Neither me nor the wife noticed any problems with my 2002 Mustang GT when I bought it. Once I started driving it regularly, I found out it burned oil at the rate of about 1 qt/1,000 miles. Wife has driven behind me and never said anything about smoke until the other day.
I figured I would give MaxLife high mileage a try along with some engine restore to see if it would reduce the oil consumption any. Wife was behind me and reported the engine smoking a little while idling (I had just pulled out of a parking lot and had been sitting in traffic for a few minutes) and then more smoke as I was accelerating onto the freeway. Once I was up to speed, no smoke, and no smoke as I was slowing down.
I tried to repeat this myself and sometimes I got it to smoke if I revved it after idling, other times I was not able to. I have never seen it smoke at idle.
Am I looking at bad valve seals? I have already changed the PCV before switching to MaxLife and it did nothing for my oil consumption issue. From what I've read, valve seals were an issue on these engines but I thought that was fixed in the late 90s so my 2002 shouldn't have a problem. I have 113,000 miles on it, bought with 111,000 and it has not smoked for the last 2,000 running Rotella T6. If changing valve seals doesn't do the trick am I looking at an engine rebuild on a car I just bought (hard to believe a 4.6 is "worn out" at just over 100k, especially since there is no sludge visible through the fill cap), or do I just fill it back up with Rotella and send it since it seems to have plenty of power, runs fine, gets decent mpg for what it is (17-19 city, 21 mixed including some stop and go traffic) and isn't exhibiting any other signs of being worn out?
I've never dealt with an oil burner before. Even my XTerra with 172k on it burns nothing between 5k mile OCIs, also running T6.
I figured I would give MaxLife high mileage a try along with some engine restore to see if it would reduce the oil consumption any. Wife was behind me and reported the engine smoking a little while idling (I had just pulled out of a parking lot and had been sitting in traffic for a few minutes) and then more smoke as I was accelerating onto the freeway. Once I was up to speed, no smoke, and no smoke as I was slowing down.
I tried to repeat this myself and sometimes I got it to smoke if I revved it after idling, other times I was not able to. I have never seen it smoke at idle.
Am I looking at bad valve seals? I have already changed the PCV before switching to MaxLife and it did nothing for my oil consumption issue. From what I've read, valve seals were an issue on these engines but I thought that was fixed in the late 90s so my 2002 shouldn't have a problem. I have 113,000 miles on it, bought with 111,000 and it has not smoked for the last 2,000 running Rotella T6. If changing valve seals doesn't do the trick am I looking at an engine rebuild on a car I just bought (hard to believe a 4.6 is "worn out" at just over 100k, especially since there is no sludge visible through the fill cap), or do I just fill it back up with Rotella and send it since it seems to have plenty of power, runs fine, gets decent mpg for what it is (17-19 city, 21 mixed including some stop and go traffic) and isn't exhibiting any other signs of being worn out?
I've never dealt with an oil burner before. Even my XTerra with 172k on it burns nothing between 5k mile OCIs, also running T6.