Using a Little Oil? Problem?

[philjw90SHO]

I have a 92 MTX w/ 107,500 miles and the car is using a quart of oil about every 1,000 miles.
I'm not too worried about it because I bought it with 105,000 and I dont know if it has ever had a 60k so I am going to do one myself. I am going to do the timing belt, oil change w/ Castrol GTX 10w-30, accessory belts, t-stat, coolant, CPS, motorcraft plugs, waterpump, and I have someone form the shoforum coming over to do the valve lash. I have probably have left somthing out but I was just curious if a 60k could solve the problem. The car never smokes at all and I never see any oil on the floor in the garage. There is no oil on the front heatshield. I haven't inspected the rear yet but like I said I haven't seen any evidence of a bad valve cover gasket. Any ideas?

Thanks

 

[Mike Kopstain]

Common areas for leaks are cam seals, valve cover gaskets, front main seal (Which, by the way, you will want to change when doing the 60k), rear main seal, oil psi sender, etc, etc. So basically you can be loosing it anywhere. What you want to do is take some good degreaser and hit the bottom of the car really good. Clean up any area that could be suspect and then have a look in a week or so and see if you can find where the oil is leaking from. Also, is there any blue smoke on startup?

 

[philjw90SHO]

There is no blue smoke on start up and I was thinking that if it was anything on the bottom of the car it would be dripping onto the floor. I do not see any oil anywhere ever. This is why I'm not sure what it could be.

 

[Mike Kopstain]

Well if it's not using it, it's leaking it, and if it's leaking from the front main you'll never see it as it's burning off on your cat. Clean up the whole underside of the car, top off the oil, and go check the underside in a week. Good luck!

 

[projectSHO89]

1 qt/1,000 miles isn't anything to get excited about. Just carry an extra quart in the trunk, throw a quart into the engine every three tanks of gas or so.

The 60K service is very unlikely to affect your oil consumption in any way.

FWIW, if you buy a NEW car and it uses oil at this rate, you will be told that it is "in spec".

Steve

 

[shojuan]

Since I put in redline synthetic 10W/30, my 13 year old SHO 152,000 miles is using about 1 qt every 1500 miles with me driving the snot out of it. I do have a tiny bit of leakage (not enough to drip on the ground anymore, just a bit down the rear main seal area, and a bit down my oil level sender which I replaced the gasket and sealed with RTV, but it started leaking a bit again). That's not bad oil consumption, but I don't like it because redline is expensive. Shoot, with my high mileage engine it's probably very questionable whether the oil is worth the expense. Really, I should just keep my eye out for a good deal on a low miles 3.2 liter.

Every seal I've replaced remains leak free. I've probably got a bit of ring and valve stem seal wear. 152,000 miles runnin crap oil most of the time without doing religious oil changes, I'm not surprised.

Rick

 

[undertow07]

My car goes through a quart every 1500 miles or so. I don't think that is anything to worry about on a 10 year old car with 123 k, because it still runs strong as can be.

 

[Mike Kopstain]

ahhhh got to love the Vulcan... No 60k and after 150,000 miles burns a half quart every 10k. (I found that out by mistake). Just thinking about my baby. I'll flip back into SHO envy mode..... Now.

 

[autobahnsho]

Pull the spark plug wires up front- my car burns and some of it gets up through there. If you see oil I think someone said it's time for new Valve Cover Gaskets..

Just found this on a topic a few posts below. Instead of the Valve Cover, check the Plug Well seals....

http://www.shoforum.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=17;t=004611

<small>[ December 01, 2002, 03:06 AM: Message edited by: autobahnsho ]</small>

 

[shojuan]

Mikeys_Taurus:
ahhhh got to love the Vulcan... No 60k and after 150,000 miles burns a half quart every 10k. (I found that out by mistake). Just thinking about my baby. I'll flip back into SHO envy mode..... Now.

That's awesome Mike! Them's some tight rings! Don't feel too bad about the 10k oil change interval. I'm far more guilty. Three oil changes about 11,000 miles apart, using crap Mobil 0 drive clean oil (maybe it's not crap, but it ain't Castrol) and the mediocre FL-400S filter. Before I did the 60K the SHO was pretty much unloved by us. My parents didn't do squat for it for the 100,000 miles they had it before unloading it onto us. Money was so damn tight at times that even a few bucks for an oil change would have broke the bank. Since the car was treating us like crap, we treated it like crap. It was a beater and it passed smog. Still compared to most it's been relatively problem free. The motor maybe the weakest on baysho (181HP 173.6ft-lb) but it's got some life left in it yet and eventually I plan 3.2 liters (either punch this one out or just get an ATX donor) and stage 1 cams.

So until another blasphemer stands forward, I declare myself the King of Oil Change Procrastination.

Rick

 

[96lt1]

projectSHO89:
1 qt/1,000 miles isn't anything to get excited about. Just carry an extra quart in the trunk, throw a quart into the engine every three tanks of gas or so.

The 60K service is very unlikely to affect your oil consumption in any way.

FWIW, if you buy a NEW car and it uses oil at this rate, you will be told that it is "in spec".

Steve

your exactly right. my dad has a 98 Isuzu Trooper and it uses about a quart every 1500 miles. he took it to the dealer and they told him that it was normal. i dont get it but the thing runs like a champ.