Originally Posted By: Sonic
I have an '06 town & country with the 3.8 liter and it does the exact same thing. A full qt is added by the time I hit 3000 miles. Been using QS as well, 0w20 or 5w20 (synthetic). I'm gonna use high mileage oil next to see if it makes a difference on the consumption, it only has 55000 miles on it. I too have used 5w30 in it or sometimes mix 5w20 and 5w30 when I have partials sitting around.
I too have a 2006 T&C with the 3.8L and it goes through a quart (depending on the season) over the course of a 5k miles OCI. I was going through a quart over 3K miles, but I switched to HM oils and it slowed to a quart over 5k miles (again, depending on the season. Sometimes it is less).
It has 108k miles on it. I purchased it used at 90k miles. I switched it to Mobil 1 0W-20 and did two runs of that. During that run, I added MMO for the make-up oil and to help M1 clean out whatever the PO left in there. After I noticed the consumption issue, I then switched it to QS HM 5W-20 at 100k and it almost stopped. It fell from the top hash to the bottom hash during the 5k OCI, which is about half a quart. At 105k, I switched to NxtGen HM 5W-20 (I got a good deal on it and QS came out very black and burnt smelling. I wasn’t very font of that.) and so far, at just under 109k, I have added 3/4 of a quart of PU 5W-20. At 110k, I’m planning on running Motocraft 5W-20. I kinda want to see if the HM is really helping. If consumption increases, I’ll go back to a HM oil and stick to it.
This vehicle was taken care of with regular oil changes (dino) before I got it, so I don’t think it is a neglect issue. The more I read about it, the more I feel it is a common issue with this motor. To be honest, if HM oil is keeping it to 3/4 to 1 quart per 5k miles, I’m good with that.