Last time my oil light flickered was when the oil pump shattered. The loss of oil is in question though, seems strange.

 

I will crawl under her after work today and see what I can see with a flashlight and report back my findings. Thank you.

 

@ Savannah Buzz, I have been using the Rotella 5W40 Synthetic which I took from this forum, would you recommend me to use the dino version Rotella 15W40 year round here in Newport Beach Ca.?

 

Thicker weight oil will only add stress to an already old wearing engine. Back in the old days people would go thicker to makeup for such wear, however it is not advised. Stay with the manufacturers recommendations and perform needed repairs when required. Absolutely no additives: SeaFoam, sealants, ETC.....

 

When fully warmed up, 5w40 and 15w40 both behave like 40.

 

To be clear, am I fine with the Rotella Synthetic 5W40 or change to Rotella dino 15W40 or go back to Mobil 1 10W30/ 15W40? And not to get off topic, I need to figure out where the oil went that I had to replace.

 

One thing not mentioned is how often you check your oil.
Checking it monday with it being fine then below the dipstick on tuesday is a huge difference from never checking it between oil changes and finding it low 5,000 miles later.
Odds are good the oil light flickered because you were really low on oil.

 

Your talking alot of oil if the dipstick was empty. Try looking on the ground somewhere.

 

In all honesty, I am not checking probably as often as I should be, 2X per oil change intervals. I looked on the ground nothing, will crawl under her after work and take me a look to see if the oil is somewhere there. And, yes, I am assuming the light flickered briefly due to the oil being low.

 

Jafir is correct. The 5w part is only at startup, when quite a bit of wear can occur. It does make starting easier for those in the frozen north. The 15W40 non synthetic is what I run in lots of things, it is an oil that does a lot of cleaning, and holds that in suspension. Made for diesels, where soot can be an issue. If you have something like a diesel forklift, the short use cycles are killers, because the engines don't warm up before the two pallets are unloaded. My forklift shop sees units from our port (4th largest in US) that have 18,000 hours on the engines - they leave them idling between short assignments. I once bought a short wheel base Chevy pickup with 208K, small block v-8, 5 speed, at auction from the state ($300). Grade A pony stomper with a high rear end gear ratio. Valve seals were puffing smoke for several seconds after almost every shift. Opened up valve covers, the sludge looked like oil covered corn flakes. Had to dig that out with a spoon. Used a rifle cleaning bore brush to clean out the oil galleys. Ran conventional Rotella, and the oil smoke puffs went away in about 500 miles. Vehicle was totally unacceptable for a 16 year old daughter, so disposed of it and bought the F-250 ($400) for driver training on back roads. Once trained, off-spring needed a better ride, and the Disco came into my life. I'm a believer in the cleaning power of Rotella and other diesel oils.

But Rover specs up to 20W50, so "heavier" oil is within the norm. Now four bottles of Lucas oil additive would be over the top.

The old synthetic vs regular oil issue comes up. If you always ran syn in a vehicle, fine. If it ran dino for close to two decades, then you change to syn, it can be like additives that LRD2&ME dislikes. It seems to solvent and loosen up places where old dino oil may have "baked" into place, and many such conversions result in new oil leaks. But other than that annoyance, syn won't "hurt" an engine. In fact, the lighter weight in some cases will improve things, like a sticking lifter. Kinda of like what MMO (Marvel Mystery Oil - about 7 weight) does.

The main thing is to change the oil early and often. The marketing deartment of the car factories decided it was an advantage to have lower cost of ownership and increased oil service interval. This came back to bite a lot of dealers. Plus the human nature of rednecks (not accusing anyone who can read this post) to double the factory recommendation on lots of things. I don't care if you are running Royal Purple, Amsoil, or Advance Auto store brand - the oil filter can only hold so much. Would you rather buy a Rover that had good oil changed every 3000 to 5000 miles, or snake oil changed every 25,000; whether it needed it or not?

You need to check the oil frequently until this is resolved. Carry oil with you. We don't know if the 4 quarts leaked out in four hours, four days, four weeks, or 4000 miles.

In my (kid's) Disco I changed from Rotella to 15W50 diesel oil from Mystik, and I use that extra large WIX filter that adds another quart of capacity to the system. The draw back is that is is a 25 or so micron filter, Mobile 1 has 10 micron filters. If you are focused on oil changes, then the other things at the same time will be taken care of.