Where is my oil going????

[kevfish1]

I have a 98 dodge ram pick-up and have been burning 2 quarts of oil a month. I dont think it is a leak because i do not see any oil spots on the ground. Is this a sign of serious engine problem? what should i check or look 4? Or should i just keep feeding it oil? If it needs an engine rebuild what would something like that cost???

[Jeremy airjer W]

Remove the rear spark plug on the passenger side. If it looks ashy than you have a belly pan gasket leaking on the bottom of the intake. You can also check this by removing the pcv valve, plugging the breather hose and checking for vacuum in the engine with it running. There should be none. If there is and you have ashy plugs in the rear than a ruptured belly pan gasket is a pretty safe bet.

[Grayfox]

My 2000 F150 started going through 2 quarts in 300 miles all of a sudden this past winter after never useing any oil. Replaced the PCV valve and that solved the problem.

[SkunkedAgain]

There are so many possibilities of what it could be. Oil could be leaking onto a hot part of the engine and be burning off before it hits the ground. That would certainly produce a burning smell. The engine itself could be burning oil, if the piston rings or something else were allowing oil to slip past the pistons and into the combustion chamber.

To answer your question, this is a sign of a serious engine problem. It's similar to you noticing blood missing from your body. Now you could keep adding oil and likely not have a serious problem, but unless you diagnose the problem it will likely continue to get worse. My suggestion would be for you to take your truck somewhere to get fixed.

To answer your last question, I don't know the exact price. I had an engine rebuilt in 1996 that cost about $1300 but assume that it would likely be in the $2-3k range by now. It's best to know the true problem before you make any big decisions though.

[Jeremy airjer W]

To answer your question, this is a sign of a serious engine problem.

The belly pan gasket on the intake is a common source of oil consumption on these motors. Lets not condemn this motor unless the easy and reasonable explanation for the oil consumption is ruled out!

[Macgyver55]

Lets not condemn this motor unless the easy and reasonable explanation for the oil consumption is ruled out!

True! I got a really great deal on a truck back in the 80s. It was using a quart to 200 miles but didnt leak!. I bought it figuring I'd probably have to rebuild it at the least. After determining with a compression check the bottom end was tight, I pulled the intake and found the intake gasket was blown right where the EGR was mounted. Under high vacuum it would suck oil out of the valley and burn it. After replacing it it basically used no oil between changes.

I drove it 2 years and traded it in on a new truck and got more than I paid for it. Sweet!

[SkunkedAgain]

I'm not condemning the motor, but that's why I used the human blood analogy. If you don't have enough in you or your motor, then you get big problems. I also wasn't trying to imply that the fix was insurmountable, only that if you continue to throw oil into it without even knowing the cause, you might end up driving it dry and having a complete engine failure.

Maybe I need to word my thoughts better, so yes, there can be some easy solutions to this oil problem but you've got to get it diagnosed. If you're hellbent on trying to figure it out yourself, get a good flashlight and a telescoping mirror and start crawling over that motor, inch by inch.

[Jeremy airjer W]

If you're hellbent on trying to figure it out yourself, get a good flashlight and a telescoping mirror and start crawling over that motor, inch by inch.

If its the really common belly pan gasket failure you'll never see an external leak. The belly pan is under the intake in the valley of the engine. The only way to confirm is checking for the presence of vacuum in the engine.

Two quarts in a month would have to leave some sort of residual evidence behind if it where external. Put a teaspoon of oil on the garage floor and see how big of a foot print it will leave. Even if it was burning on the exhaust you would at the very least smell that much oil burning.