Compression tests can be helpful for engine performance problems. Unfortunately, they don’t tell anything pertinent for oil consumption problems.
You can generally tell if the main issue is valve stem seals or piston rings (posts #2, #10, 2nd half #16). That might give you an idea of what price range the repair might entail (hundreds for the seals, possibly thousands for the rings), and you can then decide if you’d rather put your money into fixing this vehicle or buying its replacement. If you know yours is otherwise in pretty good shape, it might worth fixing (for the transportation value, not for what you could sell it for). If you decide to look at replacements, have a mechanic not associated with the selling party do a pre-purchase inspection for you.
Five quarts in 700 miles is a quart every 140 miles. That is massive oil usage.
You say there is nothing on the ground. In that case your Windstar must smoke like a chimney. As in you could probably sell it to the Navy for generating smoke screens to hide battleships.
Is the check engine light on? Is it blinking? With that amount of oil consumption I would expect it to be.
Follow Gary T advice.
If the van is otherwise in good shape, a used engine might be a better option than shilling the big bucks for a rebuild or buying a whole new-to-you van. Try calling around a few places for quotes-- engine swaps are something where shops that do a lot of them can sometimes save you some money on labor and they might have the best line on the cheap used engines too.
One other thing to keep in mind is that “engine rebuild” is one of those terms without a totally agreed upon meaning so if you are calling around for quotes make sure you’re comparing apples-to-apples. The $3k ballpark quote you got is probably just for a short block, which means just the lower-end components and reusing the old heads. Depending on what turns out to be the problem, you might be needing a more spendy long block rebuild.
I’d be careful here- on an engine known for eating head gaskets, it would suck to buy a used engine only to have its head gaskets pop in short order. Frylock really needs to find out what is wrong with the engine in the van first before we say what needs to be done. We’re all just guessing here.
Yeah, definitely, just if it does turn out to need a full overhaul a used motor might be a better bet on a 14 year old van. Most reputable junkyards (oxymoron?) will give their used engines at least a nominal inspection and provide a short warranty in case there is some not-immediately-apparent damage to it. Although figuring out whether the shop you go through will pay for repeat labor in that event would definitely be something to figure out ahead of time.
My old chev S10 ran great but was sucking oil at about 1 qt per 200 miles. I put umbrellas on the valve seals in less than an hour and oil usage went to zero. Rings just don’t seem to wear out like they used to years ago. I think the parts cots me less than $10.00. I did have to buy the little tool kit for putting air to the spark plug holes and removing the valve springs. That was less than $20.00
I think he said it was an '01, so there still should be plenty of those in the full service pipeline.
Also in my experience U Pull It yards will remove the engine for you if you buy it. I imagine the liability insurance cost for running one of those places is already dizzying even without people dropping engines on themselves using improvised engine hoists. It’s actually pretty impressive if you ever happen to be there when the junkpersons are pulling an engine-- they put a pallet under the engine, cut all the heavier wires, unbolt it, and just lift up the front of the car with the forklift. The whole procedure takes probably 15 minutes. Which wires and small components come with the engine depends on what breaks!
But, yes, obviously it’s better to get a used engine from a dismantler who actually carefully removes the engine as soon as the car comes in than a junkyard where the engine sits out in the weather for who knows how long before having the engine unceremoniously yanked.
Nothing I could do at home seemed to be checking out, so I took it in to be looked at. The guy said there’s absolutely nothing wrong with anything. His theory is that, somehow, the last time I got the oil changed, the people who did it didn’t put any oil in.*
That would mean, though, that I ran it for a month or two without any oil?!
I don’t know about this.
But anyway, that’s where we’re at right now.
*ETA I should clarify that what got me started realizing something was wrong was me checking the oil (due to a funny smell which I thought might be burning oil, and due to me knowing this thing had had a leak on one occasion before) and finding it completely empty.
If the oil light wasn’t coming on, it must have had some oil in it. Driving around with one quart instead of 5 or 6 or however much it’s supposed to have certainly isn’t the nicest thing to do to your engine (the burning smell was probably from that one quart overheating) but it probably won’t cause any further problems now that you’ve got it addressed.
Have you learned anything about checking your oil regularly?
Good news on the update! Just to clarify, no oil on the dipstick does not mean no oil in the engine. Being low by 1.5 - 2 quarts will result in a dry dipstick. The oil change place likely underfilled your vehicle. Not good, but not necessarily fatal to the engine.
