Coming up on my longest OCI ever...

[rationull]

Going on a trip this coming weekend, and I'm estimating that I'll be at about 6700 miles on my current fill by the time the next weekend rolls around and I have ample time to change it. I was a little tempted to change it out this weekend and am still a little tempted to change it out this week sometime, which would make it my shortest OCI ever on this car at about 5900 miles.

The car is a 2007 Civic. The longest OCI before this was about 6400 miles and with 1 quart of makeup oil that UOA came back good with a TBN of 4.3. I've always changed it out with the OLM at 15% (when it starts reminding you to do it) but technically the manual says you should make an appointment at 15% and change it out at 5 or 10%. The car gets mostly highway anyway and with the 400 mile round trip coming up it'll probably still be at 15% by the time I change it.

Moreover, for whatever reason it's gone through about 2 quarts of oil this OCI. I'm running Chevron Supreme 5w-20 for the first time, and I've never seen quite that much consumption before. I'm hoping a switch back to GTX will curb it. Not too happy about this but the silver lining is it's had 2 quarts of fresh oil fed to it over the OCI which I'm guessing makes it safer to run the OCI a little longer.

I think I'm going to leave it in. Anyone want to convince me otherwise?

 

[94 saturn sl1 2000 saturn sc2]

if it makes you feel better i ran QS bulk 8800 miles on my 2000 saturn SC2 and added a half a quart at 3500 miles and have ni ill effects . In your case id be more concerned about having to add 2 quarts in 6000 miles. Thats alot IMO for a car only 3 years old.

 

[jstutz]

I believe i would keep it in there. The trip will not be hard on it and with that much makeup oil it is most likely still in really good shape.

 

[Steve S]

Change it!!!

 

[daves87rs]

CHange in oil could have caused the burnoff....I'd don't think I'd wory about it.

 

[rationull]

I'm not too terribly worried about the burn off. The car has burned a little bit of oil since new, mostly needing about a quart between ~6000 mile changes. I originally had planned to run another fill of the Chevron but after this much burning I'm switching back to something else and running the Chevron in my wife's car (which generally doesn't burn oil -- the Chevron will be an experiment). IIRC it's the thinnest 5w-20 I can get over the counter here which might explain it. The GTX is the other end of the spectrum and I'm hoping it'll be more reasonable.

 

[Chris Meutsch]

I own a 2001 Civic that I run 10k's on with PP and things couldn't be better (outside of the top end currently being re-machined but that's not the oil's fault).

I used to do Amsoil for 1 year or approx. 17k for 3 straight years. Changed the filter at 12.5k as requested back then on their filters.

 

[CourierDriver]

I run between 6000 up to 10,000 miles a month on an ancient 318 v8 dodge, with 232,000 miles on it, no oil usage, runinng rotella t6 synthetic, put that in ur Honda it will stop that oil usage. Usually I have anywhere from 500 to 3000 pound load in the van, and still crank out 16mpg. U want to swap engines. Good luck on ur trip............

 

[Rand]

I'd go another oci with the chevron.

See if it repeats the consumption.

I've used chevron frequently in the past and its one of the better oils out there.

 

[rationull]

Originally Posted By: CourierDriver
I run between 6000 up to 10,000 miles a month on an ancient 318 v8 dodge, with 232,000 miles on it, no oil usage, runinng rotella t6 synthetic, put that in ur Honda it will stop that oil usage. Usually I have anywhere from 500 to 3000 pound load in the van, and still crank out 16mpg. U want to swap engines. Good luck on ur trip............


Hah! Not sure my Honda engine has enough torque to spin with rotella in it, so I think you're right

 

[rationull]

Originally Posted By: Rand
I'd go another oci with the chevron.

See if it repeats the consumption.

I've used chevron frequently in the past and its one of the better oils out there.



I thought about that and I am a little tempted but I'm not sure I want to do that to my catalytic converter.

 

[sicko]

What's your OLM at? Personally I wouldn't sweat it, you've added make up oil which helps a lot. If it's convenient to change it before going then do it. Otherwise just change it when you get back.

I also think you should stick with the Chevron Supreme for another OCI or two. It's a great oil and the consumption when changing oils like that isn't entirely uncommon and usually goes down after a few changes

 

[rationull]

OLM's shows 20% right now which means it's somewhere between 15% and 20%. Closer to 20 because I think it said 30% yesterday.

I don't understand what could cause consumption to stop at this point given the oil's already been in there for a while. I do have a 1 OCI supply of Supreme sitting in my garage next to the GTX though so it is an easy option.

 

[SERonBLAST]

Chevron Supreme is the reason. Thats a lower end oil, and not even synthetic. Stick with the GTX, or go with the Rotella T6 Syn, It is one of the cheaper syn oils out there. 4.4ltr for $28.
Compared to $45 for 2ltrs of the Motul 300v i have been using. lol

 

[hardcore302]

I would change it. Try a synthetic, or atleast a blend..

 

[Y_K]

Gentlemen, oil consumption is like internal medicine in the professional medical field. Too many variables and scenarios. Consider one of them: you drive short runs for a couple of thousand miles and the oil level is fine, then after a nice 100 mile run on highway you are over a quart down. You simply burned out all the condensation that masked the burn-off before the highway run. There is *always* an oil burn off no matter what you were lead to believe. Degrees are varying of course. Chevron Supreme is a truly supreme mass production conventional oil. And replenishing oil by a couple of quarts is a good thing IMHO.

 

[jstutz]

You mentioned in your post that this is the first time you used CS 5w20. Do you mean just the brand Chevron or do you mean the 5w20. The GTX you ran before was it also 5w20? I know chevron has a reputation of being one of the thinnest oils in the grade. This is usually talked about with there 5w30 and such but maybe there 5w20 in on the thinner side as well. If the chevron supreme and the GTX you were running are the same grade, maybe look up the data sheets and see if the chevron is thinner than the GTX. Im betting if it is it probably wont be by much. If the GTX was 5w30 then you may just be consuming more do to haveing a 5w20 in there. If you already have the oil, run it one more time just for argument sake, that two quarts your going to burn over the next 6k miles wont hurt anything. You have to burn a lot of oil for it to really harm your cat. I have a chevy truck that has run HDEO 15w40 CI oil most of its life and its a 93 model. It almost always uses a qt between 3 to 5 K mile changes. It passed emissions inspection up till a few years ago when NC stopped checking it for vehicles that were old. Im really interested to see if it is the brand switch that causing the consumption or the actual oil.

 

[rationull]

First time I used the brand. This car has only ever seen 5w-20, and I've used Exxon SuperFlo, Pennzoil conventional, Motorcraft, GTX, and now the CS. The CS is the thinnest in that bunch followed by the Pennzoil. The GTX is the thickest.

All brands have burned some oil but this one has burned the most. I don't really have detailed records but the Motorcraft and the GTX burned the least I think, around a quart but a bit more on one fill or another.

I have an oil change worth of CS and GTX in the garage and if I put the change off until a couple weeks from now then I've got plenty of time to think about it. It would be interesting to see if the consumption stops, though. Either way I'm going to monitor it more closely this time.

 

[rationull]

I don't know if I can do it! Looking at my records, my average OCI has been 6126 miles based on the OLM, with the longest being 6418 miles and the shortest 5672. If I don't change it out one day this week, I'll be at 6635 miles or so by next weekend. I just hope the OLM doesn't go off on Friday night because I won't want to leave for the trip after it goes off, but I also won't want to do the change that night.

I feel like I did when I first broke my 3k mile habit years ago!

If I do end up waiting, I'm tempted to get a used oil analysis but the makeup oil will probably throw it off by a lot...

 

[Gene K]

Your longest oil change was 6400 miles with 1 Qt add oil and the TBN came back 4.3?

What are you worried about? You added 2 Qt of make up oil.
The miles you are talking about adding will be easy highway miles for the most part.
Warmup is quick this time of year and TBN takes less of a beating.
You will make it easily in my opinion.

As a matter of fact Im not sure you even need oil changes. If you ran an extended drain oil you could likely just change the filter every 10,000 miles and keep adding oil if it took a Qt every 3,000 miles.