My wife drives a 2013 T&C. On 11/6 she had the oil changed at one of those quick-change places. 12 days and 800 miles later, while driving into the mountains, the vehicle starts acting up. We immediately pull off the interstate and find a mechanic who discovers that we are very low on oil. He adds 5 quarts, checks for leaks (there were none), listens for odd sounds (also none), states that there is no way to know if the engine was damaged and wishes us luck. We're in the middle of nowhere, 300 miles from home, with 3 young kids so we decide to get back on the road and hope for the best. About 30 miles later, the engine seizes up and we're stranded on the side of the road. Fast forward more than two weeks and we're still trying to figure out what happened. There's no sign of an oil leak, we weren't burning oil, no problem with the head gasket.

The only explanation I can come up with is that my wife left the oil change place with about a quart of oil in the engine and then drove around our town (very flat area) for 11 days without a problem. On the 12 day, I drove us up a steep grade into the mountains and gravity pulled the oil to the back of the oil pan causing the oil level to drop below the pick-up tube, thus ruining a both a perfectly good engine and a family vacation.

Our friendly oil change man, while conceding that there was not a problem with our engine prior to him performing his service and accepting the fact that the 5 quarts we added 12 days later are still there (no leaks), is claiming that there is no way that that engine ran that long on 1 quart of oil.

Could we have traveled 800 miles on roughly 1 quart? If not, where did the oil go? Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks.

 

Sorry that happened to you. Search the internet and read the many incidents related to yours that this has happen to others, including me. Nightmares, all of them. Chrysler is going to tell you that is normal oil usage for your engine. You'll find no mention of why; 1) no warning lights appeared 2) no excessive oil consumption previously with your engine 3) no explanation of where the oil goes. Chrysler fails to tell potential buyers that according to their specifications, you'll be purchasing and adding 4 quarts of oil to your engine between oil changes of 3K miles on engines with <50K miles. Fact is the engine has a serious flaw and Chrysler would rather insult your intelligence than make it right. Since this happened to me, everyone I talk with who is car shopping, new or used, I trash Chrysler relentlessly and warn them. I would be surprised if this reply is posted in this forum. I registered to this forum to let people know. I took exceptional care of my T&C and will never forgive Chrysler for what was taken from me and my family.

 

How about the Radiator system is it fill up with oil ? , older VW diesel had this problem only few owners discover the problem with headgasket. Oil pressure channel was to close to coolant channel .

 

This happened to a good friend of mine. We were planning a trip up into the Appalachians; I was flying from the UK had been delayed for 9 hours at O'hare so she'd taken her Bug into one of these places just to save me from the hassle of landing and immediately having to change the oil etc. Anyway it was the same type of deal. It wasn't until we were climbing that the engine suddenly began to miss. VW's do this when the oil is low.

Anyway, there was barely a quart in there, fortunately I'd bought a couple of quarts and dropped them in the trunk as I like to carry a little oil and water on a journey, so was able to top it off with enough to get us to a gas station.

Complained when we got home but it was a waist of time. So lesson learned.