Questions and Answers

Mysterious Oil Disappearance Q. Vehicle: 1993 Ford Explorer, 4WD, Automatic transmission, P/S, ABS, cruise, 4.0 liter V-6 and 102,000 miles.

Problem: Uses one quart of oil every 150 miles.
History: Recently purchased. Previous owner states it used approximately one quart of oil every 3,000 miles.

I have put approximately 1,000 miles on it since purchased. Since purchased I have had transmission fluid changed, radiator flushed and PVC valve changed. When oil changed I had 5w30 put in and it used one quart oil at 150 miles.

Contacted previous owner, he used 10w40. I had 5w30 and oil filter removed and replaced with 10w40. Same oil consumption. No visible leaks, spark plugs clean, runs smooth and does not smoke. In other words, no visible explanation of oil consumption. HELP!

Thank you,
Denny

A. Okay, assuming no one is coming in the middle of the night to steal your oil, it has to be going somewhere.

There are only two ways oil leaves the engine, it either leaks out of the engine or it goes out the tail pipe. A quart every 150 leak would be very difficult to miss so let us assume it is not leaking out.

An engine that burns a quart of oil every 150 miles would put a cloud of blue smoke behind you that could hide a battleship and the spark plugs would be dead black. If there is no blue smoke and the plugs are clean, then we can assume it's not burning it.

Where does that leave us? I don't know. The only logical explanation that I can think of is they are shorting you one quart of oil when you have it changed. When you top it off at the 150 miles, does it need another quart 150 miles later? If not, then they are shorting you. If it does, well it has to be going somewhere. I would suggest taking it into a shop and have the engine thoroughly checked for leaks and a compression test done.

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