Excessive Oil Use ??

[Roy W]

I religiously broke my '05 dmax in, change oil every 3000 miles (yes, every 3K miles), use Chevron Delo 400 oil, and have 40,000 miles on the truck. The last two trips pulling my 9200 lb trailer at 65 mph (2000 rpm) I have used about 1 1/2 quarts of oil in 1500 miles. I always topped it back up, so I don't know if it would continue using oil if I didn't top it off. I have never detected any oil useage between oil changes when not pulling the trailer.There is no visual evidence of any smoke, blue, black, or white, or external leakage.

Is this kind of useage normal?? Any possibilty that my easy going driving style has resulted in my rings not seating fully??.......Comments?

[killerbee]

did this just start recently? How many times have you topped off?

[Roy W]

Sorry it took a while to get back....I'm still on one of those oil using trips. I started noticing the oil useage about 6 months ago. Last year I took a 4500 mile trip and don't remember having to add any oil on that trip. I'm still 650 miles from home which will be all interstate driving. The oil level is topped off now, so I'll check it when I get home.

[Duramaster]

How long do you let the engine set before checking the oil? Guidelines for oil consumption on the DMAX is 1 quart in 100 gallons of fuel. You should wait at least 15 minutes before checking the oil on the DMAX engine. Does this help?

[killerbee]

are you using the stock intake and element?

[Roy W]

Yes.....stock intake and filter........and yes, I usually check my oil level in the morning after sitting overnight. Strange thing though, I just finished the last 650 miles of my trip and the level remained full. It's possible I've just gotten a couple of bad readings. Once when I checked it while on this trip, I paniced, as it showed WAY over full. Turns out that somehow oil was trapped above the little ball on the dipstick and didn't drain back. Wiping it off and re-checking showed it to be normal. I guess I'm just paranoid about it and need to stop checking it so frequently.

[twaddle]

Hi there,
Always do several checks, some dipsticks seal so well at the top of the tube that the crankcase airspace for want of a better word can hold the oil back enough to give you a low reading on initially pulling the dipstick out. Keep the dipstick OUT for a wee while as It can take a minute for the oil level to work its way to the correct level. It could also happen the other way as you found when the oil level was too high.
Also allow for the truck sitting at slightly different levels of ground which can give differing level readings.

We've had this a few times with customers equipment if an operator doesn't know to do a couple of checks.

Hope it turns out to be OK

Jim