Oil help please?

[otis24]

Here's the story. I purchased my 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan (3.8 V6) new. Using Havoline conventional, it was using about 3/4ths of a quart of oil in 1200 miles from the get go. Doing some research, I found this site. At about 36k miles, I switched to Pennzoil Platinum and average about 5k mile OCI's. After the switch, oil consumption was about a half quart in 3k miles, acceptable in my book. I am about 5k miles into my current OCI and plan to go to about 7k miles, or August 1st, which every occurs first. Van currently has 108k miles. Oil consumption on current OCI has been 1 quart in about 1700 miles, for a total of two quarts added. I plan to switch to a 5w30 instead of the 5w20 I had been using. Is there an oil that is less prone to vaporization (which is where I assume my oil is going)?

 

[tomcat27]

off the top of my head, amsoil has a lower noack volatility. of course, you will spend more on amsoil than you would on PP topoff

 

[otis24]

I suppose that one way to look at it is, two quarts of top off mean fresh additives.

 

[sicko]

Valvoline MaxLife, quality semi-synthetic oil that has shown great wear numbers in used oil analysis tests (used oil analysis). If I was in your situation that's what I do.

But keep in mind, there's a weird thing that occurs sometimes, not all the time, but often enough to mention. When switching a vehicle over to synthetic after a life time of conventional, sometimes consumption goes up for a couple of oil changes and then settles down. You'll also see people mention this after running their vehicle on one brand of oil for a long time and then switching to a new brand. Can't explain it, but it's been commented on enough that I thought I'd mention it

 

[otis24]

I've been running synthetic since about 36k on the odometer. Currently, I have about 108K, so the vehicle is not new to synthetic oil. The oil consumption seems to be up this OCI.