WITHIN OEM STANDARDS

Several years ago I bought a used Ford Aerostar (van). It had 45K when I bought it. I loved the body style and roomy interior. What I did not like was about every 1000 miles, I had to pour in about 1 qtr of oil.

It wasn't leaking, and there was no visible smoking. The local Ford dealer said "eating" a qtr every 1000 miles is within OEM standard.

WHAT??? Ford actually say's if your Ford auto "eats" oil that is acceptable?

In1999 I traded that van for a brand new Nissan Quest mini van, and now,

7yrs, and 108K miles later, I still have that Quest and never...absolutely never...has the Quest leaked one drop of oil or lose oil due to the engine "eating" it.

My neighbor has a 2003 Expedition, and to know ones surprise, he has to add about a qtr every 1K miles, while his wife drives a 1996 Suburu and once again, no oil loss.

Within Standards...or poorly engineered? Why would anyone buy a Ford, especially when the Ford dealer is stating that the OEM (Ford) say's a qtr every 1K miles is within standards?

Reply to
juanalong
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I have a '93 Aero with 225K miles. Doesn't use a drop of oil between changes. My previous '91 Aero retired at 220K miles because of tranny. It never used oil either.

If you don't like Fords, don't buy them. BTW, isn't it the Honda vehicles that have the troublesome trannys now? And what "imported" vehicles have sludgey engines? Is it the Toyotas? Oh, wait.......They are "foreign" and don't breakdown.........

Take your whining elsewhere.

Reply to
Kruse

(...)

I think it is supposed to eat gasoline. The oil is dessert.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff

Somewhere along the lines, someone has to draw a line in the sand (and I am always amused when someone tries to ell me their unit doesn't use not even a drop of oil - patent BS - honest). For the big 3, that line appears to be in the neighbourhood of one quart in 800 miles.

These things are mass produced... they are mass produced, in part, by people much like you and me. I take great pride in what I do - the guy next to me may not. Who, then is at fault? The manufacturer for hiring him? Or him, because he cares little for what he does.

The answer is, sometimes, a little more complex than expected.

Reply to
Jim Warman

It just beats the hell out of me as to why a little oil consumption is unaccepatble. There are no engines out there that do not use "ANY" oil. There are engines that use a small amount that is replenished by combustion contaminants. The cylinder is not perfectly sealed and some oil will get by just like the combustion gases. If the engine truly has "NO" oil consumption, it would never need changing because it would never become contaminated. You seem to be upset because you have to spend 2 bucks every month or so and raise the hood to add a quart of oil while exposing yourself to a mechanical beast just waiting to grab your ass and forever send it to a place where the sun seldom shines. You would not have made it when I started fooling around with cars. In those days, a car that only used a quart every 500 or so miles and didn't smoke was good to go - good as new. Tuneups were every 2K miles, brakes at 10-12K miles, tires at 15Kmiles, valve jobs at 30k and engine rebuilds at 60k was normal. Those requirements today would not be tolerated for a second - talk about product improvement! Yeah!

Lugnut

Reply to
lugnut

I dunno Jim. With todays quality control standards and numerically controlled equipment I would think the "guy next to" is pretty much taken out of the quality equation.

Frank Retired aircraft n aerospace machinist.

Reply to
F. H.

I am waving the BS flag. I have had so many Ford vehicles that burned less than a quart in 3000 miles I simply don't believe you.

Reply to
Scott

In the 1980s Ford said their new engines were designed for 1500 miles/qt. to better lubricate the valve guides and that 400/qt. was "acceptable." They later doubled that when a state attorney general sued them over this.

At about the same time, VW went further and said 200/qt. was acceptable so they wouldn't have to fix valve seals that almost failed by 30,000 miles. But the EPA got after them because this also caused excessive hydrocarbon emissions, so VW issued a recall that included Teflon seals, a valve adjustment, and elimination of the EGR valve. My Rabbit ended up having no emission controls except the charcoal canister and a vacuum advance delay valve.

Reply to
rantonrave

Pay attention to the comment Kruse...it's not about whinning...it's about an OEM (Ford) stating in writing and via their service centers "eating" a qtr of oil every 1K is acceptable. Compared to another brand "Nissan", having driven the Nissan for 108K and routinely check all liquid levels, I've never noticed any drop in oil level.

If Bayliner or Sea Ray stated their boats leaked after so many hours in the water, would you buy from them instead of another OEM? If Boeing stated the wings of their 757 crack after x-amount of flying hours would you book flights on those aircraft? If Briggs-n-Stratton stated their lawmowers suffer crack pistons every 50 hours of use, would u buy their product? If Crest toothpaste stated their "paste" turns rock hard if not used within two weeks of purchase, would u buy from them? And, if Honda and Toyota autos are having so much trouble, why does Consumer Reports constantly rate their new/used autos as better quality than domestic...year after year?

Ford loves loyal customers like you Kruse. Regardless of their quality (or lack of), you keep buying their products. Hey, it's your $ and if you want to keep flushing it down the toilet than good for you...that is if the OEM of the toilet claims his toilets will flush accurately.

If you interpret my questioning Ford's OEM standard as whinning, then your ears must be burning cause millions of consumers worldwide are "whinning".

In1999 I traded that van for a brand new Nissan Quest mini van, and now,

7yrs, and 108K miles later, I still have that Quest and never...absolutely never...has the Quest leaked one drop of oil or lose oil due to the engine "eating" it. I have a '93 Aero with 225K miles. Doesn't use a drop of oil between changes. My previous '91 Aero retired at 220K miles because of tranny. It never used oil either. Within Standards...or poorly engineered? Why would anyone buy a Ford, especially when the Ford dealer is stating that the OEM (Ford) say's a qtr every 1K miles is within standards?

If you don't like Fords, don't buy them. BTW, isn't it the Honda vehicles that have the troublesome trannys now? And what "imported" vehicles have sludgey engines? Is it the Toyotas? Oh, wait.......They are "foreign" and don't breakdown.........

Take your whining elsewhere.

Reply to
juanalong

Still sounds excessive to me. I have a '65 Scout (with the 4-cyl 152) and even that vehicle does not use 1qt in 500 miles. Although in winter when I change the oil it smells like 100% gasoline ;)

Reply to
zwsdotcom

The manufacturer. Who is going to have to pay for the warranty repairs? Whose reputation is going to suffer? Who hired him?

The manufacturer should have qualtiy control programs set up so that they can find out whether the worker is doing a good job and so they can help the worker (i.e., additional training or advice not to let the door hit him in the butt on the way to the unemployment line).

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff

There are quality controls in place.... unfortunately, mass production and zero failure rate are mutually exclusive. It becomes cheaper to expect some failres and deal with them as they arise than to agonize and analize over every little piece. As consumers, none of are about to pay a premium price for a product where every piece is tested, analyzed and approved and then carefully crafted and hand fitted to it's mating parts. None of could afford these.

Enter the world of mass production and allowable tolerances.... machining and manufacturing tolerances re given an acceptable range.... some assemblies will be excellent, many will be very good, most will be more than adequate to the task..... some, however, ay suffer early failure due to poor tolerance matching. Crap happens.

As for the employee..... In a union job (such as auto assembly) or in countries with reasonably liberal labour laws (such as Canada), management sometimes has to tread quite lightly when dealing with employees. I don't think there are many reading this that don't have or wouldn't dearly love to have some sort of job protection.

There are many employess in all walks of life that have jobs for one of two reasons..... though they are poor employees, they are living, breathing entities and, in our province, at least, even these are hard to find in todays market........ or, though they are poor employees, some body of power (trade union, government agency, or similar) has announced that this employee cannot be "replaced"..... fired, perhaps, but you will not be permitted to hire someone to take that job.

As for poor employees.... s anyone here perfect? Never had a day where some problem at home kept you from focussing on your job? Never had a few moments of inattention, a lapse of thought process or been distracted? It is easy to climb up on a very high horse and announce that poor employees are the fault of the employer and we should fire their sorry ass right now..... it is quite another to have the ability or the power to do it.

Poor attitudes, lack of motivation, sloth... these are problems of society - not problems of the workplace.

Reply to
Jim Warman

So at what point do you look at your worthless employee with a 65% defect rate, and look at the next guy waiting on the breadline, and decide "enough is enough, time to hire the next guy".

I guess for a union job the answer is never?

Reply to
zwsdotcom

I think your generalizations reflect improperly on the state of the art machining in use these days and while certainly true (on a much smaller scale than you seem to suggest) does not go to the original topic here which was "a qtr every 1000 miles is within OEM standard."

"Allowable tolerances" are a byproduct of engineering. I've been around state of the art equipment for many years and the quality and expectations have steadily improved. "Crap" doesn't really "happen" all that much.

There was a gentleman (forget his name) who a few decades back tried to get Detroit to adopt aircraft type QC and was rebuffed. He took his ideas to Japan and that's where this whole quality emphasis started.

People soon noticed the difference in quality and were buying imports over American. In time Detroit caught on and adopted the same QC standards and methods. One might rightly wonder if *outsourcing* brings the risk of sub par components but it should be noted that *one* advantage to outsourcing is you don't pay for parts that don't pass inspection. Which brings us back to engineering.

Reply to
F. H.

Any quality difference among the vehicles on the market today is one of personal perception. The fact is all manufactures are building high quality, dependable, vehicles today. One need not pay a premium to get a good vehicle. Survey after survey have shown that the failure rate among ALL vehicle manufactures today is clustered around 2%, the norm for manufactured products. Domestic and Korean vehicles have out scored Japanese vehicles in many recant owner surveys of initial and long term quality.

mike hunt

Reply to
Mike Hunter

sadly, I think you right. Same goes for a government job.

Reply to
ShoeSalesman

besides the 2 bucks for oil, how many cats would you have to replace in what amount of time when the piece of crap burns that much oil? Tune-ups every 2K miles, your kidding right? Well I guess you had to replace those oil fouled plugs.....:) I guess you could look at it this way, you never had to change the oil, just the filter every once in a while.

Reply to
ShoeSalesman

yeah, well, it's universally accepted that the principal functions of government are self-perpetuation, curtailment of individual liberties, and to provide employment for the unemployable.

Reply to
zwsdotcom

I'd like to see that in writing. I think the dealer is BS'ing you. I've owned 4 Fords, dating from 1964 to 2002. The only one that used oil was the '64 Galaxy, and that was because the previous owner did absolutely NO maintenance to it. I rebuilt the engine shortly after buying it, and 75K leak-free miles on it before it was wrecked and totaled. Two of the others never used any oil while I owned them, and the one I own now doesn't use any, either. Can't say that about some of my co-worker's ricers. I can just look at the imitation of the La Brea tar pits under their cars as the drive away.

SC Tom

Reply to
SC Tom

Why is it my '79 Celica GT Coupe (was 10 years old when I got it) was *WAY* more reliable than my '95 Contour?

Even if that little bitch was beat to hell (I was 18, and used to race that poor little thing against my friend's 'Stangs, FIrebirds, 280ZX and Celica Supras, even raced a 325 for about an hour, way past redline), I did the brakes on it twice (front, then rear 6 months later), changed the oil a couple of times (both engine and tranny), wires, plugs and cap/rotor/sensor. Had to solder the electronic ignition module to the chassis (bad ground).

About the only repairs I had to do on it.

On the Contour, had to change the HEGO sensor (O2), waterpump, timing *BELT* (why don't they use chains?), EGR, Exhaust Manifold, CAT, My A/C condenser's blown (my '92 Cavalier's was still working), had to wire the cooling fan on DRL using a relay, had to swap the engine (cracked head due to faulty gasket), now the tranny is slipping and dying. (and the airbag light is flashing a *collision sensor not found* code) only 170,000KM on it...

Last week, my muffler went south (actually the pipe right in front of it)

Are they making cars out of LEGOs today?

My Celica had 150,000 MILES when I got it, I let it go at around 250... (smashed into a '76 Monte Carlo, kid didn't seem to know what a stop sign meant...)

I will agree I probably got a Lemon Contour, but it's ridiculous...

On my derelict Celica, the doors never refused to unlock when below freezing point, A/C was still working, suspension wasn't worn, power steering wasn't whining and imprecise, Water pump was still original, rear defrost had _ALL_ its wires working, brakes would work as they should (no ABS shit), didn't use a poor-excuse-for-a-frisbee as the spare tire, windshield washer jets would not freeze. Gas door wouldn't jam closed, and so on...

I can feel the wiper's motor in my brake pedal on my Contour :)

Handled better, stiffer cornering, better acceleration (96HP Carburated 2.2 SOHC Vs 2.0 EFI DOHC 16V). 16 years appart. Carburated VS Fuel Injected. RWD vs Crappy FWD. Old-school steering vs rack-and-pinion. I'm not even sure that Celica had triangulated McPhersons, probably just old school shocks and springs at the rear, with a live axle.

I miss those older cars.

OTOH, My 351C T-Bird totally owned that thing on a straight line :)

Reply to
El Bandito

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