Longer Oil Changes for Oil Burning Vehicles?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Mar 17, 2008
Messages
8,137
Location
Michigan
If your vehicle burns oil and you are constantly adding oil (lets say every 1,000-2,000 miles), would you have the potential to go longer on an OCI since you are replenishing the oil/additives on a regular basis? Or would the issue with oil burning cause the oil to be contaminated faster which would necessitate shorter OCI's?
 
IIRC someone asked a question like that on one of boards I frequent, and the answer was yes they could be extended. It might have even been on BITOG. Someone even did some calculations as to how much longer, wish I could find the thread.
 
I've never found myself in this unenviable position. My opinion is that moderation is the key. We've all heard the stories and legends about the friend with the car that was propelled by nothing other than the combustion of wayward oil fumes
wink.gif
. And how the owner ran the car for 475,000 miles by doing nothing other than adding a quart every other day. . .
smirk2.gif


Seriously, while I suspect that cars like this can have their OCIs extended somewhat, I would think that there's probably a very high level of contamination of the oil happening in an engine that seems to have little ability to keep separate the combustion process and the lube system. Personally, I suspect I'd just go ahead and change on time, figuring, what the heck, I'm already spending a fortune on oil, why not??? I would, however, definitely choose the heaviest dino I knew would work, hoping to control BOTH costs and consumption.
 
In theory, fresh oil will extend intervals. In the case where a sump was run very low, lke >2q or 50% capacity, the remaining oil is damaged and should be drained before topping. I've done this often while leaving the offender's filter in place.
 
My car burns oil... and it's got over 75,000 miles. I've only owned it for about 8 months. The oil was fresh when I got it, and I've only changed it twice. I noticed it burned oil after I changed it the first time. So the second time I used Pennz Plat to clean it all out. It's still burning oil, and it's been 4,000 miles since I changed it. I've used 2.5 qts topping it off in that time. I plan on changing after 5,000 miles. This time I'm going to use a high mileage oil, and go 5,000 miles again...
 
Last edited:
If my car were still using a full quart every 1,100 miles, I would just keep adding oil, then change the filter every 12,000 miles.
 
I'd extend the interval to around 10,000 or so. But I also would dump the oil at least once a year in order to clean any contaminates out of the sump...
 
Can't find the UOA right now, but there is a member on here who recently posted a couple of UOA's, one at 10k miles, and one at 15k miles, all on Chevron Supreme 5W-30 dino. It was a Prizm or Corolla, and it consumes about 1 quart/1k miles, so these long, long runs were possible. Numbers were pretty good for the miles...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top