2003 Monte Carlo SS using oil

[Rockabillyrat]

That doesn’t sound like normal to me. Our 01 suburban and 2010 escalade would barely loose 1 qt in 30,000 miles. Thats how often they got oil changes, not a typo. I have a friend with a couple Toyotas that he added the electric driven centrifuges and a provent auto drain on them- he runs his oil 50,000 miles, said he adds his at less than a quart per 100,000 miles. The one pickup he has 1.1 million miles on it- I just rode in it last week. My two Toyotas (01 & 07) get oil changes at 5,000 mile intervals, both have about 175,000 miles on them- they are almost perfectly full still each time. My sons 01 ram with 5.9 gasser - oil change again 5,000 mile twice since he drove it, maybe 160,000 on it- looses 1 pint in that time. He gave up on old truck as daily driver now and is gonna sell that beater this weekend for a couple grand, kinda likes his little Toyota car being an outside salesman now.

I get comparing Toyotas to chevy malibu isn’t same, or even that chevy to my LS6.0 engines. But the dodge 5.9 is not known to be an amazing engine.

If it was a 1980’s monte carlo, yeah ai would say that amount of loss is ok. But no way I would think thats ok in a post 2000 engine.

I really suspect something is up with pvc, valve stem seals, something. Here we have to do emmisions test every year for registration. We can see a printout of hydrocarbons parts per million. When 1 quart burns up in 3,000 miles it shows up on that test. When an engine will burn 1 quart in 1,000 miles on a 90s or new gas engine- that is enough hydrocarbons to fail the test. Thats when people do the honey trick to pass smog, even move the registration time to summer and use thick straight 50 weight oil just for the emissions test.

1qrt /1000 miles is considered normal for oil consumption. Doesn't mean every vehicle will experience that. The LS is the worst in my opinion. Either you have one that doesn't consume any... or your adding a qrt every few weeks. But most manufacturers won't do any warranty work unless your consuming more the 1qrt/1000. They have very extensive paper work and test before they will warranty something like that.

 

[Will L.]

Yes, aware that is the “accepted” standard. But like a 6.5 hot idle oil pressure 8 psi is acceptable. Doesn’t mean all is ok imo. Different things that different people let go and sometimes it works, sometimes doesn’t.

We had about 140 ls engines in the fleet. Most 5.7, maybe 20/25 were 6.0. The 5.7 did go through oil more than 6.0 but I don’t remember any of them needing oil added frequently. The first 20 got shorter oil changes, but over 100 ran at the 30,000 mile intervals. All went over 250,000 miles no problem all but 2 or 3 went over 350,000 miles except the ones totaled in crashes. That why I used that as my service interval. Changed the fuel filter every 10,000 miles though! Haha. Backwards sounding, right? Bought fuel filters in cases - $3 each. Completely eliminating the fuel pumps burning out. I would say over 200,000 miles we had to start adding oil.

I wonder if it was something about the oil we ran or environment? Unical 76/ aka Phillips 66 straight 30 weight oil. We did one oil change at 250 miles when new, adding zinc/zddp. Ran that to 10,000 miles, again adding zinc/zddp. That stays until 30k, then just oil every 30k. New AC Delco filter at every oil change. 10k miles new fuel filter and grease as needed. New air filter every 30k, unless one had the filter minder signal earlier.

We did rip apart maybe 15 of those engines as inspection and tracking wear in the end. Ring wear was main issue. Bearings shown heavy wear, but over 300k expected.

A couple of the guys just slapped new rings and bearings back in with ball hone and gasket kits. Tiny amount of build up in corners on engine- nothing that would surprise anyone on a high mileage engine. Couple new mechanics didn’t believe the intervals were that long looking in Engine. They ran them for few years after that haveing bought truck from company for $500 each. Thats when I decided stupid long oil change was ok on the 6.0.

I wonder if it was the zinc/zddp treatment that made the difference of not burning the oil.

 

[Rockabillyrat]

Not all of the LS motors are built the same. The 6.0 was a simple and reliable truck engine in the HD chassis. The 5.3 with VVT and DOD in the lighter chassis is a different story... I see alot of oil consumption and pressure issues on those 5.3 ls engines. Another big difference is the oil specs themselves. The 5.3 called for 5w30 dexos full syn, the newer models are 0w20 dexos!!