Acura MDX Burning Oil
mdxdriver2
Member Posts: 5
Has anyone else had this issue? Acura says it's normal for a new MDX to burn up to 1QT every 1,000 miles. My brand new 2008 MDX has 13K miles on it and 3 times I've taken it in when the oil either doesn't register on the stick or it reads at the lower hash mark. All 3 times, the dealer fills it up, confirms oil reading and about 1,900 miles later, the oil level is on the lower hash mark or not even registering on the stick. The dealer has done compression tests, bore scoping and oil residue search in exhaust and catalitic converter with no luck finding evidence of burning oil. No oil in my driveway or garage either ;-) Acura says this is normal and won't do anything about it. Advice anyone?
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btw, I have a 2007 model.
I maybe encountering a similar issue as what you are seeing.
I would be interested to hear if anybody else is encountering this on this same vehicle.
Acura did replace the "low oil warning monitor" at no add'l charge..probably since it didn't warn us that the dipstick was reading 'dry'. Doesn't sound like you have a similar issue, though. If the maintenance minder says you have 30% left before an oil change it doesn't relate to how much oil you have in the car...only how much 'time' you have left before you need a change. Our oil minder works fine but the problem we had is it said we had around 80% left to an oil change and yet no oil was reading on the dipstick (after about 1,900 miles).
I have a 2008 Acura MDX with similar oil consumption issues. Starting at about 4K miles, I got the warning indicator for oil level and oil pressure. I took it to the dealer and found a service advisory that showed certain VIN's having a defective oil pressure sensor, mine was not in the vin range, but Acura replaced the sensor regardless. Now, at about 9500 miles, I got the same warning indicators and took the vehicle back to the dealer. I was told the oil level was at about 3 quarts, so down almost 2 quarts over 5K miles. Now, I understand the party line is you could loose up to a quart per 1K miles, but literally in the course of an oil change, that would mean you would loose the entire amount of oil originally inserted at the last oil change 4.5 quarts.
This seems a bit unusual to be that low on oil with basic city driving in such a short amount of miles. The dealer first tried to blame the use of Mobil 1 Synthetic oil, claiming that is not recommended for the car. Per the manual, as long as the synthetic oil is API certified, which it is, and 5/20 weight, it is perfectly acceptable.
So, I am curious if anyone has any ideas as to why the engine is using so much oil? The dealer is doing the same pressure tests, etc.... as the original person above, but I am hoping somebody could help point me in the right direction, as I think they will come back and claim it is normal.
On Nov 28, the low oil indicator warning went on again and my wife had to pull over on with our two babies in the back seat. I drove out to help her and the stick was absolutely dry and this was confirmed by the service mgr and technician at the Acura dealer. At the same time, the car indicated I had 40% oil life left before an oil change. So, from the last oil change, the car burned 2.508 quarts (confirmed by dealer) which is burning a quart of oil every 1,400 miles. I wrote another letter to Acura Client Services demanding a resolution/fix or they buy the car back. They are now installing a new short block into my new 2008 Acura MDX (19,500 miles).
I could sure use your help. I have the exact same issue and consumption rate as you and my dealer is playing games. Can you send me information on your contact at Acura Client Services? My email is rustygrafman at hotmail dot com
I am at a loss on how to proceed and can sure use your road map.
After about a year of oil consumption tests, bore scoping, and compression checks , Acura did finally replace the short block about two weeks ago. They think a cylinder may not have been perfectly round and was slowly burning oil. My second letter to Acura asked for either a new engine or a trade in for a like make/model/mileage. Acura did confirm I was a long standing customer by looking up my previous Acura models I had purchased. Good luck!
What state and dealership did you work with?
This was quite time consuming and frustrating, as Acura dealers party line is the book says up to 1qt every 1K miles is within factory standards.
I can tell anyone who is having this same issue, bypass all the BS and have them use a camera and go into the engine to look around, it will save you a ton of time and aggravation.
Kudos for Acura for finally finding the issue, but, shame of them for using the 1qt per 1K BS and taking 16K miles and two years to diagnose the problem.
Lets hope the oil being burned off did not hurt the exhaust system all these miles, since that is where it all goes out of the car from.
Since Sept. 2010 started having the "check oil level" light pop far in advance of any oil change. Oil was actually low (dipstick dry on a few occasions) so def not a sensor issue. Dealership kept topping off the oil level, started their "consumption test", but just last week I was about 60 minutes into a 2 hour drive and the Acura threw up a bunch of misfire codes, an emission code, SH-AWD code, etc.. Experienced rough idling, loss of power, etc. Uh oh.
Luckily I was within a few miles of an Acura dealership so was able to limp it over. Turns out one of my cylinders had zero compression, so they tore it apart, had a few factory guys look at the block / piston / etc. and decided to replace the short block and a laundry list of related parts. Will post up here when I get the MDX back.
At any rate, I had the extended warranty (6yr / 120,000 miles) so it's all covered. May have been a manufacturing defect or some such, will ask the head service manager when I stop in.
Did you (or anyone else) ever find a resolution? Thanks in advance!