I think that Ford requires 5W20 in this engine for 2003 on up.
The"required" part is a CAFE gas mileage-driven figure. It has very little to do with ensuring long engine life. A few years back I had a 2007 Explorer company car, and the manual had 5W20 for one engine and 5W30 for another, likely older model engine.
The quickest way to wreck a Ford, or any other engine, engine is to put cheap dino 5W20 in and load the car up, air conditioning on and drive acrosss the Mojave desert in July. Worse yet, tow a trailer. The Ford V8 is a very loose engine, and that may be part of OP’s problem.
Countries without CAFE standards do not recommend 5W20 oils as a rule. In tropical countries most Fords use 20W50!!! My son’s Mazda 3 bought in 2004 “requires” 5W20 oil, a leftover form Ford’s part ownershipof Mazda. He puts in 0W30 all year round and has already put on close to 100,000 miles with flawless performance and no oil consumption.
http://www.haynes.com/products/productID/144 Haynes shop manual for your car. $19.95 Check with Auto-zone or Advanced or O’Reilly or similar parts store, other publishers may also cover this car.
My dad used to use the expression “like a hog on ice.” Which is how I see this thread.
OP changes oil every 20,000+ miles, declines to tell us who does his oil analysis or what the results were, such as how much gas was in the oil, nor how the additives were holding up, or other contaminants. Or, even how many miles the oil had on it when he found out it had gas. Maybe it wasn’t a real oil analysis, but some sort of cult gimmick? Sounds to me like the loose rings would allow that gas to contaminate the oil long before 20,000 miles, but what do I know.
Contamination is another reason to change your oil regularly.
Without that information, good advice is impossible.
He also had no idea, as best as I can tell, that stores like Autozone and Advanced Auto parts exist, based on his belief they don’t make a manual for his car. No one can spend more than a few seconds in those stores without seeing the manuals.
I agree it makes no sense to pay nearly $30 for a real oil analysis to know when to change your oil, when you can buy 5 quarts of Mobil-1 EP for around that price. No, I don’t know how to say this better. One has an oil analysis done on oil WHEN he changes it, so he will know how often he should be changing it in the future.
Over a year ago, I changed my oil AND sent a sample to Blackstones, a real oil analyzing lab. There may be others, Blackstone is all I know about.
At 8800 miles for my car and my driving pattern, I had enough of everything left in that oil, and no significant contamination, to run it to 10,000 miles. It was Mobil-1 EP, and I would not want to run it Mobil’s recommended 15,000 miles. I now change it at around 8,000 miles because I know that is often enough, unless I change driving pattern, with a safety margin. My warranty is long gone, and I do not need to change it as often as the manufacturer requires, for my existing driving pattern.
No one seemed to know any real reason for an oil analysis, other than to see if the oil is bad.
I can give you plenty of other reasons, actually far more important than the condition of the oil, though that is also useful.
Blackstone gives you the data on your oil, along with the explanations needed, to know the condition of your motor, as if a microscopic mechanic crawled through your motor.
Blow-by; ring wear; rod and crank bearing wear; valve train wear; coolant security; and probably more that I have forgotten. As I said, this is in addition to a report on the oil’s condition.
One of my heroes, said not to use synthetic, but to use blend, I think. That is a really strange thing to say, and I would love to hear an explanation that is not just a personal preference. Alas, I have trouble finding old threads.
I had thought to test it just once, to put an end to what is essentially guessing about oil changes on this URL.But, when I found out all the useful information it supplies, I will be testing every so often. My next experiment is to run Dino oil 5,000 miles and test it to see the truth about dino vs. synthetic. I am not going to chance 8,000 miles on a make with a history of sludge.
OP, this is in the category of: Go And Sin No more, heh, heh. Your car which should be tight at least 150,000 miles, maybe much more, has problems at 75,000 miles with your program. My 2002 Sienna has now 173,000 miles and it does not have that problem.Therefore, first, you need to admit your program is not a good one.
I am not saying not to use the same oil, though if it costs that much, it might be the right thing to do. Mobil-1 EP costs for 5 quarts about what you need to pay for a real oil test.
Next, find a real oil lab, AND WHEN you change the oil, send a sample in so you get a report on your motor’s condition. Also, read it carefully, and make your own mathematical calculations when to change it next time.
You may find when you change it more often the oil doesn’t have gas in it, because it didn’t have enough usage to get that much gas in it. Add time to the mileage figures on oil changes. It sounds like you are changing it every 2 or 3 years. That is too long, without regard to mileage or how expensive your oil is. www.bobistheoilguy.com says additives time out, and oil should not even be stored for years in room temperatures.
Instead of changing the oil every 5k miles you have it analyzed!! Sounds like a complete waste to me. You’re trying to get every last bit of usefulness out of the oil? WHY? Trying to save money?? How can you save money if you have it analyzed every time you should be changing it??? This makes no sense to me.
Irlandis; you may have been referring to me, Docnick. I was trying to put OP’s needs in perspective. The Crown Vic and Marquis have old style engines that can use just about any type oil. If OP wanted to save money, just changing his oil and filter every 5000 miles would have been sufficient in addition to driving the car briskly every week or so.
If OP parks outside in cold weather and cannot use a blockheater, then 0W30 would be the best oil. This is normally a semi-synthetic and is priced between full synthetic and dino.
If I owned a Grand Marquis, and lived in a cold area, I would use 0W30 synthetic in the winter and 5W30 dino in the summer. And change each every 5000 miles maximum.
If I lived in Texas and Mexico, like you, I would use 0W30 synthetic all year round.
I agree that OP fell under the spell of the Amsol salesman and was hoodwinked into believing the 20,000 mile interval, regardless of driving patterns. His “oil analysis” leaves many questions. A few years back I had my oil analyzed, and was given a large printout of metals, acid number, base number, glycol, water, sulpahated ash, silicon, etc. And the remining life left.
You are on the right track by having a good lab do the testing and comparing that with your drivng pattern, something beyond the comprehension for our OPP.
If I could give MikeinNH 10 stars I’d do it.
What I don’t get is the prior comment about old style engines and any oil will do statement.
And there I was using 5W-20 like a sap in my Mustang GT, with a supercharger and 125k on he clock, hot lapping VIR in the middle of August. It must be sheer coincidence that my car doesn’t use a discernable amount of oil between changes or hasn’t grenaded yet.
Contrary to popular opinion, 5W-20 oil protects just as well, if not better than 5W-30 or 10W-30. It has the benefit of being circulated easier at startup. And as we all know the vast majority of engine wear occurs at startup. The whole “5W-20 is too light” theory was conclusively debunked at BITOG.
I use Wally-World Super Tech mineral oil in my Vics…$10 for 5 quarts…I use one of their filters too, $2.87…Total cost of oil change, $12.87…I do it every 3000-4000 miles. I just sold the high-mileage car, 178k miles, it ran like a watch and I sold it for more than I paid for it! Works for me…
Generally, there are two grades of oil available in Mexico…30 & 40…The big trucks like 50 weight. No need for multi-grade oil when the temperature seldom goes below 40 degrees but frequently goes over 100…A very popular grade among the younger performance oriented drivers is 15W-40 “Racing Oil”, sold in the states as Universal Fleet Oil…
What does the test say? Is there some magical threshold on the HC graph that determines gasoline contamination? What is that threshold? Gasoline contamination that causes the dipstick to burst into flames when the flame on a match makes contact is quite conclusive. The smell of gasoline is somewhat distinctive. But certainly chemists are much more precise… I would change the oil more often with Motorcraft oil and look for a problem with a tail pipe analyzer watching the HC scale. But I’m pragmatic to a fault.
I’ve used Wal Mart oil and filters on all of my vehicles for going on 20 years and have never had even a hint of a problem with it, no matter the application, the oil weight, or the vehicle total mileage.
As far as I know, the 4.6 and it’s cousin the 5.4 are just as or almost as high tech as anything out there.
A local guy here running a new Mustang did pretty well with the 5.4 at Bonneville while hitting over 264 MPH before it went airborne; and running on corn squeezings to boot.
In this case the OP has an engine on the way out due to their oil change policy and I’m in agreement with Mike; the methodogy makes zero sense to me.
Daddy; the cold start circulation of a 5W20 and 5W30 is the SAME. That’s what the 5W part means. The best startup oil is a 0W type (0W20 or 0W30 ) synthetic or semi-synthetic oil which flows nicely at -50F. All this info is available for free at any large automotive service centre where they sell oil in bulk. Or you can Google the various company’s oil sites. Look for “pour point” and “borderline pumping temperatures”. Those two are key figures.
It’s the hot operation and degrading film strength that determines engine wear other than that during start-up. Every oil is a compromise of some sorts, but an old style engine with lose clearances will use oil with 5W20 grade. And the oil film is much more likely to collapse with heavy bearing loads. Trucks nearly always use a 40 weight since they have continuous heavy bearing loads, and film strength is paramount. In the US a 15W40 is the most popular oil for Class 8 heavy duty trucks.
I would agree that a non-turbo vehicle with a good synthetic 5W20 and driven conservatively can continuously use that oil with only normal wear. That’s a lot of “ifs”.
Are you hotlapping for 5000 MILES in August in your Mustang? You mentioned this on a previous post. A friend of mine, an oil company advisor, coached a Corvette team to wining races by putting 0W20 in the crankcase. It worked fine, of course , since the race was only 500 miles. After that the engines are inspected and torn down, if necessary. Engine life takes a back seat here to minimizing internal friction.
In conclusion, I sincerely hope your oil never “grenades”, it would certainly blow off the oil pan.
By “grenading” I was referring to the engine failing due to lack of sufficient lubrication. I don’t think the oil will spontaneously explode or anything. Also the trucks that you mention are mostly diesels, and diesels have different requirements when it comes to oil. Even on it’s medium duty gas trucks (F-450/550) Ford still recommends 5W-20 oil, keep in mind these vehicles are not subject to CAFE standards.
It sure gets colder than 40 F in lots of Mexico. Ever been to (one of) the Sierra Madre?
How tight is the oil analyzer’s accounting chain? Was your test container bar-coded? If so, did you write that bar code number down? Even if that checked out, you could still have someone else’s results or the result of a faulty analysis.
I am a basic science lab guy. I never believe anything on the result of one analysis on one sample. (In the clinical world, that is the standard. It shocks me.) I would have repeated the analysis on a duplicate sample of the oil before I charged off to diagnose an engine that seemed to be running fine.
First let me say that I’m extremely humbled and flattered by VDC’s comment. He’s being entirely too generous.
I agree with him, OK4450, Doc, and everyone else that says you can blame the 20,000-25,000 mile oil change intervals…and that the culprit is likely blowby.
Personally, I’d like to see what the actual analysis consisted of. Analysis for contaminants does not tell you anything about the condition of the actual oil molecules or of the additives, including the coiled polymers that uncoil with heat and act to “modify” the viscosity (keep it properly viscous). These elements suffer “shear damage”. It also does not adress the depletion of detergents that help the oil keep the cylinder walls clean.
I found a good link that may help provide a better understanding.
http://www.kewengineering.co.uk/Auto_oils/oil_viscosity_explained.htm
It’s unfortunate that this happened, as it’s clear that you’ve done your best as you knew it. But it would have been much better to simply follow the owner’s manual recommendations and change the oil according to the recommended schedule. It’s pretty tough to out think the designers.
I think the OP hs already bailed, but I would check the temperature sensor to see if the computer is getting an accurate reading of the true engine temperature.
A false reading would cause a richer mixture, but not enough to notice out the tailpipe.Changing the oil so infrequently would contaminate the oil. No two cars are the same, period.
I would also check the fuel pressure regulator, as stated in the first post. They do go bad and cannot be detected at idle.Most people complain of using more gas, not a rough running motor in this situation.