Oil Problems --- Need opinions ---- Dealer comments also

[cacicgtp7]

So, let me preface by saying I bought my car (Grand Prix GXP) in Feb and the dealer had just performed an oil change thus I didn't touch anything for awhile...

Fast forward 4,500 miles I decide to do an oil change, and go to my trusted Mobil-1 fully synthetic...Weird findings appear. Yesterday on my long drive from Ohio to Chicago, my car misfires some random times so I decide today to take it into the dealer since it's under warranty. As I'm pulling into the dealer lot my low oil light goes on... WTF!

They come back 30 mins later and tell me my car is TWO QUARTS LOW. Now...I've only put just about 1,500 miles on since my Mobil-1 Oil change (Which I used a full 6 quarts in)

I talk to the tech for like 15 mins (good guy, owns a Firehawk lol) and I tell him when I did the last oil change and what. He tells me that I SHOULDN'T be running full synthetic in this car at all. That's it's too thin, and actually my oil might be slipping past the seals and burning up which is why I've potentially lost so much. Dealer was really cool about the entire thing and gave me my two quarts back FOR FREE! YHATZEE! They didn't try to upsell me anything either, told me I should go to Autozone and run some injector cleaner for the misfires, recommended some lucas.


So my question to you guys....should I not be running synthetic in the GXP??? All my other cars I've used Mobil-1 without a problem, granted they were v6's and what not. It's just weird that I didn't suffer any oil loss after 4,500 miles with the first dealer oil change that came in the car (guessing it was dino oil) and now I put in Mobil-1 and I'm loosing 2 qts every 1,500 miles. They dealer also said there weren't any leaks either. Is this crap or should I just use mobil 5000 regular oil from now on or stick with Mobil-1 and fill it up constantly?


Thoughts?

Click to read more...

 

[EmersonHart13]

I use a partial synthetic, the Castrol blend, and have never had any oil loss. But never run a full synthetic.

I think this seems a bit odd, have you posted this on LS1Tech or another LS motor site?

 

[Dasfinc]

Granted the ranger has 84K on its motor, but on conventional it burns nothing, I put synth blend in it, and it burned it like a powerhouse, switched back to Conventional, and all is well in the world again.

 

[EmersonHart13]

And that makes more sense, to a degree, it is wild that it burns blend though...

But I have heard a lot of people say just pick an oil type and stick to it, so maybe they car always had conventional and that is why? I have always run blend, but only have 28k on the car now so still pretty young.

 

[Bob Kazamakis]

Seems odd. My friend ran German castrol in his ls1 with zero problems and it had like 110k on it when he sold it.

 

[cacicgtp7]

Maybe it's because I switched? I bought it used with 41,000 on the odo, probably had regular oil it's whole life. Then switched over to Mobil-1 around the 45-46,000 point.

 

[cacicgtp7]

I use a partial synthetic, the Castrol blend, and have never had any oil loss. But never run a full synthetic.

I think this seems a bit odd, have you posted this on LS1Tech or another LS motor site?

John I just went ahead and posted on Ls1tech in the LS4 section. Thanks for the idea.

 

[EmersonHart13]

The only thing that adds up would be the keep the same oil thing. I still think it is odd that motor "cannot handle synthetic".

I wanna say try blend, but I don't know.

 

[Bob Kazamakis]

Maybe it's because I switched? I bought it used with 41,000 on the odo, probably had regular oil it's whole life. Then switched over to Mobil-1 around the 45-46,000 point.

My friends car was bought with like 70k on it from one of those shady dealers on rand rd in palatine. I doubt it previously used a good synthetic oil.


I'd try something not mobil 1..... Like syntec

 

[Dasfinc]

And that makes more sense, to a degree, it is wild that it burns blend though...

But I have heard a lot of people say just pick an oil type and stick to it, so maybe they car always had conventional and that is why? I have always run blend, but only have 28k on the car now so still pretty young.

It burned 5W20 blend, which is not surprising when it probably had 10W30 conventional.... I put 5W20 in it thinking "Well that what is says on the oil cap" and neglecting that it is a 12 year old engine...

 

[EmersonHart13]

Yeah, sometimes you just have to stick with what has been working, even if it isn't your first choice.

 

[10sec]

Well from what i've read/learned if you switch a car from conventional to synthetic it actually will clean the seals, and ultimately will end up leaking through them. Conventional oil will cake up around seals, keeping them happy and sealed, then the synthetic gets all of that junk off, and ends up leaking through it. You usually want to run synthetic right off the bat in a new car or problems like this may arise. Try not to forget that these are just old technology pushrod motors, there's nothing special in them, using conventional oil will not hurt anything. It's not a $300,000 car that has actual engineering into it with clearances tight enough to require synthetic, ya know what i'm sayin?

 

[cacicgtp7]

Well from what i've read/learned if you switch a car from conventional to synthetic it actually will clean the seals, and ultimately will end up leaking through them. Conventional oil will cake up around seals, keeping them happy and sealed, then the synthetic gets all of that junk off, and ends up leaking through it. You usually want to run synthetic right off the bat in a new car or problems like this may arise. Try not to forget that these are just old technology pushrod motors, there's nothing special in them, using conventional oil will not hurt anything. It's not a $300,000 car that has actual engineering into it with clearances tight enough to require synthetic, ya know what i'm sayin?

Yeah I hear ya, sounds like I might be switching to blend or back to just decent regular oil.

 

[6literEat'r]

weve been doing alot of oil consumption tests on these gxp grand prixs at the dealership. half of them need pistons/rings put in to resolve their excessive oil consuming habits. and thats with the customer using conventional 5w30 motor oil.

 

[Yaj Yak]

ruhroh

 

[cacicgtp7]

weve been doing alot of oil consumption tests on these gxp grand prixs at the dealership. half of them need pistons/rings put in to resolve their excessive oil consuming habits. and thats with the customer using conventional 5w30 motor oil.

......


Should I be really worried? I'm pretty much just going to switch back to Dino for now. Not a big problem in my eyes, and it's cheaper lol.

 

[bikrboy128]

how many miles are on it now? has the PCV valve ever been changed? 2 qts of oil through the PCV in 1500 miles is alot though....

 

[cacicgtp7]

how many miles are on it now? has the PCV valve ever been changed? 2 qts of oil through the PCV in 1500 miles is alot though....

Only 47,000...Don't think the PCV has been changed in it. I'm not quite sure where it is on the LS4 either.

 

[bikrboy128]

me either.....
follow vacuum lines off the throttle body. the ls1 has it's PCV inline with a vac hose, instead of being on the valve cover.

 

[smug]

there is no real PCV valve on these cars, instead they have some weirdo inline thing that is inside the pcv hose and you cant even see it. It is supposed to be maintence free and last the life of the car. I have looked into all the cheap fixes for this problem because my car also uses oil and always has. The dealer is finally running an oil consomption test on my car and I can only imagine what they will find.

 

[smug]

weve been doing alot of oil consumption tests on these gxp grand prixs at the dealership. half of them need pistons/rings put in to resolve their excessive oil consuming habits. and thats with the customer using conventional 5w30 motor oil.

Is there a design flaw with these piston rings?

 

[bikrboy128]

i thought there was an exhaust valve seal issue. that may be a v6 deal though....

 

[6literEat'r]

Is there a design flaw with these piston rings?

couldnt tell ya..but ive seen on some of them, the 2 compression rings openings were almost lining up, they were off maybe 40 degrees..idk what the deal is with the new pistons and rings though, youd think they are a diff. design.

 

[Sinister Drag Designs]

i thought there was an exhaust valve seal issue. that may be a v6 deal though....

I dont recall if it was the exhaust or the intake but we've had customers that had the seals changed under warranty and stopped losing the 1 quart average every 5k. First Im hearing of the piston ring issue.

 

[Primalzer]

Yeah from what I've read/heard this is not an uncommon issue. I got lucky when I bought my car used with 59K and switched right to 0W30 Mobil 1 with no issues. I have heard from multiple people complaining of the exact same thing when they switched to full synth. The cleaning properties are just superior plus the dino oil also has better natural seal conditioning than the synth which causes this. I am at the point that I should start at least going to a thicker oil as the 0W30 might just be a little too thin for my 100K turbo motor. A little bit of extra insurance, I don't want to switch to dino because I want to stay with what's been working.