Oil change strategy for '03 E350uses1qt/ 1000mi

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Originally Posted By: 901Memphis
You can't depend on oil consumption to keep the oil clean.

Containments will still be trapped in the oil even if you were to add a fresh qt every 1k miles. It would last longer than normal due to TBD refresh, but eventually its going to be overwhelmed with containments.


I will do few 3K OCI's first with MMO and then increase it to 10K.

 

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Originally Posted By: sicko
Personally, I'd use the cheapest HM oil you can find, and let that start working. You're going to need to keep adding it, but hopefully it will at least slow down the consumption some. Once you've gotten it slowed some, I'd start using a more quality HM oil like MaxLife. If after a few oil changes it doesn't seem to be slowing down, I'd drop down to the cheapest decent oil you can find. By decent, I mean like a quality store brand (NAPA oil when it's on sale, ST, auto store brand oil, etc). Since you're going to be going through so much of it, might as well lessen the cost to you.

But it may be worth it to find the problem and fix it. Depending on the cause and cost to fix it, it might be cheaper in the long run to fix the problem than to keep dumping more oil in it


Good suggestion on the cheaper oil part. Walmart will be my friend.

As far as chasing down the cause - since it doesn't smoke or leak, it won't be cheap. My whole philosophy with these vans is not to get into big repairs like engine or transmission. From the experience I know that these heavy duty vans will easily go over 300K without needing drivetrain parts replaced. If they do, I'll just get a different van. At my work it doesn't financially work out otherwise.

 

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Originally Posted By: bullwinkle
$3200 for a van with NO OIL in the engine?? I think it's time for some NEGATIVE FEEDBACK!!


Now you guys are bumming me out already

Negative feedback won't make my van better. And they include words in description, like: " We describe it to the best of our ability, but it's a repo van, so we don't really know". They also tell you to come and check on it, if you want to, but who really goes to different state to check on a $3200 van, it all costs money.

I took a bit of gamble, buying the van sight unseen, but like I said I assumed these HD vans can take anything that's being thrown at them. I didn't count on [censored] driving without oil.

 

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And I'll start eBay dispute. " Significantly not as described"
When I bid on the van, I assumed drivetrain w/ 161K miles on it. Like I said before I 've driven these vans a lot. They go easily 500K miles with basic maintenance.

I called the seller right away, when I discovered the oil was 4 qts low .He said get back to me if there is engine damage. Now, 1 week later, when I know it uses 1 qt per 900 -1000 miles, I know there's damage.