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Oil Consumption Question

5313 Views 5 Replies 3 Participants Last post by  TuningTech
Hey guys. Got a basic question for some of you more experienced Evo-gurus out there: What rate/level of oil consumption is normal for a stock evo (driven hard but not abused - just like it should be)? I have an '05 with about 8k miles on it now. My first oil change was at about 750 mi on the odometer and then every 3000 ever since. This last time I changed my oil (at about 6k miles) oil was filled to the max notch on the dipstick. Since then, I've checked the level every so often and have watched it slowly go down to about 3/4 of the way down to the min notch. So in 2000 miles I'm 3/4 of the way down to the min notch. Seem normal? Or seem excessive? I'm going to check compression later this week just to make sure I'm not out of spec or anything. Thanks in advance for any insight.
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Bump.

C'mon.... I know someone has insight on this. Help a brother out and drop me some knowledge!

If no one in here knows the answer, I'm taking it to another forum. :dsm:
Since no one responded, yes they may not know. That's better than guesses and being told to go search. Please don't bump either.
Is there smoke coming from your exhaust?
What did the compression test say?
1 qt every 3000 miles is excessive.
turbolarry said:
Since no one responded, yes they may not know. That's better than guesses and being told to go search. Please don't bump either.
Is there smoke coming from your exhaust?
What did the compression test say?
1 qt every 3000 miles is excessive.
Yeah - you're right. Bad advice is worse than no advice. Sorry, I won't bump anymore. Didn't know that wasn't done on this site.

Nope, no smoke coming from exhuast. No leaks either (or none that i can see anyway). Haven't done the compression test yet... hopefully this next week. I guess I could add oil until it reaches back to the top notch of the dipstick and see how much I added. I suppose if I have to add more than a quart then that really won't be good news. I'll see what my compression test tells me. Car is running completely fine. It doesn't seem slow or anything. Just curious about my oil level dropping like it has.

Thanks for the help anyway, Larry.
Just a quick follow-up on this topic in case anyone ever has the same question I did.

Did my compression test. According to Helms shop manual, normal compression should be around 163 psi, minimum compression around 138 psi, and all four cylinders within 14 psi (if I remember those numbers correctly). My compression is good, even high: 175, 190, 185, 185. So I know oil consumption can be the result of many things, but I guess I can rule out poorly sealed cylinders. Of course there are a thousand places where oil could be leaking/getting into the combustion chambers and of course I haven't checked them all. But since it's a fairly new engine I wouldn't really know any good places to start looking or anywhere that would be worn out. I tried doing some looking around as to what was considered "high" oil consumption. A number I came upon fairly often was 1 quart every 1000 miles. --> http://www.practicingoilanalysis.com/article_detail.asp?articleid=541&relatedbookgroup=OilAnalysis
Seems like a couple others have had similar oil consumption as me as well. And I do a lot of heel-toe downshifting so the engine is running in high vacuum somewhat often. So I dunno, I wanna say what I'm seeing in my car isn't too abnormal or any cause for concern. I'll keep an eye on it. If anyone has any other input on what sorts of oil consumption rates they have seen in their evos (or any other input), please post.

Later.
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The amount of oil needed to go from the lower min mark to the max mark is about 1/2 a quart. The real question which may shed some light on the subject is...how much oil was put in at your last oil change. Should be at 4.5...no more due to the cat being very sensitive to burning oil. The compression figures look good and yes all your min and max compression numbers are correct. In the infancy stages of the motors break-in period it will use oil regardless.....so be patient and keep an eye on it 1 quart every 3k miles is very excessive so look into this more after you repeat the process again. Good luck

Alfred at TTech
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