What types and years of vehicles have weak rings?

[Carlostrece]

My cousin isn't a forum member, but he has a question that he asked me to ask the forum. I think it's a mechanical question.

When did Japanese cars piston rings begin having weak spring pressure?

When did American cars piston rings begin having weak spring pressure?

Does this also apply to trucks, SUVs, and vans?

He recently bought a 07 colorado 5 cylinder. He'd like to know if it has the weak ring pressure issue. He'd also like to know what his OCI should be. He drives a 30/70 mix of city/highway. He occasionally has heavy loads in his truck bed, but not usually. He doesn't tow anything.

Knowing more about this topic would help him make better informed buying decisions for used vehicles in future.

Thank you for your time

 

[MRC01]

Why doesn't your friend join the forum and ask for himself?

It may depend on the rings: compression vs oil control.

Some Subaru engines have low tension oil control rings. They supposedly did this to improve fuel economy (though the effect is marginal) but the drawback is the ring is less effective so the engine burns more oil. The overall impact may depend on how owners break in the engines, as this can affect ring/cylinder seating.

I believe this is generally true for most engines, more or less depending on the manufacturer and engine.

 

[OVERKILL]

My cousin isn't a forum member, but he has a question that he asked me to ask the forum. I think it's a mechanical question.

When did Japanese cars piston rings begin having weak spring pressure?

When did American cars piston rings begin having weak spring pressure?

Does this also apply to trucks, SUVs, and vans?

He recently bought a 07 colorado 5 cylinder. He'd like to know if it has the weak ring pressure issue. He'd also like to know what his OCI should be. He drives a 30/70 mix of city/highway. He occasionally has heavy loads in his truck bed, but not usually. He doesn't tow anything.

Knowing more about this topic would help him make better informed buying decisions for used vehicles in future.

Thank you for your time

If you are talking about low tension rings, that started in the 80's with various marques.

 

[Glenda W.]

Seems every manufacturer has had its ups and downs with low tension rings(no pun intended). Even the mighty Toyota and Honda have some oil burners. I believe design and operating conditions can cause problems, as well as oils that are unable to keep pistons clean.

A safe Walmart choice would be R&P. Other options are expensive oils with higher quality base stocks. I’m experimenting with ESP 0w-30 currently.

 

[Carlostrece]

I owned 96, 99, & 07 Jeeps with Jeep 4L and currently a 97 Buick Park Ave. They never burned a drop of oil. Well at least not until the 96 Jeep had over 250K to 300K miles on it.

I never heard of weak rings causing oil burning problems in 80s or 90s cars. Mostly I'm familiar with 90s cars. That said, I've never even heard of this with newer Buick Park Ave like 04 or 05.

Maybe what I should have asked is which vehicles are known to develope oil consumption problems? Like which vehicles to avoid buying?

Also, is 07 colorado 5 cylinder known to develope oil consumption problems?

 

[Carlostrece]

Seems every manufacturer has had its ups and downs with low tension rings (no pun intended).

I think you meant to say pun intended.

You're punishing us.

 

[eljefino]

Toyota Corolla 1.8s from 2003 on.
Saturn 1.9s from 1991-1999, and arguably later.
Camry 2.4s from 2007-09 or so, right when they switched to 5w20.

Probably plenty more.

 

[MRC01]

I think you meant to say pun intended.

You're punishing us.

He's an incorrigible punster. Don't incorrige him.

 

[JohnnyG]

I'll add one to the list, '90s Northstar.

 

[supton]

I have to wonder: didn’t old cars gum up rings, or wear cylinder walls, back in the bad old days? there’s a reason 100k used to be a big deal.

I do think some portion of this problem is from extended oil change intervals and/or poor oil return holes. Weak rings didn’t help.

If it was just weak rings, then tear downs would have freely turning rings that had no spring to them, right? but I’ve not done any teardowns to “know” one way or another.

 

[eljefino]

^ They scored cylinder walls and lost compression as well as burning oil. Chevy Vegas were good for this, since they thought untreated aluminum would do the job.

When the saturns came out and burned oil everyone said "nah, it's cool, you'll still get the same MPG and power just burning oil.".

 

[SC Maintenance]

There are lots of low tension ring engines out there that have no problems at all. And lots that do that burn oil. You have to wonder if some of those engines would have burnt oil anyway, but its a simple excuse to blame the low tension rings? A lot of these engines in addition had new control algorithms in order to meet the new CAFE standards that started in 2008 - and things like long stroke atkinson cycles have a tendency to draw more oil up the cylinder than traditional cycles. Pure speculation on my part of course.

Some notables:

Subaru's from 11-15. But the model matters because different ones got different engines by year. But those are pretty much assumed to have oil burn caused be low tension rings.

Chrylser Tigershark 2.4 up to sometime in 2018. Those are blamed on low tension rings, but I think there control algo where they shut off fuel completely on decel might have been the bigger issue. Much easier to blame it on rings than say you royally screwed up the new tech.

Honda 4's from like 08 to 11 and v6's from 09 to 13. I believe they recalled some of them which does make me believe it was rings, not algo's.

The list goes on and on.

 

[twX]

I have to wonder: didn’t old cars gum up rings, or wear cylinder walls, back in the bad old days? there’s a reason 100k used to be a big deal.

Back in the day, engine wear was a major limitation for how long an engine would last. Bearings, cylinder liners, piston rings, etc, could be expected wear out by 100k miles just due to normal wear, even if they were well maintained.

For the past 30 years or so, engine wear has largely been a solved problem. Modern engines with <300k miles that end up in the junkyard tend to do so for reasons other than normal wear. These days, if an engine is burning oil, it's usually due to deposits, or due to engine wear caused by abuse or neglect.