Extreme fuel dilution in the engine oil

[JayJayRay]

Hello All

 

Has anyone else has a fuel dilution issue? I have a 2015 AWD Edge with the 2.0. I check my oil just about every two weeks. When I checked my oil late last week I noticed that the oil has a very strong smell of gasoline. At that time I had the original fill oil and 6100 miles on the engine and oil. When I got to work the next morning I pulled a sample of the oil out to analyze it. I own an oil analysis lab so run it through the complete battery of tests.

 

The oil had more than 10% fuel dilution, and the viscosity was significantly reduced due to the fuel dilution. I also noticed that the engine had a lot more chatter and was noisier than normal but never even thought to test my own oil at that point.

 

I took the car into my dealer and told them what was going on as gave them a copy of the report as well. Ford supposedly had them test the fuel pump and injectors and they didn't find any issues. Fords response was to change the oil more often if the problem continues. I don't find this acceptable when even the Motorcraft oil is decent and fully capable of performing very well until the service/change oil notice comes on. Basically I will have to change my oil almost twice as often as the owners manual states and/or change oil notice comes on.

 

I typically see fuel dilution on large commercial diesels due to the emissions equipment or cracked and leaky injectors. I rarely see passenger vehicles with high fuel dilution unless there's a major mechanical problem.

 

Has anyone else experienced this?

 

I have attached a PDF of the report. I will not start doing analysis every 1,000 miles and post the trending data for anyone that may be interested.

 

Jason

2015-Edge Apex Oil Lab.pdf

[WWWPerfA_ZN0W]

Hope you don't have to lemon law your Edge, and that future analysis shows no such problems.

[JayJayRay]

Hope you don't have to lemon law your Edge, and that future analysis shows no such problems.

 

I hope that will not be the case. I hate to abuse anything mechanical and will keep accurate records on my correspondence with the dealer. It is a 3 year lease and will be under warranty the entire time that I have it in my possession. The dealer has a great loaner car program so at least I will never be without a vehicle.

 

Jason

[OntheEdge15]

I have read that the ecoboost engines with the direct injection can be the issue here. The 3.5 twin turbos in the F-150 were known to do the same thing. I think the fuel is being sprayed right on top of the piston and then blows past the rings. I am not sure there is much they can do about it. The good news is that you probably won't have any issues with the car in 3 years, so you can just turn it back in and start over.

[junehhan]

Fuel dilution is going to be an issue on anything with GTDI engine. It is not as much of an issue though unless you do a lot of really short driving trips that never allows the engine to ever warm up. If this fits your driving pattern, you will want to change the oil at more frequent intervals. The issues are two fold as you have fuel being directly injected into the combustion chamber combined with the artificial boost and higher compression ratios that can really increase blowby past the piston rings into the crank case. If you guys think this is bad, you havn't seen anything yet as the fuel dilution is horrendous on engines like the Subaru WRX's GTDI flat 4. It is just the nature of the beast and likely still will not be fully solved with the move towards dual fuel injection systems like on the new second generation 3.5 litre ecoboost.

[lildisco]

wouldn't an Oil Catch Can work to catch this extra fuel & oil before it reaches the crank case?

[WWWPerfA_ZN0W]

It would pull the vaporized oil-fuel mixture out of the mix, but it would not prevent fuel from continuing to get into the oil past the rings. The fuel would already have contaminated the oil in the crankcase, but the catchcan would allow intake "air" to be that much cleaner, also reducing carboning of the intake valves in the process.

[Chipster]

I have read that longer periods of idling (warming up) of modern DI engines will promote this issue.

[junehhan]

You heard correctly. The reality is that extended idling to warm your car up is a very lousy way to warm your engine up. The longer it takes for your engine to reach proper operating tolerances, the more stuff you are going to get past the rings into the oil. Unless you live in Fairbanks Alaska or International Falls, MN or other very cold place, you do not need to idle your car for more than a minute or so. The quicker you get driving, the quicker it will actually warm up. The best way to do it is to idle for a very limited amount of time and then drive easy until the engine warms up fully. About 5 minutes after your temperature gauge shows normal temps, you can then perform a celebratory WOT run.