My truck has about 124,000 miles on it, it is a 2000 5.4L 4x4. It has been burning a quart of oil every 1000 miles. Is that too much? I need to know before my warranty is up. Another thing I don't like is when I bought the truck I drove it a hundred miles and when I went to check the oil before I changed it, the oil level wasn't even touching the dipstick! So I'm just wanting some feedback in case I need to do something quick.

 

you might have a bad piston seal, that is causing it to burn up.. have you pulled your plugs? that would be a place to check

 

Thanks - Anybody Else?

 

Piston rings may be bad and your burning the oil up(do you see blue smoke come out of the tail-pipe or can you see fumes coming out once the vehicle is hot???). Or you have a leak. I hope you don't live in a state with severe emissions checks. You may not pass. The warrantly may not cover this. Or like many dealers they will try to blame you. I would take back to the dealer I bought it at and definitely let them know. Or If you can break the deal, keep that in mind; as you may need a big overhaul to the engine and that could cost additional money BESIDES what you paid for the truck. I hope it works out for you. good luck

 

Well, the truck is completely paid in full. But I don't know how he would blame this on me when the truck came off the lot with oil not even touching the dipstick - yet I have no proof of that. I guess I really should have thought of checking it but I didn't (i'm an idiot) considering it was at a dealer.

I'm getting the motor checked over good tomorrow and doing all the comp. checks and i'll see how this whole deal turns out.

 

Well, the dealers usually check the vehicles and "certify" them before they put them on the lot. So this may be something they already knew about and wanted to see how far it would get before you would notice.
I didn't really mean he would blame you. Just that dealers always try to wash their hands of any wrong doing to deny warranty claims. If your powertrain is covered under warranty then you should have a legitimate case being that the piston rings failed. I hope that they take care of you.

 

I own a 97 f 150 with a 5.4 and my truck burns at least 1 qt of oil every 1000 miles and it has done that for years. It has over 150000 miles on it, but it never smokes, doesn't drip and doesn't smell bad. I don't know where the oil is going, but it's going somewhere. The dealership said that a bad pcv valve would cause the trouble, but I replaced mine with no luck. I started checking around, and it seems that most fords burn oil. I checked with my dad, and he said that his v10 has burned oil since the day he bought it. so.....

 

Mine burns about 2 quarts per 3000 mile interval. Makes for a good reason to do 3K mile oil changes.

 

The official word from Ford on oil consumption is that a quart every 900 miles is deemed normal. I can't say that I agree with that, but it's their 'official' policy on the matter.

With that in mind, check your level often. That's the best advice I can give.

-Joe

 

If you ask me, its worth a shot to get it to the dealership and see if theyll do some warranty work on it.

If not, then its probably one of those things I would just try to live with. If its not dripping or putting out smoke, then it could get expensive just trying to figure out why it is using as much oil as it, then you would still have to fix the problem (usually expensive too).