Do your cars burn oil?

Volvo S40 1.9 never burned oil.  Volvo S60R would sometimes be a half quart low after 3000mi, with the 2.5, until I redid the PCV system, until its removal at 230k.  Current 2.4l (almost 20k on it, donor vehicle had ~160k) loses no oil.

My rotaries not only don't burn (crankcase) oil, the oil level goes UP by 1 quart every 500-750mi.  Weird-ass little motors...

z31maniac said:

My 1.6 Miata drank a decent amount of oil until I did a track day with it. I'm guessing fresh oil + revs + heat, unstuck the oil control rings. Because it stopped burning oil completely.

Probably did a good job of deglazing the cylinder walls, too!

The K24A2 in my TSX burned oil.  Never dripped a noticeable amount (except during changes), but it would use a quart about every 2500 miles.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

My rotaries not only don't burn (crankcase) oil, the oil level goes UP by 1 quart every 500-750mi.  Weird-ass little motors...

Yeah..... that's not oil you're gaining! 

My BMW (M62tu engine) hardly burns any.  Maybe 3/4 - 1 quart in 8k miles and that includes what it tries to coat the outside of the engine with.  When the Jeep was young it would burn maybe a 1/4 quart in 6k.  These days, it's a good bit more than that (aftermarket heads with slightly looser valve guides, maybe less perfect seals, plus a lot more miles on the bottom end).  Probably something like a quart in 3k or so. 

In general, some engine designs tend to burn some oil and some designs use very little.  It's only concerning if an engine that doesn't typically go through much oil starts to burn a noticeable amount. 

223k mile 1996 Ranger 2.3 roughly a quart between oil changes

bobzilla said:

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

My rotaries not only don't burn (crankcase) oil, the oil level goes UP by 1 quart every 500-750mi.  Weird-ass little motors...

Yeah..... that's not oil you're gaining! 

Most certainly not, which is why I start off with 20W50 at the "add" line and change the oil when it is over the "full" line.  When I use fuel scent, the oil smells like vanilla 

In the days of Mazda's IMSA GTU effort, they had a way of quickly dumping and refilling the dry sump tank during driver changes.

My 15 Jetta sucks down about a half quart in 2k and another half in 5k if I leave it go. I think it may be the breather but too lazy to fix it (shame on me).

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Same here, but it's mainly 1 quart after four to five thousand miles.

GTI: No

Sequoia: No

Porsche 924S: Maybe a little, though it has new rings so it shouldn't. 

BMW rally car (with high-miles M50): No

Raider: Amazingly (since it's a Mitsubishi 6G72) no. But, it only has about 5k miles on new rings and valve seals. So it'll  burn oil eventually, like they all do. 

My WRX burned a half-quart every 5k or so once it was passing 100k miles or so (albeit with a pretty good tune and driven hard)

The Mustang will use a quart every 2,500 miles or so, it’s the first vehicle I’ve ever had that uses oil.   I’m not sure if it’s related to the design of the engine or just a thing with this particular one. Opening the hood and checking levels isn’t the worst habit to develop so win? 

ORIF (Forum Supporter) said:

My S2000 has burned a quart every 800 miles since I bought it in February 2000. Compression and leakdown numbers normal.

It has been the most reliable vehicle that I have ever owned.

Damn 800 miles a quart since new? How many miles do you have on it right now?

2014 Accord 2.4 liter with 145k miles on its usually needs 1/2 quart top off at 4,000 miles after an oil change, and then I do the next change when it hits 5,000 miles.  

Pretty much the same for the 2006 Civic 1.8 liter with 170k miles on it.  

2020 Civic Si with 1.5 turbo is too new to tell at only 2k miles, but hoping it does not "gain oil" with mile accumulation if you catch my drift.

Interesting. I was expecting a lot of stories about high oil consumption but it seems like most people are in my boat.

I like the miata story. Its that logic that has me wondering if the general public has this problem more than the enthusiast as we tend to redline engine more than most. The jury is out but 43k on our Subaru and even the CVT is happy. I cane it regularly. Its going to last forever or die fantastically.

The worst was a 2009 Honda Accord with the 2.4 four. It was fine around town, but a trip on the highway, a couple of hours at 70 mph, would easily take half a quart. We always kept oil and a funnel in the trunk.  You could hear a soft grinding sound at startup that was an indication that it was low. It would regularly drop to the add line (2ish quarts) in a week. I assume it needed oil control rings. It had 160k+ on the odometer when it was totaled. It still looked new inside and out until the wreck. It was a great car except for the oil consumption. 

The only car I had that lost oil was my 200k mile cavalier.  It mostly seeped from every gasket.  None of my others used any, even my ecotec Buick which the internet says is a terrible motor. 

My John Deere 318 is by far the worst offender of any vehicle I've owned. It burns an alarming amount of oil, even running straight 30 weight.

The LS1 in my RX7 has started consuming a bit, maybe half a quart every 2k now, but it sees redline almost every time I fire it up and has easily several hundred auto x runs on it now between this thing and the Camaro it formerly inhabited.

Other than those, I think only my 850 Turbo and B18A1 Integra burned any significant quantity of oil. The M52 in my E36 didn't use a drop, even at 210k.

j_tso said:

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Same here, but it's mainly 1 quart after four to five thousand miles.

Do you still have the MOP?  I generally remove its drive shaft and block off the flange.

I have a theory as to why RX-8s seem to burn lots of oil even though they inject less oil than any rotary before them.  The fuel normally gets into the oil as blowby past the side seals and through the gap between the side seals and corner seals.  Sealing combustion to a flat surface is difficult, after all.  On a side port exhaust engine, that blowby goes out the exhaust instead of past the oil scrapers and into the crankcase.

So it's not that they burn a lot of oil, it's more that they aren't diluting the oil with raw fuel.

Off the top of my head:

01 Maxima, 200k - no

04 Pilot, 180k - no

01 Pathfinder 175k - no

04 G35, 240k - 1qt/5000 miles

02 SE-R spec v, 190k - surprisingly no

08 Altima 2.5 - 1 qt/5000 miles

05 Accord v6, 195k - no

07 TL - no

08 Quest, 165k- .5qts/4000 miles

1988 Nissan 200sx se v6, 250k miles - 3qts per 6.5 hours of road racing (met it's demise during this scientific experiment)

Only one I had that burned oil was a 62 Caddy SDV with 550k-ish miles.  I estimate half of it burned because it had serious ring issues and the other half burned as it poured out the missing sections of valve cover gaskets onto the exhaust manifolds.

I remember Grandpa had a 460 in a motorhome that burned it super fast for the first 500 miles, then it settled in and stopped burning when the dipstick said 1 qt low.  He just started putting 5 qts in instead of 6 and it quit burning oil.  He always assumed that maybe Ford just put the wrong dipstick in it.

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

I had kind of the opposite experience with oil consumption.  Subject was a 350k ish mile Audi JT engine.  Think 8.5:1 VW 1.8l 8v with an extra cylinder and you'd be right on target.

I forget the precise numbers, but after an oil change, it would burn a quart of oil in a little under 1000mi.  It would burn a second quart faster.  By the time 3000mi oil change was due, the engine was processing about a quart every 200-250mi.

Change the oil, and the cycle would reset.

Weeeeeeird.....

1987 Novakar; one quart for every 45 miles...............of course it is a 2 stroke.

My old B210 burned a quart every 100 miles before I put fresh rings in it.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

Do you still have the MOP?  I generally remove its drive shaft and block off the flange.

Just a block off  plate. Engine was put together 7 years ago with all new seals. I may have clearanced the side seals towards the loose end and although the side housings checked out they were already high mileage.

I'm pretty sure there's a diesel joke in here somewhere. My mercedes get's about 25mpg on oil but doesn't burn any of the 10w-40 Rotella.

I think my valve stem seals are going because my S52 smokes horrendously under strong decel. It goes between 500 and 1000 per quart usually.

My 2.9 Colorado is the only thing I have the burns oil. It can get low enough between oil changes that I start to hear top end noise on quick stops or hard cornering. So I reset the trip odometer when I change the oil and check/top up at 10k. OCI is typically in the 16-20k range, so it takes a long time, the better part of a year before it gets that low.

My previous one didn't burn any oil when I got rid of it at 300k, though it had the 3.42 gear, and I put a 4.10 on this one. I thought the high highway RPM may have something to do with it.

Kia 1.6T doesn't burn a drop between changes, but I think it's one of the good Korean motors.