I have a question regarding my 2001 F-150 Supercrew with the smaller Triton V8 Engine.

I have a situation that I did not think I was going to have to deal with for a long time but here it is.

The truck has 128,000 miles on it and is now burning oil like crazy. And I mean like a quart every 100 miles.

I never noticed this problem until the last 6 weeks. Up until then I had always changed the oil in the truck myself. It was religiously changed every 3000 miles using Castrol 10W-30 and Fram Oil Filters. I even went so far as to fill up the new oil filter so it would not run dry for more than a second.

All the miles were highway miles as the truck was used to drive between North and Central Florida every week. It has never towed anything and the truck was not abused or run hard in any way. I always threatened my wife with death if she ever raced a cold engine so it was eased down the road until the motor warmed up in the winter.

The only time the oil was ever changed by anyone but me was 6 weeks ago as we sold our house and now live in our condo full time. That was when I let my Lincoln Mercury dealer do it.

After that ( or at least I never noticed it until afterward) it blows smoke if the truck has been sitting overnight. But it doesn’t do it running down the road.

My first thought was some idiot mechanic cranked it up without oil and killed the rings. But a mechanic friend of mine said he doubted that would cause this kind of situation. He thinks it is the rubber seals on the valves that are shot which would account for it blowing smoke after it has sat overnight.
But it still seems strange I never noticed this until now.

I doubt I could have babied the truck anymore than I did and I still have a problem. Now I have to decide whether to drop a new long block in the truck or trade it in for another one.

If I put a new long block in I will have to let Lincoln Mercury do it and I told them I want them to pop the heads so I can see the cylinders when they pull the old engine. If they are all scored up then they have some explaining to do.

Any ideas on this?

It seems odd that the truck could go from burning very little if any oil to drinking it as fast as gas within one oil change. But my mechanic buddy said that if they had run it dry it would be blowing smoke even at idle. It isn’t doing that at all.

Last thing:
The truck was Garage kept from the day it was bought new, Air Filters were changed religiously, and it received all the scheduled maintenance Ford recommended.

If Lincoln Mercury did not mess up the truck it is making me wonder why I went overboard taking care of it. Everyone said I would get 200,000 miles out of it easy with the way I maintained it. Well, that sure didn’t happen.

Anybody heard anything like this or have any ideas?

 

I think I just answered my own question by looking at back Posts.
Sorry, I thought I had a “unique” problem.

The truck only had Castrol 10W-30 from the day it was new. Lincoln Mercury on the other hand uses Motorcraft which is a semi-synthetic. From the other posts it appears that the new oil cleaned the engine out to a point that the valves no longer seal. And there apparently is no way to put it back the way it was.

So if that is the case I have a new question.

Lincoln put in Motorcraft 5W-20. The question is if I had been using that oil all these years would I still be having this problem or would I have gotten 200,000 miles out of it?

Someone told me years ago never to change brands but I had not thought about it since the day he told me since I always used Castrol.

If using the same oil Ford puts in would have prevented this problem I think I will use their oil from now on. The only reason I used Castrol in the first place was it was the same oil my dad used to put in his Porsche when I was a kid.

This wound up being one expensive oil change.

 

Stop using Fram Filters too. Fram = orange can of death.

 

Never had a problem with Fram in the last 15 years I've been changing oil. I think you're problem may be with the fact that you've routinely been using too heavy of an oil. I can't be sure on this, someone back me up, but doesn't Ford use 5w-20 because the cams don't have bearings? It a straight alum to alum rub. I can't really see how that would make it burn oil, but other things in the motor could have been affected by incorrect oil.

 

I did find out last week I should have been using 5w-20.
Ford has always recommended 5W-20 but I used 10w-30 because years ago when I was driving Lincolns I asked the Dealer if I should really being using it. He said in a hot climate like Florida I should be using heavier oil.
And it was their idea to use 10w-30.
Granted that was in 1989 and my cars had 302’s in them instead of the modular motors so this was my fault for never asking again.
You get in a habit of using something and never really think about it again.

The reason I used Fram Oil Filters is ( granted it was years ago. 1988 to be exact) Consumer Reports had done tests on all the brands and concluded that Fram Filters did the best job of anything out there by a wide margin.