Survey for people with and without fuel dilution

[Samsquanch]

I’m going to hold off until my next oil analysis in a few weeks. My first sample I didn’t collect enough oil and they didn’t run the flash point test. Since my first oil change at 1000 miles I noticed the level definitely rose and I’m going to check it weekly until my next analysis. I’m hoping mine stays low below 2% and I won’t worry about it and just keep an eye on the level every so often.

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[jsphlynch]

40 responses so far! Keep up the good work!

Looking at the summary of the answers, it looks like we're getting a good distribution of characteristics/driving habits, which will help with the analysis.

And some of y'all are crackin me up with your responses to the final question!

 

[jsphlynch]

I’m going to hold off until my next oil analysis in a few weeks. My first sample I didn’t collect enough oil and they didn’t run the flash point test. Since my first oil change at 1000 miles I noticed the level definitely rose and I’m going to check it weekly until my next analysis. I’m hoping mine stays low below 2% and I won’t worry about it and just keep an eye on the level every so often.

Go ahead and fill it out now, but make a note on the final question that'll help me identify you (if you're comfortable with that). When you get your UOA results, either comment here or PM me and I'll modify your survey result accordingly

 

[Sharky]

how do I see the results of the survey ?

 

[jsphlynch]

how do I see the results of the survey ?

I'll post the full results and accompanying analyses to this forum.

 

[JKocot]

Done!

 

[Mike C.]

Nice Survey! With enough data points, we might be able to help isolate contributing factors.

 

[jsphlynch]

60 responses, so I think it’s time to start seeing what the data says. I’m going to be posting the analyses here as I do them. Please feel free to keep responding to the survey. I’ll continue to incorporate new responses as they come in.

First analysis is a simple one: How well do the various indicators of fuel dilution agree with each other? The survey included questions on a rating of fuel odor severity a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being the most severe), an estimate of rise in crankcase oil levels, and lab-reported fuel dilution.

57 respondents answered both the fuel smell and oil rise questions. Of those, 31 (54%) reported no rise in crankcase levels, 8 (14 %) reported a discernible rise less than ¼ inch, 11 (19%) reported a rise between ¼ and ½ inch, 4 (7%) reported a rise of between ½ and ¾ inch, and 3 (5%) reported either a rise of ¾ - 1 inch or a rise greater than 1 inch. In general, a greater rise in oil levels corresponded to a higher reported intensity of fuel odor (Figure 1), with an r2 of 0.65. This is much better correlation than I expected, as I thought the fuel odor intensity was too subjective to be meaningful.

Twelve respondents reported lab data. Unfortunately, the only people who reported data were people who otherwise had indicators of fuel dilution, with ten of them reporting oil rise of either 0-1/4 inch or ¼-1/2 inch, so this data is very biased towards a very narrow range of fuel content. In general, those who reported under ¼ inch rise did have lower lab-reported fuel content than those who reported over ¼ inch rise (3.2% vs 4.2%, on average), but the narrow range means the overall correlation is quite poor.

Due to how restricted the lab data is, going forward I’ll be using the self-rated fuel odor intensity and the dipstick rise for the analyses. I’ll probably focus on the dipstick rise, since that should be less subjective.

 

[GregsFX2Ranger]

Good analysis and data, but that's only a sampling of 60 people out of the how many thousands of rangers sold.
Would people even know about fuel dilution if they were not in this forum (or any related Ford forum)?
Interesting finds though.

 

[jsphlynch]

Good analysis and data, but that's only a sampling of 60 people out of the how many thousands of rangers sold.
Would people even know about fuel dilution if they were not in this forum (or any related Ford forum)?
Interesting finds though.

Yes, just a sampling. And I'm guessing this sample is biased towards people who are concerned about the potential issue. Nonetheless, as I get further into the analysis, I'm hoping this sampling will be sufficient to identify potential contributing factors. I don't need to have data from all the Rangers for this to work, just data from a variety of representative Rangers.


As a quick follow-up to my previous post, below is the distribution of responses to the "fuel smell intensity question," which all 60 respondents answered. It stands out to me that 27 respondents (45%) reported no fuel odor in their oil. Recall from the previous post that 54% of people who checked their oil levels reported no rise. It seems pretty clear that there's a lot of Rangers out there that don't have fuel dilution issues at all, so what's different about the Rangers that do have dilution issues? Stay tuned as I keep digging through the data...

 

[SymChris]

Thanks for posting this up!

I know my responses were very subjective (well, except for the things like Model year), but this is a great thing to do to help determine what’s what.

I wonder if the other thread that has the running spreadsheet would be a helpful compliment to the data points. Probably couldn’t hurt?

p.s. I’m in the “change it and forget it if it’s not leaving anything on the driveway” space.

 

[AzScorpion]

The tailgate damper question has me questioning the seriousness of the survey

Ok I wasn't going to do the survey but seeing as there's a damper question in there now I have to.....Be right back.

 

[AzScorpion]

All done Joe. I haven't had any fuel in my oil and even asked my dealer to double check last time they changed it.

Now we might need a separate survey to see if there's any fuel in the damper fluid? ?

 

[Langwilliams]

I'm a thousand miles out from my next oil change...I have a kit for sending in a sample. I'll post up the fuel % when I get it.

 

[jsphlynch]

Next up: model year. Have there been any changes made to mitigate the problem? Survey says...no. Based on people's perception of the fuel odor, there is no difference at all between the different model years. Using oil rise as the measure, the 2020's look worse than either 2019s or 2021s. This is due to a slightly higher proportion of 2020 owners than 2019 owners reporting rising oil, but among those who report rising oil the severity is the same between those two model years (See the third graph below; I've excluded 2021 from this graph due to the small sample size). I'll keep on eye on the 2020s as more responses come in (we're up to 64 now), but I don't think this is anything to get excited about.

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