Ford Duratec V6 oil leak

_HighVoltage_

Captain Volvo
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Girlfriend's Ford Escape V6 went in for an oil change today. They said there was no oil on dipstick and the whole engine underneath is covered in oil. I personally checked the level 2 weeks/600 miles ago and it was at Max level. So, I went under it today to see what the deal is and I couldn't see anything disastrous. Yeah, a little bit of oil on the pan, some caked up oil around the seal with the block, but nothing dramatic, nor any fresh oil dripping from anywhere. Drove it for 30 miles, no fresh oil anywhere. Parked it for 2 hours, no drops on the ground either. No smoke from the exhaust, and no smell either.

I'm starting to think the shop saw a young girl and decided to try to scam her into paying for more stuff. I'll keep an eye on the oil level over the next week.

Is there anything/anywhere else I should check on these 3.0 Duratec V6 engines (2006 model if it matters)?
 
IIRC, no oil on dipstick is still 1.5-2 quarts in the engine on the Duratecs. However, the Escape's version of the Duratec V6 is known to have some odd severe oil consumption patterns and can sludge up resulting in oil getting trapped in the top end for an inordinate amount of time after shut down. This is indicative of impending engine failure most of the time.

I would point out what carcomplaints.com has to say about that generation of Escapes.

worst.png


CarComplaints.com Notes: With solid trends of engine failure ? $4,500 to fix at 85,000 miles avg ? AND transmission failure ? $3,000 to fix at 75,000 miles avg ? we can't recommend the 2006 Ford Escape to anyone except your worst enemy.

Fill the oil back up and immediately trade it in/sell it to the nearest scummy dealership. When it hits this stage, it's not unheard of for it to disappear the oil back to "not showing on the dipstick" in less than 500 miles.
 
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Oil seems to be draining to the oil pan just fine immediately after shut off. Original engine and transmission at 145k miles.

If it's consuming oil, I'd assume there will be much blue smoke from the exhaust, and there is none.

But yeah, some of the comments on that site are concerning.
 
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Oil seems to be draining to the oil pan just fine immediately after shut off. Original engine and transmission at 145k miles.

If it's consuming oil, I'd assume there will be much blue smoke from the exhaust, and there is none.

Thing is, nobody seems to have ever consistently figured out where the oil goes in a Duratec that suddenly starts guzzling it. They don't start doing the Mitsubushi mosquito-fogger-truck emulation, but the oil is going *somewhere*. In some cases, it goes into the coolant but it others it just vanishes.

If the transmission hasn't gone out yet, dump it. The CD4E is on second-mortgage-borrowed-time by 145K.
 
Well, thanks for the info. This kind of sucks. And it certainly doesn't make me confident driving this to Colorado next week...
 
Well, thanks for the info. This kind of sucks. And it certainly doesn't make me confident driving this to Colorado next week...

All I can say is get the top AAA membership.

You can Google for "Duratec 3.0 oil consumption" if you want to read more about the issues. It's sadly well known; the Taurus has had issues with it forever. One common thought is that the thinner 0W or 5W oils, particularly with the post-2000 reformulations, are burning off but don't produce much of any smoke - in fact, reducing emissions when oil is burned even at the expense of protection and lubrication has been a primary goal of all the SAE oil formulations since the SH/SJ standards.
 
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Thing is, there are a lot of Escapes on the road, how can they all be that terrible?
 
They also made a 4-cylinder version.
 
The 4 banger I thought was the one that likes to catch on fire.
 
Thing is, there are a lot of Escapes on the road, how can they all be that terrible?

They made a ridiculous number of them. Even a low percentage of survivors is still a fairly large number of cars.

That said, down here where vehicles can often reach terminal mileage without rusting out first, the original and facelift Escape is very much an endangered species.
 
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