Burning a quart of oil every 200 miles towing ....

[tgrudzin]

Pulling a light pop-up camper with a 99 Dodge Ram Van 1500, 5.2 liter engine, I'll burn (most recently) a quart of 20w50 in around 200 miles. Freah oil change. Not the original owners, the van has about 66K. It has burned oil since we bought it at 60K. The number 4 plug is really oil gunked up. Haven't taken it to a mechanic for compression check yet, have an appointment this week. What is the worst case, bad compression rings? If so, how much to pull and re-build an engine from a van? If we didn't get it fixed and were towing on vacation, could we realize a total failure and it ruin our entire vacation? Or would be better to dump and run? Beautiful conversion van, bay windows, 4 leather cabin chairs, and 4 brand new Michelin tires. Get 13 MPG while towing ... But need advice. BTW, #1 and #3 plugs in beautiful condition

[bluevp00]

It could either be leaking from the rings or from the valves. Burning a quart (espically of 20w50) every 200 miles is A LOT, are you sure there isn't a leak anywhere on the underside? It might be burning from the valves since as you said #1 and #3 plugs are fine. The compression test will let you know for sure.

A car with such low miles shouldn't be burning that much oil at all, so it's something that should be looked at ASAP.

[tgrudzin]

Thanks for the reply. The are no leaks, it is burning oil. The issue seems to be because it's a full size avn, working on it is a pain in the a@@. 1st mechanic isn't really interested. Said he can't do anything without taking it apart and can't really give a good or any estimate on any kind of cost. Another concern is if it's fixed, how much improvement would we see in gas mileage?

[curtis73]

You probably won't see much improvement in mileage, but maybe 1 or 2 mpg given how much you're burning. That much oil consumption I'm afraid might be a couple cracked rings/scored cylinders. What I would do is pull the heads. You can check the valve seals and guides and if you're lucky the cylinders will not show signs of cracked rings. Fix the heads and you're back in business. If you pull the heads and find evidence of cracked rings, keep going and take the whole thing out. I am pretty impressed with Jasper engines if for no other reason then their nationwide warranty support and you can probably get a rebuilt 5.2 from them for $2000 or so.