You might want to PM buster. He had his lowest consuption I belive with either Amsoil 0W30 or Redline 5W20. He was driveing a Carola as well.
Oils that lessen consumption
- Thread starter Drew99GT
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Don't discount the German Castrol 0W-30. Even at the upper viscosity grade it's more like 40 weight. Synthetic it should flow fine in winter, escpecially a 0W.
No one will believe me, but with my old stuck-ringed engine, I burned the least with 5w20 in the crankcase. I tried *everything* else, from HDEOs, to thick PCMOs, to High Mileage oils and they all burned out pretty quickly, EXCEPT the 5w20.. it took notably longer to disappear. Counter intuitive, yes... but true.
Mix in or top with some MaxLife 10w-40 or try the thick GTX HM, it had very low consumption when I used it.
There's your answer. Build an oil/air separator that lets the oil drain back down the walls of the vent tube.
On the subject of oil consumption, here's one that happened to me. Back in 1968 I owned a 1961 Ford Falcon with the small straight 6. There was about 73,000 so, for the engines of its time, it was getting tired. This car was burning about a quart every 500 to 600 miles. Anyhow, one day in the winter, I happened to notice I wasn't getting any heat. By the time I realized that I had lost coolant, a volcano of steam was coming from under the hood so I pulled over and stopped. I was near a service station so I bought a gallon of antifreeze, some patching tape for the radiator hose, and brought back a gallon of water. The engine had cooled somewhat but after patching the hose and filling with antifreeze and water, I tried to start it but the engine was seized. It was suggested I let the engine cool even more so I did. Lo and behold, a half hour later, the engine started fine. Now here is the weird part: There seemed to be no permanent damage to the engine but the engine no longer burned oil anywhere near like before, I was able to go almost 3,000 miles before adding a quart. Now, go figure!
Hmmmmmmmmm, Roy. Maybe I'll drain my cooling system and go for a drive!
Maybe the temporary extra heat free'd up the stuck rings?
10W30 seems more in the correct viscosity for a 94. Suppoosedly no thicker when hot, but still.
How many miles on the engine? 1 quart every 1K is not bad at all though for a 94 especailly high miles.
Actually, if it's valve seals even just 10W30 might help because often it's when it sits, the oil is cooler anyway, and drains overnight into the combustion chamber. 10W30 still thin enough for winter also for an older engine.
How many miles on the engine? 1 quart every 1K is not bad at all though for a 94 especailly high miles.
Actually, if it's valve seals even just 10W30 might help because often it's when it sits, the oil is cooler anyway, and drains overnight into the combustion chamber. 10W30 still thin enough for winter also for an older engine.
I had a 93 which used no oil, my brother has a 96 which eats oil like yours. The problem is that some of the motors had bad oil control rings, and both you and my bro got one of em, so changing the head wont help cause its the short block. You can run som 10w30 and it will help a little but it will also make the motor a little sluggish, at least it did in mine. The 96 is actually used for a courier car, has 30k on it in the last 4 months alone and we still run 5w30 cause anything thicker hurts the mpg every time, this is my experience. I would just let it burn if i were you, it wont die anytime sooner or even fail emissions, its just a little like a rotary, it uses oil. You can check out the toyota forums, this is a fairly well known issue, they use oil - I have noticed that it seems to use oil faster when it gets dirty, have you noticed this on yours by chance?
If all the oil's ending up in the catch can then it's not the oil rings or the valve seals. Something is probably wrong with the PCV system. Did you use an OEM new PCV valve? Aftermarket ones sometimes give the wrong flow rate.
If you're not going to do any engine maintenance/restoration in order to reduce burning, I'd go with at least a 10W-30 or 40 in winter. I think cold start-up is the least of your worries at this point. Then go with a 15W-40 in summer.
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Don't discount the German Castrol 0W-30. Even at the upper viscosity grade it's more like 40 weight. Synthetic it should flow fine in winter, escpecially a 0W.
My Saturn burned right through 0W-30 SYNTEC for a while, in highway driving (over the summer though). But it has slowed some, and burns comparatively little while just doing day to day off-highway driving.
But you really don't want to be topping off a car with a $5.60 bottle of oil...
It depends on what is causing the consumption. If it's caused by wear, you aren't going to find much help for that short of a rebuild. If it's caused by seals that can be reconditioned by using something like ARX or a high mileage oil, then you may see a reduction. I wouldn't recommend running a heavier weight oil. I tried that in my Tercel and it made the engine sluggish feeling and it was causing some sort of strange vibration that wasn't there when using the correct weight.
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Hey, thanks for the info. I don't frequent Toyota forums, maybe I should! And yes, the consumption does seem to increase after about 2,000 miles into an oil change. It will usually burn it's first quart after about 1500 to even 2,000 miles into an interval and then it goes way up from there.
The PCV valve is indeed OEM.
I guess I'll just live with it. Still a great little car and I've practically driven around the Earth with it and it's never let me down. I trust it a lot!
My experience is similar to yours Drew, I thought I had it good when I tried 15w50 this summer and didn't see the oil level drop until about 2,000 miles and when it went down it seemed to drop a 1/4 quart within a gas tank and from there on it loses more oil quickly. I'm sure with short oil changes (2,000 miles) I would be able to get away with not topping off, as it is right now with 15w40 delo in my own car I have filled up a quart make up oil(filling it with my .59 cent 5w30 Chevron Supreme) and it has been 2,000 miles. I found out that the dipstick is about 1.5 quarts from the full to add marks when I first got the car and I tossed in a quart and it brought it to full but no farther when it was about 2/3 the way down the crosshatching on the stick, which is a bit deceiving when I am trying to measure consumption.
It seems that it consumes about the same with any viscosity, I have a feeling it could be the high engine speed driving as I drive a little under 3,000 rpm going 65-70 mph on the interstate to work around here. My driving is at least 90% highway. I get the feeling that it's getting all getting pulled through the PCV at those engine speeds. I'm probably wrong though.
I'm going to be changing the oil with some Pennzoil Platinum myself for the winter to see how it performs on the UOA as soon as the temp forecast drops below 10 degrees F and then I might just run 10,000 miles on that run even though it seems Blackstone wouldn't recommend over 7,500 based on Iron wear on my first Mobil 1 UOA, but it wasn't super high wear and my last Mobil 1 EP UOA's didn't show too much so I might give it a shot as others on the forum said to give it a go. It's not a huge deal to add a little risk on a 155k mile car to me, especially since these things seem to last over 250k miles regularly even while being abused and don't seem to sludge easily, and mine appears clean as a whistle from the valve cover pics I posted on here a few thousand miles back.
It would be the only thing I have against this engine is the oil consumption that it gets when it reaches high mileage but I plan to drive it to the ground, even if it means adding a quart of oil every 400 mile gas fill, not until it is beyond that would I start to consider replacement. I have no plans to overhaul mine when I could get the same year and model car with less mileage for $2500 or less. I can get a replacement engine from a www.car-part.com vendor for $300-400 with less than my current mileage with compression around 180 if it comes down to it.
Could it really be the rings when I am getting 180-190 PSI dry compression when the lower limit is at about 150 PSI and I think stock PSI is under 200 PSI? I never see any smoke out of the tailpipe or drips on the ground either.
It seems that it consumes about the same with any viscosity, I have a feeling it could be the high engine speed driving as I drive a little under 3,000 rpm going 65-70 mph on the interstate to work around here. My driving is at least 90% highway. I get the feeling that it's getting all getting pulled through the PCV at those engine speeds. I'm probably wrong though.
I'm going to be changing the oil with some Pennzoil Platinum myself for the winter to see how it performs on the UOA as soon as the temp forecast drops below 10 degrees F and then I might just run 10,000 miles on that run even though it seems Blackstone wouldn't recommend over 7,500 based on Iron wear on my first Mobil 1 UOA, but it wasn't super high wear and my last Mobil 1 EP UOA's didn't show too much so I might give it a shot as others on the forum said to give it a go. It's not a huge deal to add a little risk on a 155k mile car to me, especially since these things seem to last over 250k miles regularly even while being abused and don't seem to sludge easily, and mine appears clean as a whistle from the valve cover pics I posted on here a few thousand miles back.
It would be the only thing I have against this engine is the oil consumption that it gets when it reaches high mileage but I plan to drive it to the ground, even if it means adding a quart of oil every 400 mile gas fill, not until it is beyond that would I start to consider replacement. I have no plans to overhaul mine when I could get the same year and model car with less mileage for $2500 or less. I can get a replacement engine from a www.car-part.com vendor for $300-400 with less than my current mileage with compression around 180 if it comes down to it.
Could it really be the rings when I am getting 180-190 PSI dry compression when the lower limit is at about 150 PSI and I think stock PSI is under 200 PSI? I never see any smoke out of the tailpipe or drips on the ground either.
lol oh boy, i used to redline that thing every day
I redline mine often too, as long as it's warm it will get redlined at least a few times in every trip, but of course with highway driving and not much stop and go there isn't much of a chance to be able to unless I need to drop gears in order to pass somebody. I might consider a 5w20 in the winter but not for this next OCI, maybe next winter though, it seems to wear at such a low rate that trying new things like this couldn't hurt as bad as some of the higher wearing engines out there made by various other manufacturers, as was the case with my GM 3.4L V6 that I used to have.
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