Which oil weight, brand, and oil filter are you using in/on your 4.2 V6? How many miles/months are you going between oil changes? And, do you change the oil filter at EVERY OCI?
Currently I am using CASTROL 0W40, M1 M-209 oil filter, changed every 7.5K miles/12 months, and use a new oil filter EVERY OCI.

"One Filter, One OCI!"

 

I am using Mobil 1 EP 5w20 and a Mobil 1 filter. I change it once a year or every 10k, whichever is first. I never change oil without changing the filter. I add 1 quart between changes.

 

MC 5w20 w/MC filter @ every 3k oil change.

 

In the U.S.A., every owners manual says "MotorCraft", and gives a MotorCraft part no. for the oil & filter. In Europe, Ford recommends Castrol. On my fuel cap, the recommended fuel is BP. Once upon a time, there was a TSB which instructed to use 5W-20 in almost every vehicle, and all new cars sold were spec 5W-20. Now, on some new cars, the owners manual also list 0W-20. A quick look at the InterWeb, and you will see the discussion going back almost a decade, in regards to using 0W-20.

I just changed the oil yesterday. Amazon.com had 6 - 1 quart bottles of Castrol Magnatec 0W-20 for about $20. A while back, I bought a case of 12 FL-400S filters on Amazon.com for $14. So there it is. 0W-20 & MotorCraft filter. For the record, I've used 0W-20 in the truck before. Years ago, when the truck was new, Wal*Mart had a sale on Mobil 1 0W-20. Nothing bad happened. 10 years later, after using 0W-20, 5W-20, 5W-30, 10W-30.......all depending on what was on sale, and if I had a coupon......nothing bad happened. I've used boutique brand oils. I've tried K&N, AFE, Mobil 1, Wix, MotorCraft, AC Delco, Champion.......but stayed away from Fram filters.

I'm not really worried about motor oil & filter brand. I know from experience with fleet operations, that commercial vehicles are driven harder, and get the lowest cost oil & filter. I see the trucks at work going over 1,000 miles a week, get an oil change once a month, and never high cost premium boutique oil or expensive filters. Fleet oil & fleet filters. Yet, these trucks go for hundreds of thousands of miles. The key is changing the oil, vs not changing the oil. No extended oil change intervals. Monthly oil changes at or about every 5,000 miles. My boss laughs about how he would rather pay $29.95 every month, than $30K for a new truck.

With owning this truck for over a decade.......I cannot definitively indicate any realized benefits, what-so-ever, from using the boutique oil or high priced filter. Nor cannot I specifically articulate any harm or fault from using a lower price point combination of oil & filter.

 

I notice the same thing. 6 quarts in. 5 quarts out. With the company car, I also top it off with an extra quart once it's low on the dipstick. Sadly, with my personal cars, I am less diligent when it comes to pulling the dipstick. And when I do, I just shrug my shoulders. I drive my personal vehicle very little, and like you, I'm changing oil once a year.

Even back in 2004, I recall a lot of people claiming that with the right synthetic oil & filter combination, 10,000 miles or 1 year is possible, despite the Scheduled Maintenance Guide calling for every 5,000 miles of normal operation or 3,500 miles of Special Operation. And by the way they described "special operation", most people I knew qualified. Low speed & extensive idling covers everybody who sits in big city traffic. I spent 90 minutes this morning, traveling 9 miles. For everyone else, that's about 10 minutes down the road. Even the freeway is stop & go. And we are talking about dead stops, where you sit there idling, until the car ahead of you moves 25 feet.

When I was commuting in my own car, I tried every 3,500 miles, but finally decided to just change oil every 5,000 miles because it was easier to track. For the last year, I put less than 1,000 miles on the F-150. And when I do drive it, it is slow speeds, short trips, and extensive idling.

 

Back in the 80's, I bought an 81 Ford Granada with the 200cu in straight six. The factory recommended oil change interval was 10,000 miles. Back then I changed the oil every 3k miles. That car would burn a quart of oil about every 1,500 miles until it got over 40k miles on it and then it would go 3k miles and still be almost full. My personal opinion is that the largest factor in engine longevity is how heavy your right foot is as long as the oil does get changed at least every 10k miles. I change the oil in my vehicles every 5k because it's easy to keep up with like someone else said. And 5k miles is usually at least a year for my two vehicles since I retired.

 

Well, all I know is this - I bought my truck in 2006 with 55k on it. I've been using the same oil and filter since I bought it and changing it at 1 year/10k, and with 193k on it, it doesn't burn any more oil between changes than it did when I bought it. The "EP" version of Mobil 1 is designed for extended change intervals.

 

If 1year/10kmiles is working for you, don't do anything different.

Don't mess with perfection.

 

6 quarts at an oil change puts the level a bit less than halfway between ADD and FULL on the stick. It takes about 3k for it to drop down to ADD, and I add 1 quart. By the time it hits 10k, it's down to ADD again. That works out to about 6k per quart. It wasn't that many years ago that this low a consumption was unheard of. When I first started driving, a quart every 1 to 1.5k was considered normal, we changed it at least every 3k, and we used considerably heavier oil - 10W40.

 

That was about a decade ago......if anyone believes that 0W-20 is good for cold starts and better fuel economy..... nobody has blown an engine yet.

 

From my fuzzy memory, a buddy was helping me with an oil change, and he put in 7 quarts. It came to the top of the hash mark @ "full". I left it in there. Nothing bad happens with 7 quarts. It is still within acceptable rang on the dipstick.

 

The recommended 6 qts gets my 5.4 engine to the middle of the hash marks on the dipstick. A couple of times I got the bright idea to add another pint so it would indicate full. That pint disappeared very quickly so I don't do that any more. I consider the 6 qt mark of a pint low as the correct level for my engine. Now, it shows a qt low at 2500 miles and I add a pint to get it to the midpoint on the scale and it will use that pint by 5k miles when I change it.

 

Please note that this thread is specifically about the 4.2 V6.........

 

My 4.2 uses 6 quarts.

A 4.6 takes 6 quarts.

Your 5.4 takes 7 quarts.

 

Wrong for my 2002. The 2V 5.4 uses 6 qts. My truck is listed in my signature.