Quote:
Originally Posted by fritz t coyote
With American engines you can expect oil consumption of about a quart every 2000 miles when new, more as they age.
When they get really old, one quart every tank of gas. Thats a sign it is getting on to replacement time.
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Where did you get this information from? My experience has been exactly the opposite - it was the imports that burned oil - one of mine was a 75 Datsun that burned 4 qts of oil evert 1000 miles almost from day one and was bought brand new. All of my American cars have been very normal and consistent on oil consumption with the exception of my 85 Dodge Ram in the past few years which I contribute more due to age than anything else - I am sure it's the valve stem seals simply getting old.
My 2004 PT has over 44K on the odo and I drive 80 miles every day. I am glad to say that since I got it in May and put over 3K miles on it, it has not burned a drop of oil and has averaged 30+ mpg. I have been driving FWD Chryslers since 1986 and none of them ever burned more than a 1 qt of oil between regular 5000 miles oil changes of which all of them were driven well over 100K miles. In fact, our 2000 Caravan just rolled 114K miles and the only problem I've had with it is the starter of which my wife does a lot of short trips into town with a lot of stops and starts - so I think that is pretty good considering the way it's driven. When I went in to get the starter, another guy was there that was getting a starter for a 99 Honda which had about the same mileage on it as our Caravan - price for the Honda starter was $280, price for the Dodge starter was $120 - and I'd bet good money that he paid more for the Honda than I did for the Caravan. So how's that for so-called import reliability and lower cost of ownership?