Strange oil consumption issue with '04 Corolla

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I'm thinking about three hundred and forty five thousand miles in a corolla. Thats a long time. A real long time. So many miles droning by.

I have this urge to put a gun to my head.
 
Originally Posted By: turtlevette
I'm thinking about three hundred and forty five thousand miles in a corolla. Thats a long time. A real long time. So many miles droning by.

I have this urge to put a gun to my head.



From someone who owns a C3 Corvette....One of the most ill riding, hot, & noisy cars ever produced.
 
Originally Posted By: clinebarger
Originally Posted By: turtlevette
I'm thinking about three hundred and forty five thousand miles in a corolla. Thats a long time. A real long time. So many miles droning by.

I have this urge to put a gun to my head.



From someone who owns a C3 Corvette....One of the most ill riding, hot, & noisy cars ever produced.


On the way up to mosport one summer I had to stop to get ice and zip lock bags to ice myself down.

Redneck a/c.
 
Valve stem seals. It's sucking oil past them under high vacuum situations. My Honda is doing the exact same thing. You can confirm this by checking your compression/leakdown..if the numbers are OK, it's the seals for sure.
 
Originally Posted By: TurboTravis
Valve stem seals. It's sucking oil past them under high vacuum situations. My Honda is doing the exact same thing. You can confirm this by checking your compression/leakdown..if the numbers are OK, it's the seals for sure.


Leak down test is done with the valves closed, so I'm not sure how that would test the valve stem seals. Not seeing a compression test checking these either.
 
Originally Posted By: MarkM66
Originally Posted By: TurboTravis
Valve stem seals. It's sucking oil past them under high vacuum situations. My Honda is doing the exact same thing. You can confirm this by checking your compression/leakdown..if the numbers are OK, it's the seals for sure.


Leak down test is done with the valves closed, so I'm not sure how that would test the valve stem seals. Not seeing a compression test checking these either.

By process of elimination. Doing a leak-down test, one would presumably eliminate worn piston rings and cylinders as the source of oil consumption, but not plugged oil drainback holes in the pistons.
Second to a PCV system problem, plugged oil drainback holes in the pistons would be my second guess (a common problem on this vintage of Corolla, as already mentioned by others). Bad valve stem seals would be my third guess (also a common problem on an engine with this many miles on it), but this problem is usually manifested by the car blowing a puff of oil smoke from the exhaust during a cold start after sitting overnight.
The reason why I think that it is a PCV system problem is because of the sudden onset of the oil consumption.
 
Originally Posted By: MarkM66
Originally Posted By: TurboTravis
Valve stem seals. It's sucking oil past them under high vacuum situations. My Honda is doing the exact same thing. You can confirm this by checking your compression/leakdown..if the numbers are OK, it's the seals for sure.


Leak down test is done with the valves closed, so I'm not sure how that would test the valve stem seals. Not seeing a compression test checking these either.


Originally Posted By: wag123
Originally Posted By: MarkM66
Originally Posted By: TurboTravis
Valve stem seals. It's sucking oil past them under high vacuum situations. My Honda is doing the exact same thing. You can confirm this by checking your compression/leakdown..if the numbers are OK, it's the seals for sure.


Leak down test is done with the valves closed, so I'm not sure how that would test the valve stem seals. Not seeing a compression test checking these either.

By process of elimination. Doing a leak-down test, one would presumably eliminate worn piston rings and cylinders as the source of oil consumption, but not plugged oil drainback holes in the pistons.
Second to a PCV system problem, plugged oil drainback holes in the pistons would be my second guess (a common problem on this vintage of Corolla, as already mentioned by others). Bad valve stem seals would be my third guess (also a common problem on an engine with this many miles on it), but this problem is usually manifested by the car blowing a puff of oil smoke from the exhaust during a cold start after sitting overnight.
The reason why I think that it is a PCV system problem is because of the sudden onset of the oil consumption.


wag123 is correct, by process of elimination. My Accord is doing the exact same thing as the OP described and I have narrowed it down to valve stem seals. Also, it does not smoke on startup, however it uses the most oil during high vacuum situations (driving with lots of downhills where I downshift to engine brake for example). In fact, during the initial acceleration after an extended period of downhill/downshifted/no throttle driving, smoke is visible out of the exhaust, indicating that the combustion chambers have sucked an excessive amount of oil past the seals. It also uses more oil during these conditions.
 
Valve guides could be worn. Well they ARE worn, sorry, anyway, they may be worn to the point that there is too much clearance between them and the valve stems. Also, if you’ve never replaced the valve stem seals, 345k is a lot on factory seals. Or....your piston rings have finally either succumbed to the years of service or sludge buildup has caused them to not correctly do their job. You can check PCV with car running to make sure it’s pulling a vacuum, just remove from valve cover but leave vacuum hose attached and start engine. If it’s sucking then it’s working correctly. At least to that extent. Valve stem seals are a fairly easy fix if you can wrench some yourself. Valve guides will have to be repaired at a machine shop. You can remove and clean the heads yourself to save some money. Piston rings unfortunately spell doom for a vehicle that old. The cost to repair them far outweighs the value of the vehicle itself
 
Originally Posted By: turtlevette
What are you expecting?



Probably for the engine to outlast the car like many here on bitog claim is the norm.

UD
 
Toyota has a known oil consumption problem on the 1ZZ/2AZ engines, and there's guys on the Scion and Prius forums who report the 1NZ-FE and 2AR-FXE engines drinking oil as well. In those engines, the piston rings are coked up with burned oil and that keeps them from letting oil run free back to the crankcase.

The fix the guys on ToyotaNation and the Corolla boards do is an in-car overhaul which also involves drilling some extra oil return holes. You have an 9th gen Corolla, so it's just an old engine.

https://www.toyotanation.com/forum/131-c...mption-fix.html
 
Cheapest way to "solve" your problem:

1) check/replace PCV valve

2) Seafoam, buy 3 cans. follow instructions carefully.
add one to existing oil (before step 3).
add one to vacuum
add one to gas tank
(this may or may not help your oil consumption problem, but at that mileage if the car wasn't properly maintained you should do this step anyways)
and yes Seafoam works and is not snake oil. it's absolutely PROVEN to work.

i'd run Seafoam twice in fact, all of the above steps. so that would be 6 cans in total.

3) Replace oil and Step up the oil to a higher viscosity/thickness. if you use 5w-30, step that up to 10w-40, it will not harm the engine. go synthetic if you can.

4) add Lucas synthetic oil stabilizer

that's around a hundred bucks investment.

the above steps should at-least REDUCE your oil consumption, even if your piston rings are bad. to what degree we don't know.


Finally)
If it STILL consumes lots of oil after this, maybe you can try some product like BlueDevil as you might have a blown head gasket.
it has worked for many, and it doesn't hurt if you can save the money. if your piston rings are bad this won't do you any good though.
 
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