crap after 10K and was stuck open. I decided to try the fixed orifice one for the heck of it (you'll never have to change it again.) Oil consumption completely stopped. I use mobil one as well and change about every 4K. I only lose about 1/4 of a quart at 100K over 3 to 4K miles.

z85violator Enthusiast

z85violator

Posted
Posted

pull all of your plugs out and look to see if their black, if black the oil is hurting your power and fuel milage

if they look good don't worry about it.

bassadict69 Enthusiast

bassadict69

Posted
  • Author
Posted
pull all of your plugs out and look to see if their black, if black the oil is hurting your power and fuel milage

if they look good don't worry about it.

 

Plugs were just changed a week or two ago...all the old plugs looked ok, old & worn, but ok.

HawkeyeOC Senior Enthusiast

HawkeyeOC

Posted
Posted

I had an early 90's F@rd Ranger that burned a quart every thousand or so miles from the day I bought it new. F@rd wouldn't do anything unless it got worse. I kept oil with me and put almost 200,000 miles on it before the motor blew up. I wouldn't be too concerned.

 

Slick 50 actually reduced the oil consumption some.

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      I had skimmed through that article when you posted the link and honestly I felt rather defeated in a sense and realized that all these years in changing oil that in fact putting in what I was told was a good quality oil was probably not filtered as well as it should be although the filter put on the engine would be what ( as long as it never went into bypass mode ) would be the final filtering of the new oil that the engine components would first see, but then the filtering media itself is not up to par to what is ideal because a full flow filter would be too restrictive to filter fine enough for the engines best outcome in the long run. Only one of our tractors over the years which was a Versatile with a 855 Cummins had a separate bypass filter, some engine manufacturers did spec a partial bypass system within the main oil filter but I don't believe any other trucks or equipment I was servicing used such a filter. No doubt a product like the Amsoil bypass system is of benefit as long as nothing goes sideways with the extra plumbing and filter such as a rupture/leak that could cause the oil to pump out of the engine ( yes that Versatile had a remote canister with hoses routed to it as well ). With the idiot egr system on a diesel and as a result forcing a lot more soot into the oil, that certainly isn't helping the diesel engines cause or as you pointed out the GDI engine issue with creating more soot and aside from having a fancy secondary filtering system, changing the oil more often helping lower the total soot load.     So oil manufacturing and the end product is not something one can control and I wonder if there are specs on what various oil packaging companies produce in particle count or size. As to the filtering, if the OEM is not designing a filter size and spec that is really what it could be, they too are short changing the end user and so what is the answer. Of course as you say the oil side can only do so much if the air side isn't keeping up its end of the picture and air filters are only so efficient and if in a dusty environment such as farm or construction or driving gravel roads there is a lot of dirt to filter out and some of that ends up into the air stream.    Of course the irony in places like where I am where they dump the salt on the highways but also will mix in some calcium or outright pure calcium for problem road area's, or using calcium as dust control on gravel roads, the vehicle that gets used in that environment may rust out before a properly engineered engine and maintenance finally wears out so one has to face that reality in the rust belt. 

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