2000 Grand Am. OIL BURNER. What oil to use?

[spartus]

My GF has a 2000 Grand Am 2.4l cylinder with 114k on it. Since new She's used the GM oil life system which always go off around 4000-5000 miles. For the last 50k miles or so she's had to add 1 quart every 1000 miles. She always goes to Quaker State and uses 5W30 which the manual calls for.

What would be your guys tips on a different oil I could try in order to reduce the burning? I did the last oil change for her and put in Valvoline high mileage 5w30 with a Supertech filter.

We live in Michigan, so keep cold winter in mind when recommending an oil. I don't expect anything lower than 10-15 degrees though.

Would Delo 400 15w40 or Retella T 15W40 from my Diesel work?

Thanks For any ideas.

 

[mewisemagic]

might try the auto-rx treatment

 

[LargeCarManX2]

I would try a 10-30 or 10-40 synthetic!

 

[spartus]

I have a bottle of Auto-RX I purchased for my Caprice. Maybe I'll dump it into her car on the next oil change.

How about Auto-RX and Rotella 5W40 for the clean cycle?
The new Rotella is ultra low sulfer, so that should be fine on the CAT I would think.. ??

 

[JimKJSVT]

Use Dino for Auto-RX

 

[LargeCarManX2]

The low number of the equation is what you need to bump up to burn less oil per mile

 

[tsmay51]

I would try the auto rx with some dino 5w30 or 10w30 and see how that works out for the car.

 

[spartus]

I went and purchased a jug of SuperTech 10W30 and some SuperTech filters the other day. She currently has 1k miles on the current oil change (5W30 MAXlife), so this is a good time to dump in the Auto-RX. At 3k, I'll dump and start the rinse cycle with the 10W30.

Or maybe I should dump the Valvoline MaxLife first? It is a Dino oil, so figured it would be ok.

 

[BlazerLT]

REplace the PCV valve and see if it still burns oil.

 

[Francis]

Quote:

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Would Delo 400 15w40 or Retella T 15W40 from my Diesel work?

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That is excatly what I would be running if it were me.

 

[SteveD2]

Quote:

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REplace the PCV valve and see if it still burns oil.

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There is No PCV valve in this car. It has some sort of complex oil separation system. This engine also has a complex water pump system.

If the inner seal in the water pump fails, coolant will be dumped into the oil. Are you having a lot of blow-by? Is the engine peppy or gutless? What colour is the oil?

 

[SteveD2]

Does the oil look like tar or white like cream?

 

[Ray H]

Does the oil on the dipstick smell vaguely "sweet" like antifreeze?

 

[grampi48]

Quote:

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My GF has a 2000 Grand Am 2.4l cylinder with 114k on it. Since new She's used the GM oil life system which always go off around 4000-5000 miles. For the last 50k miles or so she's had to add 1 quart every 1000 miles. She always goes to Quaker State and uses 5W30 which the manual calls for.

What would be your guys tips on a different oil I could try in order to reduce the burning? I did the last oil change for her and put in Valvoline high mileage 5w30 with a Supertech filter.

We live in Michigan, so keep cold winter in mind when recommending an oil. I don't expect anything lower than 10-15 degrees though.

Would Delo 400 15w40 or Retella T 15W40 from my Diesel work?

Thanks For any ideas.

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Take it to a Honda or Toyota dealership.

 

[427Z06]

Quote:

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My GF has a 2000 Grand Am 2.4l cylinder with 114k on it. Since new She's used the GM oil life system which always go off around 4000-5000 miles. For the last 50k miles or so she's had to add 1 quart every 1000 miles...

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I'd first find out if these engines are known oil consumers at this mileage, and what causes it.

 

[JohnnyO]

I put Valvoline Max Life in my mother's Cadillac this time and it burns less oil than it did with Mobil 1. It does not have high miles but pre-2000 Caddy Northstars are known oil burners. For your GF's Grand Am, yeah I'd run a double Auto-RX treatment with dino oil (change oil & filter, add ARX, run 1500 miles, change oil & filter, run another 1500 on plain oil, repeat) then use Max Life or another high-mileage oil. That should slow it down. My wife used to have a '99 Grand Am with the same engine, we traded it in with about 70k on it and it used very little oil.

 

[JohnnyO]

Also Auto-RX does not recommend using synthetic, semi-syn, or high-mileage oils for the rinse cycle. I would not use a 15w-40 in Michigan, use a 10w-30 at most.

 

[427Z06]

You might try asking about known issues here:

http://www.quad4forums.com/forums/index.php

http://www.gaownersclub.com/forum/index.php

 

[spartus]

Thanks for the tips. Yeah, I searched high and low for the PCV and could not find one. I figured maybe they used some type of solenoid valve or something. Maybe on one of them links posted above (thank you) I can get some more info on why she may be burning oil.

To answer a few of your questions, no the car does not use any antifreeze. It's still new looking after being flushed two years ago with DEXcool. The oil is black, and gets that way less than 100 miles after the oil change. So this leads me to believe that there is quite a bit of buildup inside the engine.

Anyone ever run A-RX longer than 2000 miles? Since It burns oil so quickly I was thinking of leaving it in for maybe 2500 miles. This would include over 2 quarts of top off during that time. I'd bet some of the A-RX will burn off too so figured I should let it work longer.

 

[spartus]

oh, and there seems to be no power loss. It has plenty of pep.