Great advice thank you so much you have some great insight about my car and the oil. I think I might give a good conventional oil a try since like you said it's a a little 4 banger and not a turbo for the race track. Thanks again well written
Originally Posted By: BrocLuno
Somewhere here is a lit of TLA's (three letter acronyms) that are commonly used on BITOG.
At 85,000 miles that little Ford 4 banger is accumulating some wear. Not excessive by any means, but it is approaching the mid-life segment of it's time here. I've never seen that engine go 300,000 - but maybe I just missed the ones that did ...
Saying that, I'd do as the others suggest. Top it off and then start keeping track of mileage to next top-off. My guess from the way things are described is that it'll be about 1 qt in 2,500 miles. Or one top-off per oil change period ... Could be more or less, but that's my first guess ...
Not out of the norm for that little banger. Look carefully around the motor with a flash light. You may see some shiny areas. Or dark areas with wet dust. Slow seeps that only really drop oil here and there occasionally. Also not out of the ordinary.
So some going by the original PCV valve, some weeping, and the odd drop thrown off the front or rear crank seal and you have your consumption. Entirely normal.
What to do? Well, you can switch over to Valvoline Maxlife syn-blend (red bottle) in a 5w30 at the next change. If you have it done in a shop, just take you own oil with you. It's good oil in it's own right. and it has some additives that help with gasket and seal pliability. It has helped many folks slow, or stop their oil consumption.
For 5,000 mile oil changes, any good well made conventional oil will work just fine. Full synthetic is usually for folks either hammering on their motors (track days and "spirited" driving), or for those that want to extend their oil changes. There is no professionally published evidence that we can find that says that FS is actually better at lubricating anything. It's still just motor oil, not magic fluid ...
There are good premium conventional oils like say Chevron Supreme that will lubricate and clean as well as many full synthetics and stand up to 6,000 mile oil changes just fine. So well within your parameters.
You might also want to try adding a can of BG109 (EPR) to your engine as it's down a bit. 109 will slowly take accumulated varnish off moving parts and free up any ring deposits that might be allowing some minor burning. It'll mostly flash off by the time you do the next oil change. But it will have done it's work. An occasional treatment is good as motors start to get closer to 100,000 miles
