Howdy - I've had a problem ongoing for a little while now with my '02 Stratus R/T. Manual trans, 3.0L V6. It's using a good amount of oil. By that I mean before I reach the 3000 mile mark I have to put 2 quarts in. Usually when I'm more than a quart low, I can hear it because it will be clicking all over the place. I read the piece about sludge (good article by the way) and how city driving is actually more un-healthy than interstate driving. Well for the first 100,000 miles of its life my car was my main vehicle. Last year I bought an older '95 Blazer to be my "work" vehicle so that way I wasn't putting so many miles on the Stratus. I've got about 105,000 now. Here in Wyoming, all our interstate speed limits are 75 so on road trips it's a constant 80mph with RPM guage at about 3200 or so. Seems like on these road trips (which are almost all I use the stratus for these days....I use the Blazer in town) is when it'll "use" the most oil. So if I'm having to add a quart every 1000 to 1500 miles, where is it going? There is no smoke. Every once in a while there'll be a puff of smoke when I first start it first time in a while.....like if it's been parked for a week. Other than that, there just aren't any leaks. When it visited the mechanic last year, he said he couldn't see anything too out of line. A little oil around the block of the engine so he thought maybe that's where it was going and he changed the valve cover gasket. But it's still using oil. Most vehicles you don't have to add any oil between changes. However I don't know if this is a mitsubishi thing or what. The '94 Eagle Talon I had before my stratus did exactly the same thing. I think it had 175,000 miles when I sold it and I had to add 3 sometimes 4 quarts between oil changes, depending on how many road trips. No smoke, no leaks.
It scares me because the car isn't paid for and I want to have a car that I will be able to sell once it IS paid for......not some hunk of junk with complete leather pkg and sunroof and a failing engine. I'm hoping there isn't a crack in the engine block or something like that. I'd think today's vehicles maybe don't smoke with problems like older vehicles did. We have such "green" vehicles that any more it seems any smoke or contaminents would get burned up in the catalytic converter and you won't see them even though in a case like a cracked block you would WANT to see the smoke.
I am not a mechanic so maybe I am wrong about that. I do know that when you take off the oil cap to add oil, the cam shaft doesn't look clean enough to eat off of....looks kinda light brown in spots with various spots of black (sludge????)
So thanks for reading. Any ideas? Where's the oil going??

Michael

 

The puff of smoke at startup suggests there may be a valve stem seal problem. After you park oil runs into the cylinder head. Todays cars do smoke when they have enough engine wear. The difference is the smoking starts at much higher mileage that the old engines. The late 40"s Chrysler products were known to smoke at 40KM. The advances in metallurgy and lubricants account for longer engine life.

 

Okay that does make sense. But does that account for where the oil is going and why it's using so much?

Michael

 

My '00 uses about 1qt every 1500mi. It's generally considered normal to use around a qt every 2000mi. I have the 2.5v6 (mitsubishi 6g73).
My T&C (3.8l v6), uses roughly 1qt every 1000mi. Chrysler has determined that (3 independent dealers, exact answer) oil usage is acceptable at 2qt/3000mi for the van.

 

If its not leaking, not getting into your coolant, and your compression is good, the valve stem seals are suspect. Yes, it can be quite a bit of oil loss.