3.5 engine oil burning problems

Hi, Has anyone figured out the real underlying cause of the oil burning problems with the Isuzu engines? The oil rings carboning are as a result of something wrong in the design or factory clearances, but what. Isuzu makes plenty of good engines without that problem and some of them are aluminum like the 3.5. The oil becomes dirty in a short period of time which indicates blow by past the compression rings. I can imagine increased clearances because of an aluminum block, but not so much as to cause oil burning. At .004-.005 the pistons rattle at startup and that does not seem to occor with these engines, and those clearances will not cause oil consumption like we are seeing with these engines. Isuzu makes the dura max diesel, aluminum block, and heads. These engines keep the oil cleaner than any diesel I have seen and hold up fine?

There is a fly in the ointment regarding this deal. Less than Ford Explorer quality in a jap car? I have not seen that happen before except in early Mazda's

Jasper engines may be able to reflect on this. They build good engines, probably the best aftermarket re-man engines available, but pricey, 5k for the 3.5, wow!!!

Do these engines have steel liners? There have been some engines produced in the past with no liners and were not very successful,

JB

The oil on the rodeo & 2002 troop in our family stays pretty clean, but they both have less than ~50K miles on them. Alot may depend on the use, oil used, environment, etc.. The 3.2/3.5's do have steel cylinder liners. There's lots of speculation as to the cause of the oil consumption. Try a search here and the rodeo board and you will find many posts.
G/luck
Joel

The oil on the rodeo & 2002 troop in our family stays pretty clean, but they both have less than ~50K miles on them. Alot may depend on the use, oil used, environment, etc.. The 3.2/3.5's do have steel cylinder liners. There's lots of speculation as to the cause of the oil consumption. Try a search here and the rodeo board and you will find many posts.
G/luck
Joel

This is the response from Power pro engines, and I can't believe the guides are the problem unless the clearances were bad from the factory. This would not usually account for dirty oil early after a change. I think this guy is just a sales person that doesn't know. The shop forman is the person to talk to, but hard or impossible to access most of the time in these big cos.

I have never used a p. pro engine, but have installed Jaspers and am impressed with their quality. Unfortunately they are really proud of their engines, especially the japs, the 3.5 costing 5k, ouch.

I posted Jasper engines and my posts are not getting through? I will call them and try to get someone other than a salesperson. I will post the information on this forum..JB

The response from Power Pro:

A Factory Remanufactured Crate Longblock is $3989. Plus a refundable $310 core & container deposit that is refundable after we pickup your old engine and our shipping container. This price includes shipping and handling, shipping time is 2-3 days from one of 13 National distribution centers. All Longblocks come with a complete Installers Installation Kit. The Factory warranty is 5yrs/100,000 miles Nationwide engine & labor.

Open the attached product sheet for more information.

If I can be of any help please give me a call.

Craig Lambert
888.608.4890
www.powerpro2000.com

Most of the oil burining has been cured by using better oil valve seals amd guides than the OEM. We are out of stock but have 10 comming off the line 1/6/06 and have orders for 4 we are holding.

Nahh, If it was the valve guide seals you'd get the ocassional puff of blue like all the hi mile crown vics, town cars, etc.. In nearly 4yrs+ of tracking this oil problem, I've never seen a definate answer. Most say it's plugged drain holes in the oil ring lands/grooves on the pistons. Supposedly 2001 or 2002 have more or larger holes. May be, but you here of the occasional 2002, 2003 using oil. There is one post where a trooper owner was told the ring to bore clearances were all over the place on his 3.5L. Rig ran like a top, perfect compression, no blue smoke. Personally I think who ever gave this guy the info is full of it.

Joel

Nahh, If it was the valve guide seals you'd get the ocassional puff of blue like all the hi mile crown vics, town cars, etc.. In nearly 4yrs+ of tracking this oil problem, I've never seen a definate answer. Most say it's plugged drain holes in the oil ring lands/grooves on the pistons. Supposedly 2001 or 2002 have more or larger holes. May be, but you here of the occasional 2002, 2003 using oil. There is one post where a trooper owner was told the ring to bore clearances were all over the place on his 3.5L. Rig ran like a top, perfect compression, no blue smoke. Personally I think who ever gave this guy the info is full of it.

Joel

The oil ring clogging problem has to be as a result of excessive carbon caused by blowby. Why is there blowby on a new engine? Usually from a poor piston and ring design. That has been my experiance anyway. Our trooper burns .5 qt per 1k miles, not too bad but dirty oil in 1000 miles.

I have re-built several navstar 466 diesels using the kits from International. All 466 engines had blowby almost instantly after rebuilding or when new from the factory. Their compression ring butt clearance is enormous, of course there will be blowby. I have never been able to understand the reason for the big gap. I used dti pistons in the last two I rebuilt, a different design than Navstars and with another ring. This eliminated, as claimed, the excessive blowby. Now, why wouldn't the bloody factory do that?? A possible problem with another ring is more cylinder wear. One of the engines is in my truck, but I will probably never put enough miles on it to test the cyl wear.

I suspect with Isuzu that there is a design problem with the pistons and there are no aftermarket manufactures for these engines because of their limited numbers? I still need to contact someone at Jasper that knows something, most of who you talk to there are sales dudes that don't know squat.....JB

The oil ring clogging problem has to be as a result of excessive carbon caused by blowby. ....JB

What I've heard is a high cylinder temperature condition is the suspected cause of the coking/carboning in the ring area on the 1998+ 3.2/3.5L. I tend to believe this one for two reasons; 1) They EGR the living heck out of 'em as you can see from the size of the EGR jetting & amount of exhaust soot that builds up in the common chamber at/around the EGR outlet tube. 2) The air/fuel mapping is set on the rich side, giving the V8 like fuel mileage & the gasoline smell it in the exhaust. The cats also sour VERY quickly/easy.

My thinking is these two things are a band-aid attempt to mask the hi-temp problem. This was either an unforseen, inherent problem with this series of engines, or they really were not intended for the US market and emissions standards (JMHO).

Joel

My 2000 Trooper just blew it's engine at only 49,000 miles. I had no problems with it until one day I heard a knocking in my engine. Upon arriving home, I checked the oil, and it was bone dry. I filled up the oil and drove it to work the next day with minor tapping. On the way home, the truck just shut down. When I restarted the truck, it knocked like a rock in a tin can. The local Isuzu dealer says I need a new engine, $7,400. I was in negotiation with the service manager, and he said the best he could do was pay half of the costs. That is not an option since I am finding so many others with the same problem. I am currently in the process of contacting an attorney to file a law suit. If anyone out there is experiencing, or has experienced the same problem, please e-mail me. If there enough of us, this can turn into a class action law suit and Isuzu will be held responsible for replacing all defective ngines in the Troopers and Rodeos. All those out there, please respond. Thanks.

Mentalman, I take it you are not the original owner of your trooper since you have no 10yr/120Kmi warranty. The 5yr/60Kmi subsequent owner warranty has expired. It is common knowledge on isuzu boards that the 1998+ 3.2/3.5 can use oil depending on how/where they are used and what oil is being used. It's a shame you were not aware of this, and a shame you did not do your research in advance. If you had been established with an isuzu service dept., had services on record, and had them track oil usage on your truck, they would have replaced your engine at no cost to you. Isuzu North America is pretty much no longer. The last year for the trooper was 2002, the rodeo was 2004. With no service history and warranty on your 2000, you are SOL. I'd try to work the engine replacement cost to closer to $3K and go with it. That would be a steal for a new crate engine replacement. Attourney fees will cost you more than that & it will be tough to get anything from isuzu as they are essentially done for. Sorry guy, I'm not trying to bust ballz, just giving the facts. Track any blown 1998+ 3.2/3.5L isuzu engine thread and you will see for yourself.

G/luck
Joel

"There is one post where a trooper owner was told the ring to bore clearances were all over the place on his 3.5L. Rig ran like a top, perfect compression, no blue smoke. Personally I think who ever gave this guy the info is full of it."

Joel

Joel, I was not only told about the piston to cylinder problem, I read the report that the dealer got back from the machine shop that stated this with the measurements to back it up. The facts were there for everyone to see. Also there was a 2001 at the dealer just after mine, with the same issue and findings. To make a long story short, the cylinder walls were over bored and the piston and rings used were not appropriate. Appropriate size pistons and rings were not available from Isuzu or the after market, so the solution was to replace it with a new short block. On another note, when my motor was taken apart, I looked for the drain back holes on the pistons and found them not to be clogged.

I don't know if my compression was perfect prior to the block change as I did not do a compression test myself. As for the blue smoke, it was not doing it like a Doge Caravan, it wasn't very noticeable, except for the black soot around the tailpipe.

Just the facts.

Patrick

Patrick, the strange thing with your situation is- search any of the isuzu boards and you will not see another case like yours. It could be that no one took the measurements? Dunno for sure. Several isuzu techs that have participated over the years said again & again that it was always the plugged drain-back holes. One shop was even increasing the size or number (dont remember exactly) of holes in the pistons which rectified the problem.

Joel

[QUOTE=rodeo02]"the strange thing with your situation is- search any of the isuzu boards and you will not see another case like yours. It could be that no one took the measurements? "

What is different about my case is that I slugged it out with the oil consumption test that lasted almost a year and I did everything that that the dealer wanted me to do (except to trade the thing in for something else). It was a long drawn out experience. I even looked at at few other vehicles, thinking that it may simplify my life to trade it in and let someone else deal with it. Unlike many, I didn't blow the motor, my motor never ran without oil. So when they took it apart, there were no issues to cloud what was wrong. All the cylinder walls were in very good shape, in fact there was mention that the factory machining marks were still visible. The pistons were in good shape as well. The comments made by the machine shop was that the rings were bad and that there were no rings availabe to match the the cylinder / piston combination that I had (with the exception of 1 cylinder). They didn't say whether or not new sleeves could be put in to solve the problem. At that point I had "met the burden of proof" so to speak to get my new short block and that's all I cared about. I think I was first to get a new motor in our city. After it was all done, comments were made that the findings made with my motor were very common to an other dealer in an other city.

Even after living through it, I don't have the answer to "Why the consumption?"
All I know it's a combination of things that is not cheap to correct and it's cheaper for Isuzu to keep us guessing. The only thing that I do know is the sizing problem in my case and one other that I know first hand about, made Isuzu (GM Canada) move to replace. Period.

On another note, I have to thank the people who post there problems, that in turn bring issues to light, and the people such as yourself that help steer people in the right direction. First, it was a relief to know that I was not the only one experiencing this problem. Ultimately I used the information gathered on these sites to ultimately correct my situation.

Thanks

Patrick

good post on oil useage:

http://forum.planetisuzoo.com/viewtopic.php?t=7033