I have a 98 F-150 triton V8 91,000 miles

I change my oil every 3,000 miles. Been using Castro GTX 5w/30 for oil. I have noticed that i am using a small amout of oil between oil changes 1/2 to 3/4 of a quart.

Should I move up to 10w 30 or 10w 40?? or should I stay with the 5w 30?


Thanks all!!

 

That's normal, no need for correction.

 

Most people would be happy with that amount of usage. No need to worry.

 

Thanks guys, I am use to my old truck that used nothing in between oil changes and it had 179,000 when I got rid of it.

I am still learning on these new things.

 

macojoe, you are lucky my friend! My 01f150, orp, 5.4 with 54000 miles is on schedule to "drink" 3.5 quarts of Mobile 10-30 in 3000 miles! At 41k I replaced valve cover gaskets, fuel filter, pvc valve, plugs (Denso Iridium) installed underdrive pullies and e-fans. I already had installed the Micro Tuner and Flowmaster sido. The initial project was to replace the valve cover gaskets because I was using 1 qt. every 3k. That decreased the consumption to .5 qt every 3k. Initially! Since then the "drinking" has gotten worse and worse. Now I have no smoke at start-up, no leakink on driveway and the truck runs extremely well. Head gasket leak? If so I can not seem to locate it. Seems to me that JMC had this problem pin pointed but I can't find the thread. Any one with any ideas for the oil consumption??
Happy new year to all and if you are out there Mike T...Thank for the Card!

Ed

 

Wow red!! I would be going nuts if it was my truck!! I am pretty **** on keeping things up to date. And for some reason I always have things go wrong??
I have friends that never change there oil or anything for that matter!! And they just keep on trucking? It drives me up a wall!
I have one friend that has a foreign truck with 280,000 miles and he has done nothing but add oil to it for 3 years now!! Not even a oil filter! thing just keeps going. If it was I the motor would have died long ago!

Good Luck with yours!!

 

Hello again macojoe. Yea it drives me nuts to and unlike yor friend I have changed my oil every 3k give or take 200 miles since I bought the truck new.

Any one with any suggestions or input on this problem? Thanks in advance
Ed

 

My '97 V6 has 178,000 on it. I have always changed the oil every 10K or 12K miles. Even at that, I have never needed to add a drop between changes. The last few, it is about 2/3 quart low at oil change time but I can't see smoke yet. I may have to rering this thing at 250K or 300K miles.

 

My Ranger has 140K and the only time it ever burned oil is the one time I put synthetic oil in it. The thing would sometimes smoke at startup and it was almost a quart low when I changed it after 3500 miles. Went back to dino oil and no smoke or oil consumption since. My '88 F150 5.0 had 197K at trade-in and still didn't burn but maybe 3-4 ounces between 5K oil changes. I always used dino oil in it as well.

Seems like synthetic can be too thin and slide past the rings and valves more easily. My old man swears by Mobil 1 yet he's already had to do a top end on his Cadillac with 70K on it. I'll stick with dino oil. Synthetic might work better in theory, but I drive in the real world and I'm real happy getting 200K miles without oil burning using dino oil. What could I possibly gain by spending 4X as much on synthetic oil, besides more oil consumption?

 

Hi rockeyJSsquirrel. I guess I did'nt specify earlier but I use dino oil not the synthetic .

Thanks for the reply.

Any one with a reason for the oil usage yet?
Thanks again for the info rockeyJSsquirrel.
Ed

 

Do not up the weight of the oil. you are not using any! the loss you think you have is just what is in the filter.

 

My oil level never moved on the stick, from oil change to oil change. Then I loaded up the truck with the family and luggage and drove 1500 miles down to Florida. It burned half a quart on the trip, and has been burning half a quart every 3000 since. I've heard of that happening. The truck gets driven the best miles because it's the one we take on long family trips. I suppose I should consider changing the PCV valve.