oil consumption, starvation, loss situation

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I have an 03 accord with 65K miles, it has been abusively driven pretty much always after break in.

I used to change the oil every 3K miles on mobil 1, but recently have gotten lax and pushing 4K+.

This week while coming off a freeway exit, I was snapping the car back and forth, exit was empty of course.

At this point, the oil pressure light came on and stayed blinking for 2 blocks at which point I pulled over, stopped and checked the oil level. It was low, below the lower dot. The car has never noticeably leaked oil so it must have all been consumed. I restarted the car and the light went away. I later added a quart and it did not bring the level to max, only to about half on the dipstick so it must have consumed over a quart since the last oil change, which was ~4K miles ago. After this incident, I have since sent out an oil sample but no results yet.

Then today because of this, I changed my oil, and probaby rushed because it was very cold, did not torque down the oil drain bolt. Naturally, it fell out and I lost all oil about 2 blocks from my house. Of course the light came on and such. At this point I babied the car back home, got a new bolt and refilled it.

The car seems to drive fine as of now, no unusual idle/vibration, powerloss, etc.

My questions now are;

1) How much damage will there be to the engine after these last two incidents?

2) How can I check for damage relatively easily, that is without a tear down and such. Should I get another oil analysis after the next change?

3) Is consumption of 1+ quart over 4K miles on a relatively recent car normal?
 
quote:

Originally posted by outersquare:



I changed my oil, and probaby rushed because it was very cold, did not torque down the oil drain bolt. Naturally, it fell out and I lost all oil about 2 blocks from my house. Of course the light came on and such. At this point I babied the car back home, got a new bolt and refilled it.


That was not good.

1) How much damage will there be to the engine after these last two incidents?

The first one probably did not cause a problem, hot oil, the low level of it and your swerving back and forth probably caused the oil not to be picked up by the pickup tube.. temporary loss of pressure.. probably lost hydrodynamic lubrication momentarily and went to the boundary regimin so a little wear there but not a big impact on engine life..HOWEVER, The second one probably did some decent wear with no oil pressure for two blocks?? You should have pushed it home.

2) How can I check for damage relatively easily, that is without a tear down and such. Should I get another oil analysis after the next change?

Yes do a UOA on the next oil change..

3) Is consumption of 1+ quart over 4K miles on a relatively recent car normal?

It is normal you should check it. Since these events expect consumption to increase.

But as you put it the car has been treated abusively since break in.. Enjoy.
 
Your in California and it was very cold? 1 quart in 4000 miles is not alot of consumption, the consumption is probably from you romping on it. Not to be nit picky, but I would have shut the car off and walked the two blocks home to get more oil instead of driving it back home with no oil in the engine. However, since it was two blocks and not ten miles, I say the engine wear will be up, but not any catastrophic engine damage will not result because of this.
 
it's as cold as it ever gets out here right now, weather.com says as low as 38F at night.

I did not realize the bolt had fallen out until I got under the car. I did see smoke, but at the time the oil pressure light did not come on so I thought it could make it home. The oil light only came on about a block away from home.
 
I would of walked one block. Some folks treat overheated engines the same way. They try to stretch the hot engine an extra block or two.

Both are bad news to many engines -- especially the aluminum ones.
 
Both incidents were not a good thing for sure. When a oil light comes on a stays on you are supposed to shut off the engine immediately. Not drive for 2 blocks. How much damage is hard to say. But for sure they took some life out of the motor. The oil light is triggered when oil pressure drops to 4 to 6 PSI. Not enough to float a bearing. So bearing wear is the main problem.

I worked at a gas station back in the 70s in high school along highway 101. I used to see people driving in with oil pressure light ON darn near a weekly bases. Most got away with it. But some did not. A couple of our regular customers that did this had a rod go thru the block within a week. Most were people who failed to check oil and just ran them out of oil.

One guy made it only about 200 feet after I just put 4 1/2 qts of oil in his car that only held 5 qts.

But surprisingly some were just fine a year later.
 
ok so i had blackstone UOAs after both incidents;

incident #1, running oil low
incident #2, losing all oil and driving around for a block or two

incident #2/#1 (most recent first)

miles on oil 4K/4.5K
miles on car 70.5K/66.5K

Aluminum 2/3
Chromium 0/0
Iron 5/6
Copper 0/0
Lead 0/0
Tin 0/0
Molybdenum 71/66
Nickel 0/0
Manganese 0/2
Silver 0/0
Titanium 0/0
Potassium 1/0
Boron 37/98
Silicon 4/5
Sodium 6/6
Calcium 2079/2390
Magnesium 10/11
Phosphorus 570/693
Zinc 668/778
Barium 0/0

2003 i4 auto accord

No apparent problems from both reports. Engine oil is always mobil 1 and honda OE Filtech filters.

I also had the car dynoed after the incident and the engine is just as strong (or weak), as ever.

This engine is bulletproof.
tongue.gif
 
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