She has a few months before the next oci, which runs about 5000-6000 with maintenance minder.
So are we talking a quart in 3500-4000 miles?
No, it's been about 2500-3000 miles at most. Probably closer to the 2500 number. This is not my DD, and I actually don't care for the car at all. But, I seldom drive it so I don't mind her preferences, but I don't want a 40k+ car becoming a large paperweight shortly out of warranty.
Well let us know what they do. My guess is they more or less tell you politely to get screwed. This is what Subaru did to their customers for years that warm place is going to freeze over before I buy a Subaru.
That about sums it up. The smart money is on they'll send him packing saying it's normal unless there's a leak they can see. It will probably go something like this after the mention of oil consumption: How much oil is it using sir? A quart in x miles. That's well within the acceptable oil usage range. Their magic number for oil usage will always be less than x, unless x is about 400-500 miles. Good luck!
Well, I suppose before I tell them what my range is, I should compel them to tell me what the mileage is that qualifies as a problem? I know Subaru kept vehicles with the oil control ring issues from the first sets of FB20/25's and did an oil consumption test on them.
Have you gone under to take a look for anything abnormal? It sounds like this is sudden so check the filter and elsewhere for leaks.
Let’s not shoot the Vehicle until we know the whole story
I usually try to check it about every other week on the weekends. But, I'll admit that it's probably been about a month since I've last checked it. I'm a little more vigilant about my car, but that's partially because I can do it anytime I want. With rotating shift work, sometimes I don't have an opportunity to check hers, and I'm not going to check it in the middle of the night before or after a shift.
Previously it had not any type of oil consumption to cause any concern.
I am not seeing any visible problems in the engine bay, like fluids. Also not seeing anything on the driveway.
The long-term concern over burning, say, 2 quarts of oil (out of the ~5ish that's in there for an oil change) is that it'll mess up the catalytic converter.
Are you sure it wasn't short-filled at the last oil change - maybe even a half-quart short? Sounds like the dealer did the last oil change - not you.
Just use your 5w-30 grade. One quart top-off won't hurt a thing. You could run the entire crankcase on 5w-30, if you wish.
What I can say is that when I checked it the last time, it was comfortably within the middle of the high/low markings. However, while I try to do a bi-weekly interval for her car, I will admit it's probably been about a month since I last checked it.
I would be hesitant to run 5w30 unless I saw some UOA's showing that there were no elevated metals in comparison to the 0w20 OEM stuff.
You're correct. Mostly out of peace of mind, I take my wife's car to the dealer for service. Again, I've done my own oil changes on my Subarus, but I'm familiar with them and the steps. The EarthDreams engine is new to me and I'd rather not tinker around in uncharted territory on her car. If it was my car? Sure, I don't mind having a few learning curves and gotchas along the way.
I did buy the Mobil Super 0w20 - I mean, it's unopened, I can return it... but I have the correct viscosity... why not use it?
The bigger question is whether or not I should bring it to Honda to look at and log and document, or just take care of it on my own and keep an eye on it. Again, adding a quart once or twice over an OCI isn't the end of the world, but, I'm sure that oil is going to degrade the efficiency and eventually kill the cat, which is a more substantial repair compared to the "$5" quarts of PP or M1 0w20 that I can ship-to-store. I paid a little extra at the local auto store because they had it on hand and close, and hey, the money stays in my town, that's always good. Small business!
Leaving for a vacation in the relatively near future, so I may have to pursue this a little more aggressively in the following weeks.
I just don't want Honda to tell me that they'll keep an eye on it for next time at the 30k service, and then at 36k, they're telling me I'm out of warranty but confirm the problem.
