Excessive Oil Consumption
 

06 2.2 with 165K on it. Been using oil at an ever growing rate since about 135K. Currently adding a quart every 1500 miles or so. I'm in outside sales, so lots of short trips and restarts, as well as long trips. Went off 5-30 to 10-40 last change to try to thicken a bit. No noticeable difference. No noticeable smoke, running or at startup and no leaking at all. Good power and no noises that would indicate bad things.

Started talking to car guys about it. Got some input about PCV valves sucking oil on blow by, but then came here and found the EcoTec has a closed loop system. Who would be kind enough to lead me to an explanation of how this system works & what possible culprits there may be within it?

Running some Lucas in it now. Quieted overall engine noise enough to notice.

Have not been followed by a anyone specifically to look for smoke, but people that I know behind me have not remarked of anything unusual. Generally any car I have had before that was using this much oil looked like a mosquito sprayer!

Did some searching for oil consumption and using oil, but didn't really find much except this thread, due to common terms like oil not being able to be searched for.

A little help here anyone?

Thanx!

Have u seen any on ur block? My lil oil cooler leaked a small amount.

Not really & I'm thinkin I would if it were leakin at the volume that I described, don't ya think? There's a little around the area close to the oil fill hose into the block, but not enough to be concerned about.

I am just thinking of places to look, no suggestions of what they might mean. Take the air tube off of the throttle body look down in past the butterfly for oily scum, you probably could use a throttle body cleaning anyway. That's where the PCV dumps. Oil fumes collect and condense in the intake header underneath the throttle body.

The seal where the filler pipe goes into the valve cover, h'mmm, Maybe oil is subliming out?

Wasn't it only 2.4s that had oil coolers?

Check to see if yours is covered by any service bulletin or recall re: oil, there are a couple out there.

Early production 2.4's did, not sure when they eliminated them Don.

Current GM standards allow a quart every 2,000 miles, so a quart in 1,500 miles on an engine with 165k wouldn't have me pushing the panic button.

If there are no obvious external leaks, it's going out the tailpipe even if you don't see the "blue cloud of death" following you around.

All engines use some oil, and that consumption will increase gradually over time.

2K huh?
 

Well, there's some good food for thought. Thanx!

I guess with the factories having such strict EPA standards that drive them to recommend 5W-30 oil in everything, that would make sense. Waaaay too thin in my opinion, but hey....

Seems like I should probably just keep an eye on er and let it run it's course. Car's in good shape. Certainly worth throwing another low mileage used engine into.

Throttle Body Clean
 

Yea, did that about 6 months ago when I cleaned the MAF sensor, which I highly recommend to all as a semi-regular bit of maintenance. Really smoothed my idle and increased my MPG. Bout time for me to do it again so I'll give that a look when I'm in there. Thanx for the tip!

5W-30 is because of the tiny tolerances and tiny journals in modern engines. Journal holes in olde tyme engines were in the 1/16th inch range, now they are in the mm range.

Thicker oil does not have any effect on consumption. It may take up some slack in worn bearings.

Might wanna try some High Mileage oil in your fav brand, see if that helps..

I'm having a similar problem, with oil seeming to seep out of that hose going into the valve cover. Is there a seal there to possibly be replaced that would stop the seeping? Or is it just a matter of aging/miles. I have an 06 with 94k and I recently switched over to full synthetic/high mileage within the last 10k or so.