trooper burns 1qt of oil per ~150-200 miles

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so I have been doing a lot of reading on the forums. So my engine burns a lot of oil. It is not a saturn, though I have been on their forums for information. Sadly my car is a year that came with a flawed piston design. The year after they added 4 more drain holes in the oil groove. My pistons combined with bad maintenance burns a lot of oil. I was lied to about it, but at the same time I probably would have still gotten it since 5 speeds in this truck is a gem.

Anywho, I have been running synthetic diesel oil for the past 2 years. A few Marvel Mystery Oil runs and thats about all I've done so far. The oil turns black within 1k. I recently changed the valve cover gaskets on both banks and the heads were clean. Some gunk on the covers but nothing major; it was very very minor. I assume there is some gunk on the low end of the engine. And sadly i cant take it off for inspection/cleaning. I dont have a garage or drive way. If I did i would have rebuilt this thing already or put in a diesel.

I am currently putting 100 bucks from each pay check into a savings account which I will use to rebuild the engine eventually. A complete over haul. The improved pistons as well.

in the mean time I am just hoping for miracles. If I could just get the hardened carbon out of the oil rings I will be 100% happy because thats where the problem lays. Is there any product that you guys think would work?

So far I have compiled a list of products that people have had results with, but im not sure what to try or which will have the highest chance of helping me since most of the stuff I've found online is on cars with lowers miles than mine so I assume the gunk in the oil rings has not completely turned into hardened carbon. BTW, my engine has 150k on it.

-MMO piston Soak(what saturn people do, but it seems like the ones with high mileage dont really get results)
-GM piston cleaner(apparently the v8 north stars had similar issues due to grandmas not pushing the engines hard)
-kreen(seems promising)
-BG 109(seems promising)
-protek engine flush(seems to be aimed at the rings, but i wasnt able to find a whole lot on it)

I have even considered some hardcore flushes like B12 despite its high risk, just to get the engine clean so the oil detergent doesn't clean the walls and become saturated and is given the chance to clean the rings. Clearly I'm desperate!

I have not done a compression test so I cannot say whether the oil gets dirty from gunk in the engine or blow by. I can say that when I did run MMO the oil came out really dirty, but like i said nothing on the heads, but some minor build on the valve covers. The engine runs great. Just uses a lot of oil, I'd appriciate any intput on which product would be the best for me, or any combination.

IMG_2060.jpg

So this is a piston out of a similar engine that I took out many years ago for a rebuilt. This one had about 20k less miles on it. Lots of coking! It wasnt my engine and I never drove it so i dont know what the usage was like on this one but I suspect it was high. As you guys can see the comp rings are not stuck, so I dont think compression is an issue, but that oil ring sure is. I even left that piston in a seafoam bath and it never came lose. But seafoam isnt that hard of a cleaner anyways.
 
I vote for kreen soak+kreen in oil.and gas. Kreen soak really helped to dramaticalky decrease oil drinking in my sludged v6 camry I had couple years ago. It used to be 300 miles to use 1 qt. After soak it used one quart in around 3500 miles.
 
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Are you supposed to drive the car hard after a soak or what is the procedure? Also how long do u recommend soaking?
 
It's a fundamental design issue (more like a flaw). If you look at the piston carefully, you can see that the oil control rings are literally "stuck" in the groove and therefore cannot perform it's "scraping" functionality.

Oil seeps past the stuck oil control rings and gets into the combustion chamber.

In order to alleviate such serious oil burning issue is to perform a partial rebuild of the engine, overbore the cylinder wall to accommodate the next oversized piston (and buy new pistons btw). You'll start fresh with a mile-0 engine and should be good for another 100k before oil burning comes back again (assuming the oversized pistons are of the same oil control ring/groove issues).

Q.

BTW: nothing chemically can free up these seriously stuck oil control rings, no soaking will. Don't believe me? Try it.
 
I'll try it without any expectations of getting results. Just more of a I have it a shot thing I guess. At this point it wouldn't hurt
 
So what's a low mileage 2001 engine go for? Is it plug and play? Your downtime should be less swapping.

The saturn inline four, I've re-ringed several, is easy to both in-frame-rebuild and yank and replace. IDK which is easier on a trooper motor. I'd be tempted to drop in a "never opened" engine as I believe factory cleanliness, tolerances and assembly may beat "joe bob's engine shop." Then again if you find an isuzu expert who can fix the flaws with improved parts...

I've never liberated a saturn ring with chemicals. I have made the cars run better with seafoam or MMO soaks; burning oil carbons up the piston tops and valves. I've mitigated by running conventional 15w40 vs the 5w30 recommended, however, thicker like 20w50 does nothing more.
 
My experience from the Toyota side.. If the consumption caused by clogged piston oil return/drain holes has been going on for thousands of miles/years nothing short of piston removal and drilling out/enlarging and adding a couple of holes will unclog them. The heat of combustion causes deposits in these holes to dry out and harden into a carbonized mass. The holes pass through the piston, so there is depth to the hardened deposits. A soak works well for the surface of the piston cleaning piston tops, combustion ring, maybe down to the oil scraper ring. But a surface soak cannot penetrate into the holes, there is no flow.

IMO your best chance is from the sump where the bottom of the piston and holes spend time immersed in oil. Your burning enough where any solvent in the oil will spend time on the rings. I had one success! A combination of the additives you mention and M1 HM as the base oil. IMO there is no oil that cleans better than M1 HM. It has extra cleaners and extra wear additives built in. I'm the opposite of many, rather dilute a good oil with additives making it average than dilute an average oil making it weak.
 
Originally Posted By: 2000Trooper
Are you supposed to drive the car hard after a soak or what is the procedure? Also how long do u recommend soaking?

I used 3 oz in each spark plug hole, and let it soak overnight, it was soaking around 12 hours. Then turned engine with starter, it spit out left overs. Then it soaked for another couple hours until I put valve covers and intake back.
It was kinda hard to start it but it started with lots of lots of white smoke. Drove it around for 15 mins, then tok it to hwy for another 15-20 mins with WOT on ramp.
Oh, forgot to mention, after 15 min drive around, I drained oil, put in new 15w-40 Delvac oil and added Gunk flush (which did nothing), let in idle for 15 min and drained oil and changed filter again, just to rinse out any crud. Then filled with Maxlife, If I remember right 10w-30 and 10w-40 mix.
 
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Honestly if an engine is using that much oil and a piston soak helped, consider yourself very fortunate. The few engines I've encountered over the years that used that much oil were in need of mechanical repairs, or had one [censored] of a leak.
 
Do you guys think kreen will be a better soak or gm piston & ring cleaner?

As far as leaks go, this is my new and improved consumption after I fixed the valve cover leaks. Lol

Lastly. Do disel oils have more detergents or high mileage passenger car oils? I hear a lot about valve line max life, just not sure if it will be as good as 5w40 diesel oil.

But I've officially begun my engine rebuild parts gathering.
 
Originally Posted By: 2000Trooper
Do you guys think kreen will be a better soak or gm piston & ring cleaner?

As far as leaks go, this is my new and improved consumption after I fixed the valve cover leaks. Lol
Lastly. Do disel oils have more detergents or high mileage passenger car oils? I hear a lot about valve line max life, just not sure if it will be as good as 5w40 diesel oil.
But I've officially begun my engine rebuild parts gathering.


Now that's funny, because the GM product was made in response to the needs of a major US auto manufacturer. Real money was spent on developing and testing that product, so it might just work if you follow the instructions.
As for adds like Kreen, I can't seem to find any approvals or independent test data, just a bunch of OEM warnings to do with fuel and oil system seal degeneration in gas burners.

All oils are different, but the main difference with HM oils is that they contain more seal conditioners than normal oils. They are designed to do a specific job of reducing oil consumption whilst offering some extra protection and cleaning additives.
Diesel oils are sometimes similar in terms of detergent and EP or AW additive levels, BUT not in the seal conditioners they contain. Every oil seems to have a different add pack, even when it is from the same company and of a similar name, so you just have to find the VOA if possible, or look at a UOA, as that will give you a rough idea what it contains, as detergents, Zinc, Moly and Boron don't burn off.
Max life is a good oil for high mileage engines, but if you have serious oil consumption issues and need something real thick Mobil 10/60 EP is a real good HM oil.
 
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Op. swissdieselfan is a formerly banned member named skyship then Bodensee with a new user name who is anti additives and really cannot help you,since he has absolutely NO EXPERIENCE with additives,so I suggest you ignore him as we all do.
Now there are a great many members here who have had positive results using kreen. It's really strong stuff and will certainly dissolve any deposits you have. Follow the directions to the letter.
There is also a product called auto rx. It's made from esters which will dissolve ring coking as well however in this forum there are some who swear by it,or swear at it. I won't buy it for the simple fact that the man who produces it and owns the company is a complete jerk,and I refuse to support him in any way,however in your particular case it may help.
I would try kreen first,simply because I've never heard of it not working. If it doesn't then perhaps auto rx may work.
 
Stick to advice from members here who have actual experience using a product. For example, demarpaint has about 40 years experience with MMO. And Trav, a mechanic in Germany, has experience with Kreen.

My advice is to ignore somebody who merely quotes from owner's manuals (you can read your own owner's manual) and quotes from OEM documents. Whenever I bought a new car I read the owner's manual. I don't need for somebody here to quote the owner's manual to me like some kind of a robot.

I would not use the majority of engine cleaners and oil supplements that are available. Most are junk. But there are a few that work. One of the good things about this website is that you can find out from members here which ones actually work.
 
My friend has an Acura SLX with that exact engine. His was burning a quart every 500 miles or so, still ran great. The only thing that worked for us was going to 15W40 Rotella. At least it goes between 800-1000 miles now before we add a quart. Also check the PCV valve if it is working.
 
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