Pennzoil oil usage

I read somewhere that dirty oil does not seal as well at the rings. That would explain increased consumption in the latter half of the OCI. Perhaps this stuff is doing a nice job cleaning out your engine and the consumption issue will be reduced over time.

Another option is try a high mileage oil (Wallmart has Valvoline Maxlife in 5 qt jugs) or one of the dual rated gas/diesel oils like Shell Rotella (also big jugs at Walmart, but this one will be a 15w40).

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Originally posted by richardlward:
I am running Pennzoil 10w30 in my Honda 2002 4-banger, driving about 1000 miles per week. Although I know this oil is not the best in the world, I like the 5 quart container for recycle. My question is this, seems to increase the consumption after about 2000 miles, have to add about 1 1/2 pints to top it off. Does about the same in my Jeep 4 liter, anybody know if there is another oil available at Wally world which will go the distance; always change by 4000 miles ? Thanks

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I analyse your case thinking that your engine is in perfect condition ( I mean cylider liner and piston rings are in good and healthy condition and not due for re-boring job), then if oil top up still persists, one or combination the following factors may be responsible:
1) oil 10W 30 that you use may not be shear stable. This means, oil viscosity drops down after some milage due low shear stable Viscosity modifiers that used in the oil blending. When oil viscosity drops down, the oil may be excellent for cold starting but oil evaporation will be faster due to oil reaching piston TDC.
2) Base oils used in the blending should possess high NOCK value. If NOACK value is vry low, oil evaporation will be faster and high. I consider Pennzoil quality is high and not to have low NOACK value.
3)If Viscosity modifier used in 10W 30 has low shear stabilty, oil viscosity will drop faster and that would cause more oil evaporation as mentioned in (1)

In view of the above, I suggest you to use 10W 40 oil of reputed brand API SL/SM level, probably oil topup may come down. If the engine is in bad condition, the above suggestions will not work.

Kumar
kumartr2@yahoo.com

I just switched to Valvoline Synpower 10w30 (NOACK is a low 8) to see if it helps my wife's 3.0 L Aerostar which was using a quart every 1500 miles on Maxlife (don't know NOACK of this one, but the Synpower has a much higher flashpoint which should be related).

At 1000 miles per week, if engine in reasonable good condition, you could run the Synpower. I would think you could go 6000 miles on it or more. Maybe 10,000 if you support it with a UOA.

Try a semi synthetic / full synthetic. My car does similar milage - alot of idling, alot of stop start and turning it on and off quite often.
I run a full synthetic 5W/40 and chew no oil at all, on a 10,000km service interval.

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Originally posted by astrixstar:
Try a semi synthetic / full synthetic. My car does similar milage - alot of idling, alot of stop start and turning it on and off quite often.
I run a full synthetic 5W/40 and chew no oil at all, on a 10,000km service interval.

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All of us are talking about synthetic oil only.

Kumar
kumartr2@yahoo.com

Thanks for the replies on my Pennzoil oil usage questions. Think I will try a synthetic blend, although I had trouble with castrol syn blend in my old V8 Jeep, it seemed to gunk up in the valve lifter area.

There are possibly mechanical reason for high oil consumption that are not related to excessive wear or brand of oil. For example a faulty PVC valve (or poorly designed PVC system) can allow excess oil vapor to be drawn into the combustion cycle and result in high consumption. Don't automaticly condem the oil for what may be another problem.