Oil change strategy for '03 E350uses1qt/ 1000mi

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toeout

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I just acquired '03 Econoline E350 w/ 5.4 engine. It used to be Ryder van, then sold to a cleaning company, who didn't pay their bills. The van was repo'd and sold on eBay, that's where I bought it.

When I picked up the van, it was 4 qts low on oil. As I'm driving it now, it seems to go through 1 qt per 1000-1200 miles. The engine sounds great, no unusual noises. It doesn't leak a drop and doesn't smoke at all. It also feels very peppy ( coming from Chevy Express w/ 4.8 engine. )

I'm going to change the PCV valve, but assuming it won't change anything, what would be a the oil of choice, considering the rate of oil use?

I also think using the Motorcraft filter and changing it every 10K along with an oil change at the same time.

Would it be a good idea to use an oil with a high detergent additive package at the beginning, to clean out the engine a little bit?
 
the "4 qts low" part is alittle scary. use a "high mileage oil" or Penz Plat and change more often for a couple changes to clean it out a little. 1 qt every 1k miles is not awful for a big V8. my stupid dodge 3.8 uses that with only 43k on her.
 
Originally Posted By: tig1
What's the mileage on the van?


161K miles
 
Originally Posted By: tomcat27
the "4 qts low" part is alittle scary. use a "high mileage oil" or Penz Plat and change more often for a couple changes to clean it out a little. 1 qt every 1k miles is not awful for a big V8. my stupid dodge 3.8 uses that with only 43k on her.


Yeah, I was pretty astounded when I added 2 qts and it still didn't register on the dipstick
eek.gif
. The only reason I even checked the oil was because the oil pressure gauge would drop to L and then shoot up again.

I honestly thought about leaving the van right there, but the engine didn't make any noises even with only 2-2.5 qts ( I believe the capacity is 6-6.5 ) oil in it. It really is one of the healthiest sounding and best running V8 motors I've had, so I guess it's just one tuff engine.
 
I'd run PYB and keep the change at 5k for the first few changes. It should clean the motor some and it will be pretty cheap. After doing this for a bit and cleaning up the motor and monitoring the usage, you could try and up the OCI interval and switch to syn or etc... Its hard to tell until you have more data of your own that you know is true.
 
Originally Posted By: MonumentOiler
Supertech 5w-30 or 10w-30. High mileage oil couldn't hurt.

10k OCI sounds long to me.


I figured there's so much fresh oil introduced over the 10K interval, that it would be OK.
 
Originally Posted By: JimPghPA
What brand, and viscosity of oil are you now using?



Currently there's whatever was left in the motor when picked it up + 2 qts of Castrol GTX 10W-30 + 2 qts of some other gas station brand 5W-30 ( I coudn't find anything else when I picked the van up ) + 1 qt of Pennzoil 5W-30 HM ( Added when I got home ). I also put on fresh Motorcraft filter.

The reason I didn't change everything out immediately, I figured I let the 4 qts new oil in the system work a little.
And also I wanted to install the Fumoto valve.
 
Originally Posted By: toeout
Originally Posted By: MonumentOiler
Supertech 5w-30 or 10w-30. High mileage oil couldn't hurt.

10k OCI sounds long to me.


I figured there's so much fresh oil introduced over the 10K interval, that it would be OK.

Agreed, but I'd probably still do a OCI at 6-8K, for at least the first one... Go with the HM oil of your choice, mat want to consider the Mobil Clean 5000 HM(or whatever they are calling it these days)...

That engine is specked for 5W-20 but with the usage, I'd go with 5W-30 or 5W-40
 
I'd use a 10W-30 HM oil, and do a few 3k changes to try and clean/flush stuff out.

Might also want to add a quart of MMO to a few fills of oil, to see if that helps.

Hate to be blunt, but if I encountered a vehicle with no oil in it for sale, I'd pass, big time. This thing might just be waiting to let go any day...good luck!
 
1 qt. every 1K miles? I'd just change the filter every 10K or so and probably never change the oil. Gotta love self oil changers....
 
Originally Posted By: addyguy
I'd use a 10W-30 HM oil, and do a few 3k changes to try and clean/flush stuff out.

Might also want to add a quart of MMO to a few fills of oil, to see if that helps.

Hate to be blunt, but if I encountered a vehicle with no oil in it for sale, I'd pass, big time. This thing might just be waiting to let go any day...good luck!


Under other circumstances I'd agree to walk from something like this, but it came down to time and money. I'm an indepenedent contractor and I needed a van in 2 days. I had already incurred the cost to go and pick up the van ( from TN to AL ) and I paid $3200 for the van, so not a whole lot. I'd like to get another 150K-to 200K out of the van and then repeat the process.

10W-30 would probably hurt the fuel economy, would it not? 1 mpg less would cost me abput 280 gallons of gas a year. 0W-20 is probably too expensive, but I'll try 5W-20.

I did just add 2/3 qt of MMO.
 
Originally Posted By: bryceban
1 qt. every 1K miles? I'd just change the filter every 10K or so and probably never change the oil. Gotta love self oil changers....


That's my thinking exactly, but I would like to change out the whole batch once in a while too.
 
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.
 
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
 
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