What causes Oil Consumption

[CATERHAM]

Originally Posted By: ChevyBadger
Originally Posted By: DrDusty86
It comes down to poor engine design/maintence. NONE of my vehicles except my 3.0 413k mile ranger was EVER off the full mark with oil changes under 7k miles. The ranger I believe started consuming M1 because the K&N filter sanded the motor. Even then it was only 3/4 qt every 5k miles. LESSON leaned NO more KN filters
How does a filter sand your engine?

Dusty is referring to the high silicon (sand) that tend to show up in UOA of K&N air filtered vehicles operating in "dusty" conditions. In other words it doesn't keep out the fine grit very well.

 

[DrDusty86]

Yes, Caterham is correct. I think K&Ns are bad news. They let to much dirt through and with a few miles using a K&N filter, those 2.22225HP you gained are now lost due to reduced engine compression.

 

[147_Grain]

Originally Posted By: DrDusty86
Yes, Caterham is correct. I think K&Ns are bad news. They let to much dirt through and with a few miles using a K&N filter, those 2.22225HP you gained are now lost due to reduced engine compression.


I agree!

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: CATERHAM
Originally Posted By: BlueOvalFitter
Originally Posted By: CATERHAM
Everyone talks about oil consumption as if it's a bad thing!
What about the benefits?
If it's bad enough you don't have to change the oil any more.

CATERHAM, do you really believe in this theory? If so, my son has a 96 Corolla that "consumes" about a qt. every 1200 miles. He is using Super Tech High Mileage 10W40 and a Puro Classic L14477 oil filter.
Since he has been using this oil, the 1 qt. "consumption" has gone from about 1K miles to 1200 miles.
The car has 200K miles on it. If this were your car would you follow through with your theory and just add a qt. of oil when needed, than to change it every 5K miles like he usually does?

It's a good question. Obviously with such high oil consumption the TBN level won't come close to being depleted. You'll still have to change the oil filter on a regular basis.
There was a used oil analysis a while ago of AMSOIL Signature Series 5w30 with something like 30,000 miles that required topping up every 3,500 miles. The oil was still serviceable with a 3.5 TBN IIRC.
The question was asked then whether the oil really needed changing and no one could think of a technical reason why you should?


The Paradise Garage Mobil versus Amsoil test told more about constant oil addition than it did the differences between the oils.

Dragging out a used oil analysis every 1000 miles, and by (IIRC) 12,000 miles, a baseline had been met that sort of kept going to 17,000 miles...essentially a perpetual oil change IS possible.

But if a burner had bad blowby etc., I'd be more worried about what's getting INTO the oil than where and how much is going.

 

[gregoron]

My gas consumption is roughly 1 gal./30 miles. Should I just top it off?