The Van is Back.

In my last post, blogger "have a nice day" pretty much described the repair work my mechanic performed better than I could have described, so read his comment.

Other information:

1. The oil pressure sender was replaced because it was leaking oil.

2. I have switched from Valvoline synthetic blend 5w-30 to Valvoline synthetic 5w-30. I have had problems finding the synthetic blend recently, so I thought now would be a good time to make the switch to full synthetic.

3. Lastly, I filled up with 91 octane (no ethanol) after getting the caravan back from the shop. I won't be doing this very often, but I thought it would be interesting to see any differences in performance compared to the 89 octane (10% ethanol) and 87 octane (no ethanol).

The following fill-up was achieved with 87 octane (no ethanol):

December 27:
277.9 miles / 13.935 gallons = 19.94 mpg

Bad News Update

According to my mechanic, the caravan has a blown head gasket. I looked around for pricing on replacing the motor, but it would be cheaper to do the repair work instead of buying a new engine block. Since the valve covers tend to go bad on the 3.0L caravans, I will be replacing those as well. Fortunately, I won't need to buy new cylinder heads; just get them milled.

Please excuse any possible terminology errors, for I am not car savvy enough to have in-depth engine discussions.