Burning oil questions

[wolfy]

I own a 1996 Acura 3.2 TL that has 149K miles. I drive about 85 miles round trip to work daily, get good engine performance, and since I do expressway driving to work with only 2 traffic lights, I get 27-28 MPG.

Here’s the problem: after the engine has warmed up, when I accelerate from a stop (always easy on the gas) I get blue smoke out the exhaust for about 5 seconds, longer if I have been idling for a longer stoplight. Once I’m rolling, no more exhaust smoke. I add a quart of oil about every 800-1000 miles, depending if I do more stop and go driving.

There is no oil leaking from the engine and it never smokes on start up. My mechanic figures the valves are probably ok, else I would get smoke on start up after sitting overnight. He figures it is probably worn oil rings.

I bought this car with 120k miles on it – at 128k I started using 5w30 Valvoline MaxLife oil – at 135k is when I noticed the smoking started. I read elsewhere on this forum that MaxLife is the thinnest High Mileage oil, so I’m going to switch to the Pennzoil High Mileage. Will it help reduce oil consumption to move from 5w30 to High Mileage 10w30 oil at the same time?

I was thinking about an AutoRX treatment, but I read in the Additives forum that some people had more oil consumption after the treatment, not less, so I’m leary of going this route.

I don’t intend to keep this car forever – if I can get another 30K miles I’ll be happy so my question is will the burning get substantially worst or will it stay about where it is? I know burning oil isn’t good for the cat converter, but will that be a show stopper later or will the cat converter just not do its emissions clean-up thing?

 

[Brandon Gatz]

ARX ftw

seriously, try it. there is no greater example of a converted skeptic than myself.

or switch to 20w50, you're oil loss will quite likely drop to a trickle...

 

[JAG]

I agree with your mechanic's conclusion about it being the rings and not the valves.
Oil consumption is one of those complicated things in which some people report less consumption with thicker oils and other report the opposite. But in case of worn rings, I really would put all my money into the thicker oil choice. Another factor is oil volatility but that seems secondary to viscosity. I don't know the viscosity of your current oil at 212F off the top of my head but if I were you I'd try another oil that is at least 1 cst thicker at 212F than your current oil...might as well make the change a significant one. It doesn't matter if it's 5w30 or 10w30. For now I'd stick to mineral oils (High Mileage oils are ok even if they contain some synthetic component) to avoid throwing the synthetic variable into the mix.

 

[m2200b]

ValvoMLHM 5-30 and 10-30 at 100C are 10.6
ValvoMLHM 10-40 is 13.9
PennHM 5-30 is 11.7
PennHM 10-30 is 12
CastrolHM 5-30 is 12
CastrolHM 10-30 is 12.1
CastrolHM 10-40 is 16

If you drive enough freeway if you warmup I'd look at 10-40HM to see whether you can get less consumption. The 5-30 shear back quicker than 10-30 and you are looking for thicker 30 or 40w at freeway speeds.

Stop light blue smoke is valve stems. I'd be sure your pvc system ( grommet, valve and hose are all perfect). They will make bad valve seals worse.

autoRX can help the rings seal better as you have 120k miles of who knows maintenace. Might get you back to 30W oil and keep your gas mileage at 27-28.

Your converter will fail eventually with enough oil burning but if NM tests for smog very tough
you'll fail HC first. I'd guess you'd still pass in CA tests at that level until the cat degrades.
You can cook the cat to restore it and they aren't that expensive to replace with aftermarket cats even on an OB2 system. Its usually cheaper to fix a cat than do the rings
so slowing consumption with oil changes and autorx are cheap fixes compared to the rest.

 

[Schism]

The castrol 10w40HM slowed the oil use in my moms van so far by about 30-50%. It doesn't smoke or anything though so i'm unsure of what is causing our oil consumption problems. But it might work for you.

 

[wolfy]

Thanks for the quick replies - glad I finally found out about this great forum.

Based on what I have heard so far my plan is:

1. Switch to PennHM 10-30 - this will give me 1.4 cst thicker oil.

2. If the burning is still unacceptable I'll go to ValvoMLHM 10-40 which will be 3.3 cst thicker. I'm sure this will start lowering my gas mileage, so I have to see what the trade offs are at this point.

3. If still nothing, I'll try the ARX, what the ****.

Forgot to mention I did replace the PVC valve recently, which made no difference, so I'm assuming it was ok to begin with.

FYI, I live in the part of NM that doesn't do emissions testing.

m2200b: You said "Stop light blue smoke is valve stems" - if this were true, I would get blue smoke upon starting after sitting overnight, right? But I don't see this happening.

 

[Ugly3]

Strongly suggest Auto-RX. In my case I used 1 pint in 5,000 miles, did an Auto-RX treatment and oil consumption is -0- and the power is up substantially. My vehicle had 173,000 miles on it at the time.

 

[oilyriser]

I drove a car a while back that starting blowing blue smoke one day while I was lined up 5 minutes waiting for traffic to move. It stopped a few minutes after things got moving. This happened once again a few weeks later, but never again after that. This might have been a case of temporarily stuck rings.

 

[m2200b]

I'd go to 40w first OIC.

If the pcv grommet is 10 years old, it no longer seals the pcv and is hard rather than flexible rubber. The bad seal is evidenced by either dirt or dust around the pcv on the valve cover or above it on your hood and how easy it is to get the pcv in and out. It should be a tight cork in wine bottle fit like it was when it was new. Any doubts pull out one on a 1-2 year old car than yours. Use the dorman site to get the part number for your car as that the brand is usually stocked in auto parts stores.

 

[fred0803]

Others are correct. Try Auto RX and see if it frees up potentially stuck rings.

I don't think that's it however. More than likely it valve stem seals. Not a dangerous thing as long as you can live with oil consumption. Sad thing is, you can repair them with $20 with new stem seals. But it takes a person knowing how to do it. Mine took 4 hours if you only have to get to the intake through the valve covers. If you have to remove the intake manifold then... It's more time.

 

[Elroy the Unique]

This reminds me a lot of my formerly-owned 1992 Honda Accord. It did the blue smoke thing as well--a puff of smoke upon acceleration. However, I could also get it to smoke if I reved the engine up right after I started it up--a nice plume of blue smoke.

Anyway, it would use about 1 quart of oil every 1000 miles. Over a period of 2 years it got worse and worse until finally it was 1 quart every 300 miles. Suspecting the valve stem seals, my father-in-law helped me put all new valve stem seals on. This did NOTHING... I continued to drive it this way until it died one day on the freeway (a few of the exhaust valves broke and it had no compression).

My father-in-law took the car and ended up redoing the engine. He said the oil rings were totally stuck and he had to drill them out somehow.

Guessing that yours is similar with its Honda engine, I would suggest an Auto-RX treatment, or as I've seen with Saturns, a Marvel Mystery Oil Overnight piston soak. You probably need to de-gunk/de-carb the rings. Any thick oil is kind of a band-aid approach that may or might not work.

You could also try adding Marvel Mystery Oil to the engine oil for a few treatments--as that's it's suggested application...

 

[Quest]

2 rounds of AutoRx cleaning and rinsing and you shall have that bluesmoke problems well under control.

 

[Drew99GT]

I agree with Quest. Do 2 full cycles of Auto-RX and then see where your at. Likely, the engine had lackluster oil change intervals from the previous owner(s) and there's oxidized oil deposits in the engine. They can make the piston rings stick and the valve stem seals leak/become hard and brittle. Follow the directions carefully. The fact you do highway driving will make the treatments more effective since the engine will stay at operating temp longer. Use a non-HM conventional oil for the RX treatments.

 

[427Z06]

I too vote for the double Auto-RX treatment. Very inexpensive compared to other solutions.

On a side note, have you taken a flashlight and looked into the oil filler hole? What does the dipstick look like?

 

[jonny-b]

Two Auto-Rx treatments is the way to go. After finishing, you should also use a 3-ounce maintenance doze, to ensure the engine stay clean afterwards.

 

[Jim Allen]

I'm gonna take a different tack here.

Look, you have 150K miles on an engine with a basically unknown previous service history. No oil or oil treatments is going to put metal back on worn parts. No matter what you do in the way of oil or additives, you gonna be doing some engine work sooner than later just because of the mileage.

If it were my car, I'd start with thicker oil. Doesn't cost you any more to change the oil with a 10W-40 than anything else.

Never tried the RX treatments. If they're cheap, I suppose they couldn't hurt and they might help. With 150K miles, though, I rather doubt they would help (significantly), though feel free to prove me wrong. If it doesn't work, and there's significant expense, you're just throwing money into an engine that would be better applied to the upcoming upper-end overhaul or a new car.

 

[wolfy]

I'm the guy that started this thread.

Changed my oil today from Valvoline HM 5w30 to Pennzoil High Mileage 10w40. This definitely cut down on the blue smoke problem - just a small puff now and then in city stop & go. Switching gives me 4.9 cst thicker oil - quite a jump.

I did change my PVC valve about a month ago, but I'm going to check the hose, too.

I'll report back in a week or so on the new oil consumption rate and how this is affecting the gas mileage.

At least I won't have as many drivers cussing at me as before...

 

[wolfy]

I'm the guy that started this thread.

Changed my oil today from Valvoline HM 5w30 to Pennzoil High Mileage 10w40. This definitely cut down on the blue smoke problem - just a small puff now and then in city stop & go. Switching gives me 4.9 cst thicker oil - quite a jump.

I did change my PVC valve about a month ago, but I'm going to check the hose, too.

I'll report back in a week or so on the new oil consumption rate and how this is affecting the gas mileage.

At least I won't have as many drivers cussing at me as before...