[Closed] Van oil longevity issue again. Where do I stand?

Trying to phrase this as diplomatically as possible...

How do you drive your van? The oil change interval is calculated (I think) on the basis of an oil quality sensor and an algorithm that monitors driving style.

If you're one of those van drivers that uses the rev limiter as a clue that it's time to change gear, you're likely to have significantly shorter oil life intervals. Same if you tow with the van.

It will need the service interval changing when plugged into the computer. My car has been altered to 12 months, 10k miles but fully synthetic oil has a 24 month 20k life span in my service book . I used to change my vivaro van at 10k just to play safe whilst using fully synthetic oil.

As above - it might be worth tryign to work out what's causing this low life calculation.

Lots of very short journeys where the engine doesn't warm up, prolonged periods idling to warm the cab while not moving, bouncing off the rev limiter the whole time?

It might also be that diesel or other contaminants are getting into the oil.

This lot offer a variety of testing services for oil:

£49.99 for Gold Oil Analysis Package -Engine

Spectrochemical scan to detect Wear and additive metals, Viscosity @ 40 C, Soot Contamination (TIM), Glycol , Water, Dirt and Fuel Dilution – Ideal for checking if fuel is entering into the sump

http://www.theoillab.co.uk/product-category/oil-testing/engine/

No towing, it's Derbyshire hills mostly, but I'd say 20 percent of those miles are dual/motorway miles. It's a sport so it gets the odd blast but because its a nippy/torquey thing you dontbhabe to ring its neck costantly, but, at the end of the day it's usually ful of stuff in the back and any spirited driving results in that being spread everywhere.

Thanks for the posts above. Shouldn't Ford be looking in to these things for me? At the end of the day it was purchased with 3 miles on the clock from the dealer who has it in today.

this isnt uncommon, if you do the kind of driving that is hard on oil the computer tells you. get it swpped off variable servicing and it then goes 10k or 1 year, the oil will be in tatters..and the engine in time, but you'll save the £150 on a dealer priced oil change

 the oil will be in tatters..and the engine in time, but you’ll save the £150 on a dealer priced oil change

Posted 5 minutes ago

Wins most helpful post of the day award 🙄

If the van has true onboard monitoring equipment then it could be caused by:

Wrong oil spec
Lots of short trips
High load regularly and when cold
EGr malfunction increasing contaminants in oil
Sensor malfunction
Overloading van

Edit: get analysis done as Wwaswas said

yeah sorry, it wasnt meant to be as sarcy as it reads!

tbf, if you will have your van while in warranty and not long more, go to fixed. if you want to keep it long term either tay variable or go fixed and really short say 2.5/3k and do your own changes. the oil and filter would be ~£50, 1/3 the cost of a dealer service. if the van actually has an oil condition sensor it likely won't ever call for a service again. many cars/vans don't though, they just calculate based on number of/length of journeys and other parameters already measured

My works van is a 17 plate transit and today back to the garage for 2nd time in a month for blocked filter warning up on dash. I know of 3 other vans getting this constantly despite going back to dealership. I’d guess a fault and no problem with the oil considering the age and mileage.

but because its a nippy/torquey thing you dontbhabe to ring its neck costantly

But it's the same engine fundamentally as the basic model.

If say you apply enough throttle to get 125Nm of torque (50% of the bog standard 85bhp engines peak) on your engine you're doing a comparable amount of wear to the engine as if it was the basic engine. Same if you reached 250Nm (the peak of the standard engine), except that would be like flooring it in a normal transit everywhere.

Yours has 415Nm, so assuming a linear throttle map and a linear relationship between the amount of fuel injected and torque (not very good assumptions but fine for illustrating the point). Driving at 60% throttle is the same as flooring it in the base model. Also vans in general are big heavy brick shaped vehicles, with medium sized car engines. Your 185hb engine is having to use a lot more of those 185hp than the same engine in a Mondeo to accelerate, maintain speeds or drive up hills.

It probably will do 20,000 miles if you put it in cruise control at 60mph on the motorway for the duration.

if it were me, I'd pay the £50 to get the oil analysis done, either it'll show something wrong, or it wont. Then you can either
a) argue with the dealer that something is wrong with the engine with some evidence e.g. excessive soot or diesel in the oil causing some sensor to condemn the oil (assuming it has such a thing, otherwise move straight to b)
b) accept that the computer is just being critical of your driving habits and suck it up.
c) as b, but DIY the oil change.

[edit: those specs were a mishmash of the old 2.2l 85hp 250Nm engine, and the new 2.0l 185hp, 415Nm engine, but the principal is the same]

Have you googled the jaguar land rover 2litre engine oil issue?

Basically of you are doing mainly around town driving they need simar short oil change intervals. Some technical guff about the dpf not getting hot enough so it does something with the fuel that dilutes the oil.

Sounds like yours is the same.

Try a decent spin up the M1 once a week after the next oil change and see if that improves the issue.

We didn't buy an evoque for that reason. And there is some stuff where now that they have acknowledged it, if you buy one you don't get any dispensation. Only those who bought before they acknowledged it have been getting a free mid term oil service.

Ford's had quite a bit of trouble with oil life on the 2.0 ecoblue engines, however they've mostly been fixed by various updates. Only ones I've had problems with lately, are town vans that just don't get regular reasonable runs so get stuck in endless regen loops.

A key thing is pay attention to the gear change indicator. If the van is trying to do a regen, then the gear change indicator won't tell you to change up gear as quick. Also regens don't like you revving too hard. Around 2000-2300 rpm seems to be the sweet spot for regens.

My own 170ps custom managed 17k on the original oil before it requested an oil change, but that was with the original software.

Ford will pay for oil changes, provided the vehicle needs an appropriate update.

My understanding is that with the latest customs the ad blue system is causing your problems. Ford inject the adblue at a different part of the cycle to other manufacturers which leads to some of it ending up in the oil and contaminating it. There were some software fixes to help and increasing oil volume by 2l to dilute the unused adblue that ends up in it more and delay the issue.

Just had a call....
Injector failure, it's over fuelling apparently which has caused oil dilution. Due to me being on the ball and not just ignoring the warning notice no damage will have been caused....
Bit pissed to be fair though that they didn't run that test 5k miles ago!

So has that been causing bore wash? Have they inspected the piston, rings and bore on that injector for damage??

Any puffs of white smoke from the exhaust?

sounds a good result.

They probably did run the injector test the last time, however the injectors were probably still within allowable tolerance. The test is actually an automated routine the computer runs, and it's either a pass or fail. The person running the test has no control over the result, but without a fail, Ford won't pay for any repairs.