Burning oil :(

[entirelyturbo]

Scratch the dipstick post. It was right the whole time...

I drove home, no problem. I drove to a convenience store, hunky-dory. I get ready to leave the store, and I hear it: Tick, tick, tick...

I drive home and pour a quart of oil in it, already quite perturbed...

This means the engine has lost 1 quart of oil in less than 2 weeks. There's no way it can be leaking that much, as it's quite clean underneath. So, you know what that means

I must be burning it. I blame my "spirited" driving style that I've had recently.

I did do a compression test about 6 months ago, and it was 180-190 through all 4 cylinders. The engine still runs peachy, so I'm sure the compression (and therefore rings) are fine. So it's probably the valve stems...

Josh suggested I try some Valvoline High-Mileage stuff, which I'll do, hopefully that will buy me some time until I have to do the inevitable...

[Brat4by4]

Switching oil now might only make it worse for a while. You might wanna try that seafoam stuff or an additive like slick-50 for a little while, see if that works.

[QuickDrive]

Is there a place online to buy that seafoam stuff?

I couldn't find it anywhere at canadian tire.
I don't have an autozone or pepboys around here so online would be my best luck.

Thx

[vrg3]

Wouldn't running Sea Foam be more likely to increase leaking around valve guides, since it would clean out any gunk that's in there now? I mean, it might reduce tapping but it would increase the oil burning rate, wouldn't it?

QuickDrive - Do you guys have NAPA or CarQuest? I think both of those chains carry Sea Foam.

[Legacy777]

subyluvr is running partially synthetic.......so it probably is pretty clean already.....and why I recommended he change to a 100% dino based oil. Staying with valvoline would probably be better then switching brands.

[vrg3]

Yeah, you're probably right, Josh.

Those "high mileage" formulations have stuff in them that makes seals swell a little, right? That may not have any effect on the valve guides, since they're not rubber, but it probably couldn't hurt.

[entirelyturbo]

Well, it was verified today. I had a friend drive the car away as I watched. He got on it a little, and a puff of blue smoke came out between 1st and 2nd. So it is indeed burning oil...

I am first going to give Valvoline full dino a shot, maybe a grade thicker, using 10W30 now, might go for 10W40, and then I'll just be anal and change it about every 2500 instead of 3000... If that doesn't seem to help, I'll try the high mileage stuff...

The engine is VERY clean! When I did the VC gaskets last summer, my friend was jealous! We did his Jeep 4.0 the same day, and it was quite nasty. Mine was clean as a whistle.

Will report back when I try all this stuff

[evolutionmovement]

Damn. And I had mentioned how I never saw a Subaru burning oil in my book... I suppose it's still true as I haven't actually seen it.

Let me know how the high mileage oil works. If it's cheaper than Mobil 1 I may want to change. Plus I use about a quart every 1k-1.5k depending on how long I corner and run over 6k rpm so I'm wondering if I could have the same problem.

Steve

[entirelyturbo]

Steve, the first time I have ever seen a Subaru burn oil myself is what I witnessed today

I guess I should know better than to try to use synth oil in an engine with 127,000 miles on it...

I am out of school for the winter , so after I run around doing parts shopping for Ginger, I'll probably grab a case of 10W40 dino and change it tomorrow, and see what happens from there...

But I'm sure in another 50k miles or so, it won't matter what oil I use, it will start to burn a lot of it. But by then, my heads will probably beneift from a rebuild anyway

[ciper]

Stop spreading the myth. Synthetic oil is just as good for an old engine as is a new engine.

I use synth in all my vehicles. I see no reason to go half ass, either buy the 99 cent oil or get good stuff.

Even my beater Legacy with 160k miles runs synthetic, when its not leaking no oil was burnt and I push the thing so hard ever day the headgasket is now leaking.

My other legacy with similar mileage also has synth and it loses zero oil. I even have my mom with a 130k Legacy use synthetic and it looses none.

[Brat4by4]

My, ummm... not-so-beater Legacy has 160k and runs synth and doesn't leak a drop of anything (if the a/c isn't running ). I had a power-steering pump leak but that resolved itself after i ran some stop-leak power-steering stuff from walmart...

My beater wagon gets the 99 cent stuff, but it loses more oil than a fat person loses sweat on a summer day, or something like that.

[entirelyturbo]

ciper, while I understand an engine with 350,000 miles can benefit from the reduction of friction and resistance to breakdown that synthetic oil offers, there's no getting around the fact that synthetic oil is thinner! While synthetic oil might be just thin enough to slip through older oil seals, dino might just be thick enough to stop there...

By the way, digest this for a minute: The guy that has the Volvo P1800 with over 2 million miles on it, currently holds the world record for mileage... he has never used a drop of synthetic engine oil in the car's life . I read the local newspaper article when he drove through Florida. He said the engine was torn down at 680k, declared barely broken in and put back together with all the same parts...

Performing regular maintenance is far more beneficial than types of oil...

[vrg3]

How is synthetic oil thinner than dino oil if both oils are the same viscosity?

I thought the reason some older engines leaked synthetic was that synthetic oils tend to be stronger solvents and have more detergents, so they'd expose leaks that cheaper oils would mask.

[ciper]

I think the reason synthetics sometimes leak are two fold.
They dont create build up and/or wash away any old build up
and
They have alot stronger shear strength.


Synthetic oils will actually crawl up surfaces. A film of synthetic will hold together better. The oil will start to crawl out of worn seals faster than dino would.

In the end, synthetic is not good for engines in bad shape. If your engine is well mantained you wont have a problem. You would be loosing oil with dino as well just not as much. I think the burn rate (if thats whats happening) would be equal.

[entirelyturbo]

Another thing to remember, boys and girls: I live in Florida. It's mid-December and I'd say it got no colder than 60 degrees tonight. Oil gets thinner as it gets hotter, we all know that. So synth oil might be too thin at tropical temperatures for my engine.

[ciper]

I thought if you are using the oil rated for your temperature it should be near equal to a DINO also rated for that temp.

What I mean is for example wouldnt straight 30 dino and synth pour at the same rate at a certain temperature?

[entirelyturbo]

Recap: I changed my oil to Valvoline 10W40 dino today. I just went on a pretty spirited run and I'm going to check the oil in a minute to see if any is missing. I might hafta spread my documentation out a little longer though to really see if any oil is disappearing...

On another note: I figured that if my 1991 didn't like synth oil, then my 1988 definitely wouldn't go for it. I had Valvoline 10W30 partial synth in that, and changed to Valvoline 10W30 full dino...

I have observed that the oil pressure in the XT has slightly increased, whether it's idling or under load. With the synth under load, it would sit at about 50 psi. The pressure now goes to what I would estimate to be almost 60 psi. I did absolutely nothing different than change to dino oil, no other variables...

I would think that means that dino is slightly thicker than synth. Slightly, but significantly...

[entirelyturbo]

To bring some more evidence to the (formerly dead ) discussion, I changed the oil to full dino some 300 miles ago and I haven't lost a drop of it. Not one bit

[minoru]

Pardon my ignorance but back in Europe I never heard of dino oil. What is that??? I know synt, semy synt and regular.
Sea foam...where whould you buy that in Canada...or who produce that??? In Napa or Canadian Tire...they never heard of that.

What I know of synt oil...first of, being less organic (from brut oil, petrol) it's more resistent to burning. So high temperatures donn't afect it that fast. So that's why you change it less often. At the same time, I know it's not scientific what I am gonna say but: the synt oil molecule seems more stable or HARD and that makes it more resistent to friction. As a result two metal surfaces that rubbs one to another with synt oil in between will demage less, in a longer period of time. Then...a lot more time is spent and scientists are spending more time to develope new more resistent oils. That's why synth is better.

But at the same time the older cars seem to like the regular oil much better.

Anyways...in another thread we were talking about how the cars are behaving much better if you abuse them. As I said there...the way you teach your car that way it is going to behave. Does any of you have the car from factory??? I don;t think so. I was driving my both parents cars. They drive kind of the same....old style, slow and safe. My fathers I broke it, my mothers started to drive so much better. Who knows how our cars were driven before??? Better, worst than we do???

Mine burns or loose oil? I'll let you know after I find out. It doesn't seem to leak. At the same time the compresion seems ok. I need help but the only way I can find out what's wrong it's make different experiments. By the way...what compression do you guys have???

[vrg3]

"Dino oil" is a term used for regular petroleum-based oil. The nickname comes from the fact that conventional motor oil is the remains of fossilized organic matter dating back to the age of the dinosaurs.

I haven't done a compression test on my motor yet.

[evolutionmovement]

Dino oil would be the regular. Dino as in dinosaur. Other people from Canada say you can't get Sea Foam there for some reason.

I bought my car @ 108k from a really boring accountant who was the original owner. I would make a bet that he drove it slow. He also even kept all the oil change receipts for it. The car got much faster after a week with me.

Steve

[entirelyturbo]

I actually didn't have a whole bunch of service records when I got my Legacy, but I guess that really doesn't matter now

I did a compression test a while back just because. I got between 185-190psi in all cylinders. That's actually a bit high; I attribute that to excess carbon buildup that these motors are famous for.

[mTk]

I thought if you are using the oil rated for your temperature it should be near equal to a DINO also rated for that temp.

What I mean is for example wouldnt straight 30 dino and synth pour at the same rate at a certain temperature?

Yes, in order to get a certain viscosity rating the oil has to pour at a specific rate. This rate is same for dino and synthetic... so they both pour the same.

MK

[minoru]

subyluvr2212 wrote

I did a compression test a while back just because. I got between 185-190psi in all cylinders. That's actually a bit high; I attribute that to excess carbon buildup that these motors are famous for.

is yours turbo??? ej22t??

[evolutionmovement]

He's N/A. I also got the same when I did mine about two years ago. I think I had 185-192. I wonder what it is now, but not enough to test. It might be interesting to see before and after Sea Foam.

Steve