Hello all, just hit the magical 100k and all running very sweet. Full service history etc, However would like to get opinions on if I should stick with 5-30 fully synthetic or maybe try a different weight now. Thanks.
Hiya, if your car has reached that mileage on that oil, and is running very well, why change specs? Iād keep going with what I know. My 2.0 is on 117k miles, just use synthetic 5-40, runs sweet as a nut but I do change the oil more frequently (2-3k miles).
Barrie
As above stick with what you have been doing. Again I always change my oil around 4-5k miles (even less this year) and just look after everything else as you should.
After that just make sure the oil is kept to the max mark on the dipstick, should do you for many more miles.
Cheers for the replies. Actually just changed all the fluids, gearbox, LSD diff etc and coolant so just the oil and filter now. Will stick with 5-30, last changed 5000 ago. Just out of interest I had the PCV valve and hose replaced a couple of weeks ago. The old one didnāt rattle anymore
Did you do the PCV yourself, Iāve read itās a bit awkward?
Barrie
Hi Barrie. Bit the bullet and got my garage to do it. I too had looked at doing it myself and realised it is an absolute nightmare. The biggest problem is getting to the EGR valve and undoing that from the manifold. Also a bit of advice, use genuine parts as I was told aftermarket valves donāt last. I got mine from MX5 parts Portsmouth.
Thank you, at the moment all is good with mine but I was curious regarding your experience. Makes perfect sense to let someone else take the strain!
Barrie
I did the pcv valve on my last mk3 in the hope it might help with oil consumption (didnāt make a difference)
It took me about 9 hours as I had to figure it out as a I went and yes youāre correct - it is unquestionably the worst job I have ever done in my life. I thought that taking out the gearbox to change the clutch and DMF on my old volvo on the driveway with nothing but a halfords advanced toolkit was bad, but this made that job look like childs play.
To add insult to injury, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the PCV valve when I got to it, it was working perfectly normally, the EGR valve and its location causes most of the problems.
It would genuinely have been easier to drop the subframe and engine.
I feel your pain but hats off to you for doing it. Just out of interest did you discover if the high oil consumption was oil rings or stem valve seals or something else?
Never got to the bottom of it, but the car started on the button and ran like a rolex, despite burning give or take a litre every 1200 miles, I was spending the same amount on oil as I did petrol and the oil always looked clean because I was topping it up so regularly.
The Ford engines in the MK3ās are known for oil consumption if neglected/abused and this usually comes down to the oil control rings getting gummed up and worn, however I do recall it had a noisy valve train so it was likely a combination of all of the above.
I sold it shortly after that as I completely lost faith. I checked up on its mot status 6 months later to see how it was getting onā¦ It failed on everything youād expect for an unhealthy engineā¦ High emissions, high nox, high co2ā¦ The full works.
It then subsequently received a full bill of health 2 weeks laterā¦ Iād love to know what the end result was but i suspect it probably had a rebuild, or at least major head works.
Thanks for the reply and very interesting. I havenāt had a chance to do some major mileage since having the PCV valve changed so we will see. Mine doesnāt use that much oil however I have read somewhere that 1lt per 1000 miles is quite common on the NC1 engines with higher mileage. Like yours mine runs very sweet as well.
Yeah Iāve always questioned what is considered āin tolerance consumptionā, especially considering that the NC1 i had that issue with was a 2006 with 87k when I sold itā¦ Not high enough mileage for the issue to be acceptable to me, but more importantly, all the oil it was consuming has to go somewhereā¦ In that case it was going out of the tailpipes, the hydrocarbon numbers were off the charts.
This is it when they start consuming oil, you havenāt just got the concern of constantly topping up and the associated engine wear and overall poor health, you can almost guarantee youāll be failing emissions tests with flying colours too!
Iāve just hit 109k in my '07 NC and in 3 months of ownership and 2.5k miles as a ābostik on my backsideā new owner, Iāve had about a mere cupful of oil consumption in that time.
I do very much stretch itās legs to keep it cobweb free so I guess I have a peach of an engine with little to no oil consumption.
I hope so.
Its a strange one, lower mileage cars with reasonably significant oil consumption or higher mileage with almost zero consumption. I wonder is it more related to poor scheduled maintenance during its life? as buyers of cars with no idea of how a car has been looked after, (like me), its a bit of a gamble.
Barrie
It is a gamble. Usually itās bad Maintainance resulting in low oil level and subsequently dried out valve stem seals or gummed up oil rings. Thatās why itās always good to buy a MX5 owned by an enthusiast who understands these engines can be oil thirsty and always checks the oil level. Thereās nothing wrong with the NC1 engines there actually very strong and good with high mileage if maintained.