if your "forever topping of your oil" you maybe have issues with your piston rings

 

I wouldn't doubt it. My GT only has 68k miles on it, but I have no clue how well it was maintained previous to me owning it. I just think that the 0W-20 may be a little too thin, but I don't know what viscosity I should try next?

 

Actually i'm not so sure it's a ring problem. I don't get any blue smoke out of the exhaust, nor do I ever get a burnt oil smell coming from the exhaust.

 

Well if your adding oil and its not leaking, its got to be going out the tailpipe. I suggest either 5w20 or 5w30. maybe try a synthetic blend this time around and see if that helps out any.

 

what ever ford calls for.

 

I know your car doesn't have "high mileage" but 5w30 mobil one high mileage is a great oil according to many tests i've seen and should do wonders compared to 0w20 when it comes to losing oil.

 

I run 5w-30 in my mustang. My brother also runs 5w-30 in his.

 

Yeah, I think I'm going to give 5W30 a try when I run out of my supply of 0W20...

 

Your choice of oil is great, however if its going through oil then you have a mechanical issue that will not fixed with changing oil viscocity. Stick with what you have.

 

What does topping off mean? How many miles are you going before you have to add a quart. Mine uses about a quart between 5,000 mile oil changes. I put in six quarts when I change oil and I don't top it off in between.

 

It seems that it goes through about a quart of this oil every thousand miles or so. I've got about 3,000 miles on the oil, and i've put 3 quarts of oil back into the motor. I can't even contribute the consumption of this oil to the PCV valve issue, because I run breathers on my valve covers.

It's just odd how the car never smokes, and I never get that burnt oil smell. Not even upon startup does the car puff out smoke.

 

Just because you run breathers doesn't mean the oil vapor doesn't go out.
A quart per 1,000 miles is generally considered excessive nowadays. In the old days that was a tight motor.

Increasing the oil viscosity only decreases the leak through your gaskets. Unfortunately, it also decreases the oil flow through your motor, especially if you are doing a cold start. You have already said your gaskets don't leak. You have already said that you do not have smoke through your tail pipes. Explain to me... what proplem are you trying to fix?

 

i run 5W20 amsoil sig series in my car with no problems

 

Signature series is what I'm using too.

 

I'm not exactly sure Eagle. I was thinking maybe a heavier oil would be a little more resistant to burning off as vapor like you had said. To be honest there really isn't much oil that came out of the breathers. My valve covers maybe have enough oil on them to make up for what comes out on the dipstick when you check the oil level.

 

I run 5w20. I dont drive my car enough to notice that it needs topped off. so i cant help you with that

 

A quart every 1,000 miles isn't vapor. Its a lot but really not enough to smoke out your tail pipes. Multigrade oil viscosity is funny. If you are using oil on a cold start then not lator then you should go to 5w20. If you are using oil at normal operating tempature then you should go to a 0w30.

Since you don't know first go to a 5w30. But at one quart per 1,000 miles it isn't going to help.

My true recommendation is to protect your motor as much as you can. If that requires you to add 1 quart of 0w20 every 1,000 miles than so be it. That is just me. I have never minded adding oil to protect my motor. At 170,000 miles I still run 0w30. I want the cold start protection.

Edit: This is an old time recommendation. If your car doesn't drip oil on the ground and if it doesn't push blue smoke out the tail pipes then its probably a good motor. Just put a quart of oil in occasionally and enjoy your car.

 

If it smokes any on start up, switch to a 5W-20. If not, go to a 0W-30. The only reason why Ford started recommending 5W-20 is to try to increase gas mileage. I would personally run a 5W-30. Leave the PCV system as set up from the factory. No reason to dick with it at all. As long as you run a decent oil filter, like a Motorcraft, you can run a 5W-X grade of oil with no cold start up problems.

Also, using a quart every 1,000 miles is still within Ford spec for acceptable oil consumption.

 

if you have the gauges for it a compression leak down test will let you know exactly which cylinder your burning oil in. anything over 30% and you know its the rings

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Check your plugs to see if any are fouled/oily/look different at all. That may give an indication if it's getting past the rings

 

My plugs all look perfect. I had replaced the factory Motorcraft plugs about the same time I did the oil change, 3,000 miles ago, and none of them gave any indication of oil burning. Then when I did my intake manifold, I pulled out a few of the plugs, and again they looked perfect. I just don't understand it...

Say my engine is eating the 20 weight oil when it's warmed up, why would it eat it then, but not when it's cold? The oil is a lot lighter and the engine is a lot looser when they're cold.

 

Even though the number 20 is higher than 0, its a different unit of measurement, your oil is much thinner at operating temperature than when cold. As it was stated before, it sounds to me like you either have a leak at your valve stem seals or too much oil is getting past your rings. Going with a high mileage oil which has additives to help with those problems or a little thicker oil should slow down that oil consumption a little but not necessarily "fix" your problem. But also as it was stated before, amsoil is a great oil and if you don't mind adding a quart here or there then stay with that.

 

I'm thinking that once my supply of 0W20 runs out, i'll just move up to a 0W30 and keep adding oil if it needs it. Then I'll just replace oil filters every 7,500 miles or something. What's a better filter to be using? The amsoil 25k mile filter, or the factory Motorcraft?

 

Both are good filters, I currently use 0w30 and motorcraft filters. I'm very picky though, I change my oil every 4kish.

 

I'm thinking that if my car is going to continue to eat oil at this rate, I probably won't even change it. I'll just keep adding oil to it, and changing filters ever 5,000-7,500 miles. I'm thinking about moving to a Motorcraft Filter next.

 

Well like I said, I'm kinda picky, I would still change it all when you change your filter, even though you go 6000 miles and put 6 fresh quarts in, there's no way of knowing how much of that 6000 mile old oil is still there.