2002 Oil Consumption

mcyoga

I have carefully maintained my car but last month at 127,000 miles, the oil light came on. I was down 3 quarts! There is no oil leaking in my garage. When I brought it in to be serviced they flushed out the engine and used synthetic oil and said this was a short-term, low-cost solution. Opinions please? I expected to drive this car another few years. Thanks.

aatherton

How many miles had it been since the last oil change?
How many miles had it been since you last checked the oil?

mcyoga

It was 3,000 since my last change and I didn't check it since I never had this problem before. I'll have to be better about checking it in between oil changes.

aatherton

"I have carefully maintained my car but last month at 127,000 miles, the oil light came on. I was down 3 quarts! There is no oil leaking in my garage. When I brought it in to be serviced they flushed out the engine and used synthetic oil and said this was a short-term, low-cost solution. Opinions please? I expected to drive this car another few years."

My 2008 manual in one paragraph to check the oil every gas stop, and in another, every other gas stop.

We don't know how far you were accustomed to going between oil changes. Or when you might have normally checked the oil had not the level dropped to 1 quart causing the light to come on.

But it is likely that prolonged oil change intervals, coupled with not checking between changes, resulted in chronic low levels of worn out oil, which by 127,000 miles have caused the engine to burn a quart every 1,000 miles.

Synthetic oil is not a cure, nor any kind of solution. It is for extended oil change intervals in good engines. The damage is done to your engine, and your high oil consumption makes synthetic oil uneconomical.

If you want to keep the car for a few more years, you need to up the viscosity of the oil to 10W-30 or 10W-40, or even 20W-50 in summers, check it every other tank, top it up as soon as it becomes 1 quart low, and change it every 3,750 miles.

mcyoga

Thanks so much for your input. I'll do that and see how things go.