A burning question...About Oil Burning

Mazdamia

Member
:
2003 Mazda Protege5
At what point should I just stop pouring oil into the engine of my car that is otherwise running fine (knock on wood) and get/do a rebuild?

I am burning about a quart a week by my best guess and it is getting really annoying. I don't want to do a motor swap until I have some more money; and I would rather not until the car is paid off in another year.

Is it going to survive that long as long as I keep the oil level up?

Any suggestions are appreciated.

(105,000 miles on a 2003 P5.)
 
How many miles do you drive a week? Check the oil sending unit for a leak. Check all seals for leaks. Are you sure its burning oil or leaking it out?
 
Mazdamia said:
At what point should I just stop pouring oil into the engine of my car that is otherwise running fine (knock on wood) and get/do a rebuild?

I am burning about a quart a week by my best guess and it is getting really annoying. I don't want to do a motor swap until I have some more money; and I would rather not until the car is paid off in another year.

Is it going to survive that long as long as I keep the oil level up?

Any suggestions are appreciated.

(105,000 miles on a 2003 P5.)

estimate the costs per year on oil vs getting a new built block.

me personally because i get ticked off at every little problem my car has, if it kept burning oil i would get a new built block
 
StealthWyvern said:
How many miles do you drive a week? Check the oil sending unit for a leak. Check all seals for leaks. Are you sure its burning oil or leaking it out?
About 400miles/week now. No external leaks as there are no marks on my driveway or parking spot and I have been under the car and there is no caked on oil or anything like that.

Since I am using synthetic I probably spend about $600/year on oil, not including filters.
 
When you do it is really up to you.....If you dont mind pouring oil in indefinitely, then you won't have to rebuild. But if it gets to the point where you're killing mosquitoes with the output from your exhaust, or the engine consumes enough oil to plug the cat, then you won't have a choice. Of course if you forget to add oil and it runs out, then you will either rebuild or replace the car.

As long as it stays wet, it will survive......
 
Well not trying to thread jack.. but since we are talking about burning oil...
I've seen new cars do this.. but i'm starting to notice mine when I drop it down and mash on the gas.. it puts out alot of smoke.. what color i don't know since its behind me and I only notice it when its at night and I see it off the headlights in the rear view mirror. Any ideas?
 
Well I'd presonally get a friend to drive behind you and have him tell you how much and or color of the smoke. Then go from thier.
 
ya.. that was my first thought.. its nothing too serious i mean. Going 60mph and dropping it into third and mashing on the gas will do it. I'll figure it out. Thanks!
 
drake, black smoke is bad. lol. means youre not combusting everything, ive seen a 06 cadillac sts kick out a nice amount of black smoke when my friend who was driving it mashed the gas.
 
I have a hard time believing *that* much oil is being burned and you don't really see it.... It should look like a blue cloud follwoing you and people shooting you the H8R stink-eye.

You need to jack the car (block the wheels) and have a friend run it. Be safe/be smart - exhaust is hot - belts/moving bits, etc. I am not yer Mom - but be careful. You should see a leak somewhere. It can and does leak when running but not when the engine is off.

Let us know what you find.
 
Remember that our cars have 2 cat converters which will burn up almost all the oil residue before getting out of the exhaust. That is why you never see any oil smoke behind the car.
 
P-Funk! said:
I have a hard time believing *that* much oil is being burned and you don't really see it.... It should look like a blue cloud follwoing you and people shooting you the H8R stink-eye.

I'm also in the "this doesn't quite make sense" camp. 1 qt per 400 miles is a tremendous amount of oil to be burning in the motor. Yet it's hard to imagine where else it could be going if there isn't any oil in the engine compartment or under the car. The car would have to have some odd problem where it neatly squirts a cup of oil at a time through a gap on the bottom of the car only on the highway, for instance, and doesn't leave a drop behind. But if it's burning, as P-Funk points out, you should be seeing smoke. The only other place it could go would be into the coolant, unless you've got a black pool in the back seat, and if this has been going on for very long you'd by now have mostly oil in there and not so much coolant. Even that doesn't make sense, the coolant would have to burn instead, and you'd smell that.

Assuming that you're right and the car is really is burning this oil your compression should be awful on at least one cylinder. If on the other hand, the compression is good on all 4 then you've really got a mystery.

You don't by any chance have any family members with a key to your car who like to play practical jokes?
 
xelderx said:
Remember that our cars have 2 cat converters which will burn up almost all the oil residue before getting out of the exhaust. That is why you never see any oil smoke behind the car.


That would make since.. never thought of that. I have a Tusdo header with a magnaflow high flow cat. Before the header/cat. I was running fine. Now when I look at the back of my car I see little pepper spots of black all over it (not just by the exhaust, everywhere). The car runs like a champ so i know its nothing serious. Perhaps it is bad combution, how would i know/fix it.
 
Listen to me people!!! I've rebuilt 3 Protege motors of varying milage and even the newest motor of around 60,000 miles had sigificant scoring on the piston and cylinder wall. It's a flaw in the FS motor. As soon as they get any mileage on them they start burning oil. That is why you see so many N/A guys blowing thier motors. The cars are burning oil and you don't see any signs of it so you don't check it very often....then boom. I never saw any smoke on my motors until I switched out to 1 hi-flow cat. My car actually got up to the point where it was burning up to a quart a day and still ran fine. It was smoking heavily by that time though due to the modified exhaust.
 
Drake13 said:
That would make since.. never thought of that. I have a Tusdo header with a magnaflow high flow cat. Before the header/cat. I was running fine. Now when I look at the back of my car I see little pepper spots of black all over it (not just by the exhaust, everywhere). The car runs like a champ so i know its nothing serious. Perhaps it is bad combution, how would i know/fix it.

It's just the nature of our ECUs. At high load levels on the motor the ECU makes the air/fuel mixture really rich. Like turbo car rich and you get the black smoke. Without going to a standalone ECU there isn't much that can be done.
 
xelderx said:
Listen to me people!!! I've rebuilt 3 Protege motors of varying milage and even the newest motor of around 60,000 miles had sigificant scoring on the piston and cylinder wall. It's a flaw in the FS motor. As soon as they get any mileage on them they start burning oil. That is why you see so many N/A guys blowing thier motors. The cars are burning oil and you don't see any signs of it so you don't check it very often....then boom. I never saw any smoke on my motors until I switched out to 1 hi-flow cat. My car actually got up to the point where it was burning up to a quart a day and still ran fine. It was smoking heavily by that time though due to the modified exhaust.


Honestly.. i've NEVER checked my oil level in along time. I just keep getting it changed every 3k miles thinking its fine.. i wonder if it really is low around the 2k mark...
 
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