Toyota Engine Stopped Burning Oil


This guy made a good video breaking it down, it truly comes down to good oil (he recommends synthetic I think) and proper oil changes to stop this issue. I argue some WOT every now and then ( I was pretty aggressive with WOT for one 5k oci) helps clean up those piston holes and rings too. I had the "phase" 1 burning so it wasnt nearly as bad as others. And I have low tension rings since its an 06 model.
 
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I've got an '08 Scion XB thats also an oil burner. I bought it new, sold it to my parents for my brother at around 70 or 80k. Didn't burn oil. At some point it started burning oil but didn't burn enough to get the recall. So anyway my brother has been driving and just checking the oil sometimes when he remembered. I got it back a couple weeks ago trying to baby the transmission back to health cause it started not going into drive. It would reverse but not drive. Needless to say, a couple drain and refills later and it has been doing very well since they towed it to my house. Since I've had it it was topped up and then I checked it yesterday and it wasn't even touching the dipstick. I need to watch it closely cause apparently it burns oil fast! Doesn't drip, doesn't smoke and drives pretty darn good with 175k on it. Every now and then when you start it up and rev it a bit it will spit some oil out the exhaust when its cold. Honestly I'm surprised the cat hasn't been damaged or anything else. Its literally been burning oil for probably at least 80k miles. I'm going to try some things I've seen on here to try to slow it down. I might just keep it and drive it until it spits a rod out the block or something, it's given us plenty of life I'd say.
Seems like most people just guess, they heard it can harm the catalytic converter so they claim it definitely will.
 
I would rather have a car that was flogged on track from time to time than one that was lugged around at 2100rpm every day. Flogged on track doesn't have to mean abused, there's a big difference.
 
A few years ago i got a very high mileage W124 that was in terrible shape with the M104 inline 6 engine. Grandma only drove it one or two miles each way to get groceries since grandpa passed away. When i got it it would use a quart of oil every 1000 km during the first oil changes with mineral oil. I didn't think about switching to synthetic because it had a bunch of leaks. At the third oil change i put in 5w40 synthetic and decided to flog it pretty hard and i did that for two 5k km OCIs, long fast trips with a lot of redlines. Consumption was reduced to 1 quart over the 7 or 8k km interval.
Same thing with my current C180, car was in mint condition and always had synthetic but driven by a grandpa who told me he never pushed it at all. First OC = one quart every 2k km, second OC = SHU 5w30 and a lot of flogging and extensive italian tune ups on the highway as well as long trips, consumption down to one quart every 10k km.
 
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Some engines have designs that can lead to piston ring sticking if maintenance is not done perfectly. Other engines have good designs but if neglected can lead to issues of course. I think the key is finding an engine with a good design and staying on top of maintenance to avoid the oil burning issue altogether. But even then, you never know... stuff happens lol.
All manufacturers have a certain level of oil consumption they say is "acceptable." I'm curious to know how long a cat will continue functioning while burning acceptable amounts of oil. Don't they eventually clog up and stop functioning well enough to trigger a CEL? Or do cats run so hot that the oil/coke simply can't build up inside them?
 
Some engines have designs that can lead to piston ring sticking if maintenance is not done perfectly. Other engines have good designs but if neglected can lead to issues of course. I think the key is finding an engine with a good design and staying on top of maintenance to avoid the oil burning issue altogether. But even then, you never know... stuff happens lol.
All manufacturers have a certain level of oil consumption they say is "acceptable." I'm curious to know how long a cat will continue functioning while burning acceptable amounts of oil. Don't they eventually clog up and stop functioning well enough to trigger a CEL? Or do cats run so hot that the oil/coke simply can't build up inside them?
Once you realize how hot and turbulent a cat runs i don't think it even notices.
 
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