I bought my truck new in October 2019, and for the last four years, I’ve had the oil changed at the dealer around this time, usually between 8-10k miles. Since my warranty is up, I decided to change the oil myself this time. When I drained it, I only got about 3 and 1/3 quarts out. Is it normal to burn or consume that much oil between changes? I’ve been doing oil changes on my vehicles for over 30 years, and the most I’ve seen was maybe a quart with my old RX-7, and that was with 3k oil change intervals. Let me know if this sounds right to you guys. Thanks!
Some oil might be leaking from the plastic drain plug. I recommend switching to an aftermarket aluminum plug with a valve—it should help with that.
I’ve heard something about the 2.7L having a plastic oil pan that can cause leaks. That’s about all I know on the topic though.
It could be your PCV valve. Sometimes it pulls air through the crankcase breather and burns the oil when you’re working the engine hard.
Rayne said:
It could be your PCV valve. Sometimes it pulls air through the crankcase breather and burns the oil when you’re working the engine hard.
I have a catch can installed between my PCV and crank, and I only collect about an ounce of oil per oil change. My truck is tuned and I drive it hard. It sounds like you might have a leak somewhere if you’re burning that much oil.
Rayne said:
It could be your PCV valve. Sometimes it pulls air through the crankcase breather and burns the oil when you’re working the engine hard.
Funny you mention that—the PCV valve went bad about 10 months ago, but I replaced it with an OEM part from Ford.
I’ve had a similar experience with my 2017 3.5L. I don’t get driveway stains, but every time I change the oil, I have to wipe a lot of oil off the bottom of the oil pan. I usually put in about 6 liters and might need to top off once before the next oil change, but I always get about 4-5 liters back out.
That said, losing 3 quarts seems like a lot. What’s the fill recommendation on the 2.7? I had an issue once where I tried to reuse the same plug with the old o-ring, and it leaked a lot. Now, I always replace the plug.
@Merritt
I’ve never had stains or seen any signs of leaking. The oil pan and plug were both dry when I changed the oil. The 2.7L takes 6 quarts. I switched to Mobil 1 full synthetic, but I think the dealer was using Ford Motorcraft synthetic blend. I’m going to start changing the oil every 5k miles just to be safe.
I don’t notice any driveway stains either, but I’m usually missing about a quart when I do my oil changes. I’ve got a separator on it, but it only collects maybe 1/8 of a quart.
This is on my 2016 2.7.
I had a similar issue with my 3.5L. I was changing the spark plugs and decided to replace the valve cover gaskets too. I noticed oil seeping around the covers. When I removed the passenger side valve cover, I found that the oil vacuum pump was also leaking. After replacing the pump and the gaskets, I haven’t seen a drop of oil leak or smelled burning oil for over 1,500 miles now.