Oil Missing!

[Canon20D]

I feel like I need to have one of the bobs run in and say something like:

"Some major glitch in the engineering. A lot of oil missing!"

 

Checked my oil before I left for a work trip on Monday. Had ~3000 miles on it. Oil level read riiight in the middle. Awesome!

 

FFWD to today. Got most of the way back from the trip (1200 miles) and remembered to check the oil And had time to do it.

I had nothing. Stick barely showed anything on it. Grabbed 2 qts of Mobil 5-20 and dumped them in, and that took it up to the upper mark on the Full line.

 

Drove about 1000 of those miles on the highway, 70-75mph.

Rest was around town. Its been fairly cold in Rochester but not too much below freezing. Running Synthetic. Checked after I got back and it was still topped up.

 

a: how bad is that?

b: What should I check? Turbo?

[apexi]

My car seems to consume virtually no oil for about 2,000mi after an oil change, then suddenly everything goes downhill and the car starts to get thirsty. Ive had a few used oil analyses done which show that my car always shears 5w-30 down to a 5w-20, which probably makes it easier for the car to consume oil as the hot viscosity drops.

 

So basically, I wouldn't panic yet. I'm pretty sure my car has done the exact same thing before after a trip with a lot of highway driving.

[nm]

A: Why the hell are you using 5W-20? 5W-30 is the lightest oil speced for a 2005 LGT. 40 weight is also acceptable, and 5w-40 (or even 0W-40 in cold places) is preferred.

B; OCI is 3750. Given the turbo issues, I wouldn't run more unless you've been doing UOIs.w

C: Check your oil more often.

D: First check I'd do is a leakdown (not a compression test), unless you see obvious signs of a major external leak (~2qts in 1200mi means under your car should be wet with oil).

Most likely would probably be a ringland followed closely by a turbo issue.

Other possibility which might not be so terrible -- our oil pans/dipsticks are finicky and if you checked once with the car on a hill and the other flat, you culd have very differt readings.

Also, you really need to check your oil every fuel up. That is what I'd recommend for the next few thousand before you freak out too much. If you're under 1qt per 1000 over the OCI, I wouldn't worry that much.

I'd still do a leakdown though.

[Enlight]

Oft repeated on this forum that Mobil 1 5w-30 degrades to 5w-20. Many including myself use Rotella T6 5w-40 to good effect.

[Canon20D]

I added 5-20 because it was all the station I went to had. Didnt want to restart the engine 'dry' just to drive to walmart and look for 5w30. Last oil change was done at Fast of West chester, so im sure he put in the proper weight. He used synth so he recommended 6000mi OCI. This has been backed by a couple oil analysis that ive done through blackstone labs:

You nearly added 2,000 miles to your interval and your engine didn't even notice. In fact, most metals were steady or slightly improved. Iron was the exception, but we expect that one to increase with more miles on the oil. It only came up 1 ppm since last time, which is certainly not a problem amount. It could've read closer to 15 ppm and still been fine for a 6,208-mile oil run. No matter how you slice it, your engine handled the longer oil run very well. The TBN was good at 2.4, so there was a lot of active additive left. Try 8,000 miles next. Nice!

 

I havent seen any signs of oil except one rainbow slick in a parking lot, but from what I could tell it wasnt anywhere near the engine area, and looked to be from a neighboring car. Ill look in the drive way today.

My last 05 LGT seemed to do the same at this, it would be fine up to 3000mi, then it would suddenly suck down a qt like apexi said. Weird car. Keep my eye on it, and get a change soon with oil analysis following.