I have a 2009 Silverado quad cab wt with the 5.3L flex fuel engine. The truck has just over 100K miles.
I've historically had to top of the oil about 1x/month for several years. For the past few months, after high speed driving, when idling at a traffic light, I would get a burned oil smell in the cab. No check engine lights or alarms ever came on, so I knew it was an issue, but didn't get around to addressing it.
I was towing a trailer on Friday and utilizing "tow mode". I have the factory tow pkg installed. I had travelled about 20 miles, when the check engine light came on, and I got an alarm and "oil pressure low stop engine" message in the message center. I pulled over, stopped the engine for a minute and restarted, no issues other than check engine light. This repeated for three times for the remaining 10 miles. Once the trailer was emptied, on my return trip home, still in "tow mode", it happened one additional time. I took it out of tow mode and have not seen the problem for about 30 miles of driving. I added a quart of oil after the first "low pressure" warning and the oil level is currently within the appropriate range.
My question is: Could it be the PCV orifice (I have the valve cover where it's stamped into the aluminum)? Valve cover leaking? or some other issue? I'm going to start it up in the driveway and see if I can ascertain if there's an oil leak at one of the valve covers. Would this cause oil pressure to drop? Unfortunately I have the WT trim, so no oil pressure gauge, only a dummy light.
Any advice on where to go from here would be appreciated. Also, sorry that I accidentally posted this in the Suburban forum, though I guess it's the same engine in some cases....
Thanks!
I've historically had to top of the oil about 1x/month for several years. For the past few months, after high speed driving, when idling at a traffic light, I would get a burned oil smell in the cab. No check engine lights or alarms ever came on, so I knew it was an issue, but didn't get around to addressing it.
I was towing a trailer on Friday and utilizing "tow mode". I have the factory tow pkg installed. I had travelled about 20 miles, when the check engine light came on, and I got an alarm and "oil pressure low stop engine" message in the message center. I pulled over, stopped the engine for a minute and restarted, no issues other than check engine light. This repeated for three times for the remaining 10 miles. Once the trailer was emptied, on my return trip home, still in "tow mode", it happened one additional time. I took it out of tow mode and have not seen the problem for about 30 miles of driving. I added a quart of oil after the first "low pressure" warning and the oil level is currently within the appropriate range.
My question is: Could it be the PCV orifice (I have the valve cover where it's stamped into the aluminum)? Valve cover leaking? or some other issue? I'm going to start it up in the driveway and see if I can ascertain if there's an oil leak at one of the valve covers. Would this cause oil pressure to drop? Unfortunately I have the WT trim, so no oil pressure gauge, only a dummy light.
Any advice on where to go from here would be appreciated. Also, sorry that I accidentally posted this in the Suburban forum, though I guess it's the same engine in some cases....
Thanks!
