PennSilverTaco's "Perfect 5-Lug Regular Cab" Build, Aspergers, and General BS MegaThread!

The brakes are more or less good, but a check of the dipstick confirms that my truck is in fact using oil...

 

I addressed this before, but now it's confirmed; I have not been driving as often as I usually do, and I believe I last checked the dipstick in May (oil level was normal). My mechanic was checking out a brake issue and checked the oil as a matter of course, and he found it to be almost a quart low!

2010 RC 5-lug 2.7L/auto, 113K miles; Run great and has never had any engine issues, though my gas mileage has been utterly atrocious lately. The engine does not leak oil, so this must mean I need to look into replacing the piston rings at some point...?

@Plain Jane Taco told me that the 2.7L used to have 5W-30 listed as the recommended oil in the owner's manual until 2008 or 2009; I'm thinking I should switch from 0W-20 to the heavier oil? Once again, my truck great and this is a bit of a shock to me because I've been really consistent about checking the oil until maybe the last two weeks.

On another note, my boss has a 2015 Cadillac Escalade; I took it to Jiffy Lube (not my choice; I take it where I'm told to take it) for an oil change maybe four or five months ago. When the people at Jiffy Lube went to check the oil prior to draining it, they found that it only had like 4 or 5 quarts in it (an Escalade takes 8 quarts). I find it highly unlikely that a 5-year old Escalade with barely 30K miles on it is "using" oil, so I'm guessing that was a SNAFU on the part of the last person who changed oil (Jiffy Lube again; Big surprise - NOT)...

 

Have you checked your PCV?

 

Might want to check the spark plugs for oil and do a compression test at the same time.

 

Crankcase ventilation? No, I haven't; Truck's at the mechanic right now and I'm about go pick it up...

 

I know more about cars than most, and I'm handy with a wrench, but I am in no way a mechanic; If the compression is low what does that mean? Could this be tied to my shitty gas mileage?

 

How many miles to get a quart low, and how many miles on the truck? A quart every 5000 miles is perfectly normal and even one every 3000 miles isn't anything to be concerned about. Most manufacturers don't consider it a warranty issue on new trucks unless it is one quart in 1000 miles.

 

The PCV vlave can cause both bad gas millage and oil consumption. Let's hope it's that simple - I just clean mine with brake cleaner. At 113K miles, it's hard to believe you could need a ring job. No codes or check MIL's? Does it stumble or misfire or have hard starting issues?

 

Currently almost 113,500 miles on truck; Oil last changed at 110K miles. I run Mobil 1 Full Synthetic and was doing it every 8,000 miles, but I did it at a little over 3K miles this time because I came up a quart low before and wanted to start with fresh batch of oil to see what it did; Just under a quart in a little over 3,400 miles...

 

Low compression = leak somewhere but won't tell you where. Could be head gaskets or the piston rings or something else. Good compression will rule out the combustion chamber as being the problem.

Agreed with the other posters though - start with the PCV valve since that's the easiest thing

 

Nope! Check engine light only came on one time and it was for a rather stupid reason; Back in 2015 I rear-ended a Mustang in bumper-to-bumper traffic...

The impact smashed the front bumper, busted the left headlight, and bent the radiator support, but did not do any damage to the radiator or condenser. While I was waiting for insurance to come through I drove the truck with the damage; Unbeknownst to me, the horn had been damaged in the impact. I beeped at a guy for running a stop sign and the horn wouldn't shut off, so I had to pull the fuse, and that caused CEL to come on.

 

A quick check you could do to support/refute the head gasket failure would be to observe your coolant reservoir while at temp and revving slightly. If you see bubbles in the resevoir, that is a telltale for head gasket failure. You can also have an assistant rev and let off on the accelerator while in park. White smoke is an indication of coolant entering your cylinders. I think head gasket failures are very rare on the 4 banger. Cars with a bad head gasket usually exhibit other issues like stumbling, misfires, hard starts, etc...

 

I wouldn't hesitate, even for 1 second, to run Mobile1 5w-30 High Mileage synthetic. In fact, if it was mine.....I would've have been running it for some time now.

 

Do yourself a favor and switch to 5-30 and cut down on the oil change intervals to a max of 5000 miles. Your engine will thank you.

 

That's the interval I’ve been doing it at!

 

Should I try to sell my stockpile of 0W20?

 

Just give it to somone

 

Why did Toyota stop recommending 5W30 in the Tacoma?

 

Piggyback question: I see mobil 1 syn recommended and used on this forum often. Is there a reason or reasons or has any analysis been done, scientific or otherwise? I ask because in my other vehicle, a Subaru, it's terrible oil for consumption reasons and gets sheared down quite quickly in that engine. Some oil analysis showed the viscosity profile after a couple thousand miles and it was quite bad. I know that it does fine in other engines so this was chalked up to an engine condition/oil compatibility thing specifically for the EJ engine.

 

I think it’s more or less like flavor of ice cream (or beer). All these companies use the same base oils and they all have their own additive packages that they use to market against each other. Without mentioning any names as there are a lot of haters out there but there’s only 2 oil companies (that I’m aware of) who do post production filtration for contaminants/ particulates. This is a huge factor to me as I have seen the kind of damage can happen from contaminated oil.
To OP I don’t know if you have smog stations in your state but if you’re burning oil at an excessive rate you could have it emissions checked and if you’re burning a lot you’ll get high hydrocarbon numbers. Like others have said- start with PCV.