My ever a piece of crap '97 Sable with the Duratec has always liked it's oil.. Been getting worse yet I have yet to find where the oil goes... I bought the car with 20K about 5 years ago.. Used about a pint every 3K back then.. I chalked it up to the thing sitting around alot and could deal with that.... Now at 130K it's up to 3 quarts every 3K miles..

First off when the car runs it runs great, fuel milage seems about right.. I can;t say that I drive it easy, but I'm not full out flogging it and bouncing the tach off the redline all the time either... I run plain ole Valvoline 10w30..

Replaced all the rubber on the vacuum side of the pcv as well as the valve.. Cleaned the breather out with some carb cleaner.. No signs of excess blowby..

Dry compression test yeilded 175psi accross the board.. Wet compression test barely brought the results up 5psi...

Popped the valve covers off.. Clean as can be no return ports blocked..

THe Oil pan was seeping a bit so about a year ago I took care of that.. No leaks..

Now for the fun part... No smoke, no deposites on the spark plugs.. I know the cats can clean up alot of what comes out, but I would think there would at least be a faint smell of oil burning with this amount... Valve stem seals keep coming to mind, but again, no smoke or other signs of it burning oil... I changed oil tonight, decided to suck it up and try a can of the Restore..

 

Rather odd problem, being no signs of burning oil and all. We have a 99 Sable with the same engine and about 138k miles and it doesn't use oil at all. The seeping around the oil pan, was that just a pan gasket?

 

Yeah that was just the pan gasket.. It probably wasn;t even bad enough to truely worry about, but I was trying to rule out any possabilities...

I guess I should pull the plugs again for inspection.. Been 30K since I changed them.. And the last 30K is when it really started drinking..
I guess even if it is burning it I'll hope the restore will at least slow it.. I can;t really justify dumping a whole lot more into the thing as I already have dumped too much in it...

Really makes me wish car fax was more accurate.. I know the thing came from Floida, I've had the rr quarter and bumper replaced twice now (though the insurance and it's not on the report) The first time I got hit I noticed the rear bumper was not original (red paint under the silver, what a crappy job!) and with the slew of problems (mostly electrical) I have to wonder if it didn;t go though a hurricane or something...


Maybe I'll get lucky and someone (with good insurance) will clobber this thing and solve all the problems...

 

If you can't find a leak then I would probably just chalk it up to a little more than normal oil consumption. A brand new car will consume or "burn" oil. As an engine ages the rings (especially the oil ring) wear out and allow the oil to burn more and more as it wears. But your compression test seems to kill that notion. Unless the rings or valve seals are toast, you may not see any smoke at all. Some Duratec engines just act different from others. Like LEFTOVERTURE said his burns no oil. Mine use to burn about a 1/2 a qt. to 2 qts. between oil changes depending on how hard I drove it. I imagine all engine specs and clearances can't all be the same from the factory. No oil stains under the car? Maybe it leaks when it is running? Though it does seem like an excessive amount of oil to lose in that time frame, you seem like you checked verything and then some. How about the rear main seal?

 

I wonder if a can of engine restorer would help seal that engine up. I know it works wonders on my old v8s and totally fixed an 89 toyota carolla (carb on that one) that was blowing smoke HARD (took about a month for it to completely seal up though).

 

Rear main seal has crossed my mind a few times.. Usually there is some oil dripping out between the engine and trans when that leaks.. Since the new pan gasket no drips.. I do notice that it uses more oil when I run it hard, as of late I;ve been pretty easy on it because of this..

The fact that the car had next to no miles in it's first 7 years makes me think there is some excessive cylinder wear or dryed out valve seals.... Probably alot of stops and starts, and never really warmed up... I'm not a big fan of dumping lotions and potions in the engine, but at this point it can;t hurt.. Some oil consumption I could deal with but 3 quarts in 3K on with les than 150K just seems excessive...

Even more agrivating when the '79 Lincoln used as a tow vehicle with 324K burns less than a pint every 3K. And I know the rear main seal and valve stem seals leak on it..