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.