2006 Ford F150 - 5.4L Oil Consumption

[Princeton Auto]

Customer complains of oil consumption of 1 qt./ 1000 miles. Vehicle has 60K miles. Engine is not equiped with a PCV valve but a PCV heater and the tube and heater seem to have excess oil in them which leads me to believe it is entering through this tube.

Anyone else have this concern? Any ideas?

[ricmorin]

Is this a regular customer? Do you know the maintenance history? If there is oil in the pcv, then I'd change it out. Easy place start. But don't count out ring wear. It's not as common on the 5.4 as the 4.6, but it does happen on poorly maintained engines.

[Princeton Auto]

Yes, regular customer. There doesn't seem to be a valve of any kind in the PCV hose or tube. I am not sure how the heated PCV works. I need to study it a bit.

Could be rings. Any other ideas?

[ricmorin]

Head gasket but those are rare. Which type of heated PCV is this? Electrical or coolant heated?

[brianp87]

Ive never seen this. I would do an engien flush and add a bg moa to the fresh oil. I have seen the wrong oil cause similar problems

[steven kiser]

the consumption of a quart every thousand miles is possibly going to be a pandoras box. when i have customers question oil consumption and if it's a quart or less for every thousand miles we'll chat about how serious it really is. years ago a quart every thousand was acceptable and was even noted in owners manuals. if the oil loss has remained constant, hasn't effected the operation of the vehicle it may be a situation that will be monitored. getting to the point of where the oil is going i would make sure the oil viscosity is correct and the coolant system isn't running hot. is there more of a deposit on one plug than the others? is this a flex fuel application? one time a few years ago i had a customer (rocket scientist ) that would on occasion screw with the fuel mixture by adding chemicals to the gas tank. on a limb here how are the fuel trims? does the oil smell like it has fuel in it? if you have a bore scope you may be able to see deposits on the valves leading to a guide issue.

[Tim Martin]

I have had customers complain about what they perceived as excessive oil consumption. Sometimes it was a legitimate concern and others it was not. In this particular application it is absolutely essential that the proper weight oil be used which is 5W20W Synthetic. Nothing more nothing less. I have cured more than one oil consumption issue simply by placing the correct oil in the engine. Having said all that, there could be some other issues in this case such as crankcase ventilation, rings, and valve guides.

[ricmorin]

Fords official threshold is 900 miles/quart. If you take it to Ford, they'd say it's normal.

Good points above. Have YOU verified this consumption?

[brianp87]

I always do the oil flush with the correct oil and a bg moa then have the custoemr come back @ an interval for me to check the level to verifiy the fix. Majority of the time it is either wrong oil, not reading stick correctly etc.

[Princeton Auto]

Had the discussion with the customer and advised. He will monitor and manage the consumption and see if it gets worse.

The vehicle isn't due for a tune up and removing plugs may produce additional expense due to the fact that this engine is equiped with the "super plug".

Thanks for your input.

[steven kiser]

thanks for keeping us in the loop.