How bad for your engine is burning oil?

[Carlostrece]

I remember one auto manufacturer specified that burning up to one quart oil every 700 miles was acceptable. After that, a repair or engine rebuild was in order.

I've heard that same thing many times as being a good standard for cars in general. It's the standard I follow. But I'm just an amateur DIY maintenance person. I wonder what a professional mechanic would say? Probably the same or similar advice is my guess.

 

[Japanese]

Thanks. I’ve seen someone do that on this truck but it still looks like more work than continuing to add oil, if my valves are not going to explode….

I doubt you have that much oil consumtion just from leaky valve stem seal. It's very unlikely.
Do you have blue smoke on cold start up? That is a certain sign for leaky valve seals. But even if you do, that oil consumption is not because of them. I have a friend with leaky valve seals and he barely have any oil consumption.

Most likely your oil rings are stuck and couse the excessive oil consumption. The laziest way is to try Valvoline Restore and Protect for 4 consecutive oil changes per 5K miles.

The second laziest way (but require a bit skills) is to soak your pistons with Berryman B-12 for about 24-48 hours and then again run Valvoline Restore and Protect for 4 OCI.

 

[Japanese]

Warning: This flat rate trick is not for amateurs….

Remove valve covers.
Remove spark plugs.
Remove rocker arms.
Put first cylinder at BDC.
Using compressed air and a compression gauge attachment screwed into spark plug hole fill the cylinder with compressed air and leave compressor running to keep cylinder pressurized.
Remove valve springs and keepers from the pressurized cylinder.
Valves will not fall into the pressurized cylinder.
Replaced valve stem seals as normal.
Reinstall valve springs and keepers.
Repeat each of these steps on the next cylinder.


Edit: This was for non overhead cam engines. You might be out of luck. Sorry

Thanks for the procedure!
Is it possible to do TDC (instead of BDC) and not use a compressor?

 

[GW.]

Thanks for the procedure!
Is it possible to do TDC (instead of BDC) and not use a compressor?

I suppose if the valves didn’t fall too far into the cylinder and rested on top of the pistons it’s possible. But I’ve never seen anyone gamble with that.

 

[rstsco]

I remember one auto manufacturer specified that burning up to one quart oil every 700 miles was acceptable. After that, a repair or engine rebuild was in order.

Audi specced excessive oil consumption as using a quart or more every 600 miles. If over 600 miles per quart, don't worry about it. That's "normal".

Added: Appears the spec for the 2022 Q5 EA888 2.0L engine is 1,000 miles, so much more "reasonable" compared to the earlier versions.

 

[CarlB]

"sola dosis facit venenum"

 

[vwmaniaman]

I had a Ford F150 in 1974 with a 360 motor. That thing used a quart every 600 miles. I switched it to Castrol GTX 10-40 ajnd it stopped using so much oil and then used only 1 quart between 3k changes. I don't know why but it made me happy. That old truck with that 360 and the cuise-o-matic got 16 mpg hauling a rick of firewood.

 

[andrew_j]

My truck burns a lot of oil(a quart every 600 miles roughly.) Likely bad valve stem seals which are a major pain to replace. I don’t mind feeding it oil, but I’m curious how bad this is for the engine. Does it put significantly more wear on the valves?

Given that Valvoline Restore and Protect won’t help with shot 22 year old seals, is there anything else I can run to help it? Maybe an oil with a higher flashpoint or something.

At 22 years irrelevant, be happy it works and hope it does not get worst.

 

[martinq]

Audi specced excessive oil consumption as using a quart or more every 600 miles. If over 600 miles per quart, don't worry about it. That's "normal".

Added: Appears the spec for the 2022 Q5 EA888 2.0L engine is 1,000 miles, so much more "reasonable" compared to the earlier versions.

Completely obscene. If any of my vehicles used 1qt/L over an OCI I would be looking for a cleaning solution or a teardown / rebuild. Even though this has never happened to me I'm happy to take the easy route with Valvoline Restore and Protect.

 

[daniel327]

Yep, there's no reason that I can think of to skip Valvoline Restore and Protect. I'd consider that step one and it's as easy as an oil change.

Step one should be the use of a good oil flushing chemical/detergent. (I used AC-21 oil flush and the amount of crap that came out with the old oil was both very impressive and somewhat disappointing). Otherwise, you're likely to overload your fresh oil with crap that can easily be removed prior to filling the engine with the fresh oil, thereby inhibiting its capacity to clean the piston rings..

 

[Mackelroy]

My truck burns a lot of oil(a quart every 600 miles roughly.) Likely bad valve stem seals which are a major pain to replace. I don’t mind feeding it oil, but I’m curious how bad this is for the engine. Does it put significantly more wear on the valves?

Given that Valvoline Restore and Protect won’t help with shot 22 year old seals, is there anything else I can run to help it? Maybe an oil with a higher flashpoint or something.

That kind of oil burn, be shocked if valve seals.

 

[lazarus55]

That kind of oil burn, be shocked if valve seals.

It’s a known problem with this truck and I do a lot of short trips (cloud of smoke on startup) but you may be right. The previous owner used a mediocre synthetic blend oil that probably dirtied it up over time.

 

[2strokeNorthstar]

I'd Be more concerned about contaminating the catalyst and 02 sensers.

My Northstar burned an alarming amount of oil. The only damage was to the catalytic converter. Ran great until we sold it with over 180k miles

 

[lazarus55]

My Northstar burned an alarming amount of oil. The only damage was to the catalytic converter. Ran great until we sold it with over 180k miles

Luckily I don’t have to do emissions inspections with it being over 20 years old so I don’t give a **** about the cats

 

[Chris142]

Luckily I don’t have to do emissions inspections with it being over 20 years old so I don’t give a **** about the cats

We have to smog all cars 1976 and newer here

 

[lazarus55]

We have to smog all cars 1976 and newer here

Sounds like California… only people I’ve ever heard call it smogging

 

[Chris142]

Sounds like California… only people I’ve ever heard call it smogging

And every freeway is "The".

 

[Gus_Mahn]

I bought a then 2 year old ‘97 4.6 F150 with 164,000 miles. It burned a quart of oil about every 850miles on 5w30 and a little over quart every 1000 miles on 5w40 castrol Syntech. It was guides: puff of oil smoke on cold start, or long decel. I sold it with over 330,000 miles on it and added over 100 quarts of oil to it. It never set a cat code or an O2 sensor code related to oil burning.

I’d say yours is significantly worse having 2 less cylinders and using more oil. Will it cause you issues? IDK. Some do. Some don’t. Keep us informed.

 

[lazarus55]

I bought a then 2 year old ‘97 4.6 F150 with 164,000 miles. It burned a quart of oil about every 850miles on 5w30 and a little over quart every 1000 miles on 5w40 castrol Syntech. It was guides: puff of oil smoke on cold start, or long decel. I sold it with over 330,000 miles on it and added over 100 quarts of oil to it. It never set a cat code or an O2 sensor code related to oil burning.

I’d say yours is significantly worse having 2 less cylinders and using more oil. Will it cause you issues? IDK. Some do. Some don’t. Keep us informed.

So far I’ve put 23,000 miles on it and burned 30-40 quarts. No problems thus far.

 

[50yr Street Mech]

Try using BG-109 engine flush prior to next oil changes. Stopped my Honda K24 from burning oil.