My daughter drives a 2002 Toyota Corolla with about 150k miles. Several times now, we have noticed the engine is nearly out of oil. She drives this car to college about 300 miles away, and sometimes after a round trip she's out of oil, when it was full when she left. There are no oil leaks in driveway, we don't see or smell any burning oil out the tailpipe, so where does it go?

Anything we can do about it that won't cost more than the car itself?

Check the main plug? Is it dry?

Sounds like new car time anyway.

Your choices are:
a) burning it
b) leaking
c) your dipstick is inaccurate

On older high mileage vehicles with oil consumption I've had good luck with stepping up to a heavier weight oil.

My youngest daughter had a high mileage KIA when she was commuting to collage and she was bad about checking her oil and I went with 10w40 or 10w50 and had very good results.

Was able to keep it changed often and topped off. So got many more good miles out of it.

When you say "out of oil" I hope you mean it no longer shows on the dipstick. Is she driving the car around campus a lot when she gets there? You need to find out how many miles it is getting to the quart and she needs to know how to correctly check it and how to add a quart when it is down a quart and not let it go off the dipstick. As pointed out above, if you are checking it correctly (5 min after shutting off and on level ground) and it isn't puddling on the ground, you are burning it. Change oil and filter and try 15-40 diesel oil or 20-50 automotive oil and see if that gets you some more life out of the vehicle.

quote:

Originally posted by Gene Hillman:
When you say "out of oil" I hope you mean it no longer shows on the dipstick. Is she driving the car around campus a lot when she gets there? You need to find out how many miles it is getting to the quart and she needs to know how to correctly check it and how to add a quart when it is down a quart and not let it go off the dipstick. As pointed out above, if you are checking it correctly (5 min after shutting off and on level ground) and it isn't puddling on the ground, you are burning it. Change oil and filter and try 15-40 diesel oil or 20-50 automotive oil and see if that gets you some more life out of the vehicle.

This. A lot of times cars will burn it without visually seeing it. Synthetic oil burns pretty clear for example. I delivered a yacht once that would burn a quart every 2 hours and the only time you saw it in the exhaust was at night with lights. Your next step would be to pull the plugs and do a leak down test. (A compression test MAY show a bad cylinder) but a leak down test will show where the issue is for sure.

I would look at buying a new car. As any fix for this issue (unless it's leaking from a bad oil filter or something stupid), is going to exceed the value of the car.

Well, that one is probably too old, but I know a person who recently got a new engine on Toyota due to excessive oil consumption. When measured, hers turned out to be going through a quart every 400 miles or so. They seem to have some issues in that regard, as hers is not the only case I've heard about it.

You may want to check the radiator and see if the coolant is still ok, it could be a head gasket issue.

I'm having a hard time with "out of oil." Surely you must mean just not showing on the dipstick, which would be about 1 1/2 quarts low (the car holds 4 1/2). A quart every 50-80 miles without smoking is just a little hard to swallow. But let's say it uses that in 600 miles (plus whatever gets put on it during the week), which is more plausible. That isn't good because this engine typically doesn't use oil, but not really that bad. If it doesn't leak the oil, then it is burning it. You might not see smoke because the catalytic converter is burning it (until it becomes befouled). The two ways oil can get burned are by worn out valve guides/seals or by the rings being worn. The first is still major engine work, the latter means a complete overhaul. Sometimes the BG Products service known as EPR can help this by cleaning carbon from between the piston rings and grooves in the pistons, which causes poor ring contact with the cylinder wall.

600 to 900 miles to a quart is all my (and before that my brother's, so it was still in the family) 1984 Chevy C20 got, even when new.

If you're not seeing a puddle on the ground it's either burning it or it could be leaking into your cooling system.

A couple of things I'd check right off:
1) PCV valve - they are cheap and pretty easy to replace. The PCV valve should rattle when you shake it. If it doesn't rattle, that could be your culprit.
2) Check the coolant - is there oil in there (darker than it should be) - if so, you probably have a bad gasket...
3) I'd pull a spark plug and see what it looks like - compare with pictures on the Internet and you should be able to tell if it's burning oil.
Be very careful with putting it back in as I think these have an aluminum head and the torque specs are quite low - pretty easy to strip them out.

Corollas from that year have a known oil consumption problem due to sludge build up. This could be your problem: https://www.bobistheoilguy.com...wflat&Number=2529856

quote:

Originally posted by PowerSurge:
Corollas from that year have a known oil consumption problem due to sludge build up. This could be your problem: https://www.bobistheoilguy.com...wflat&Number=2529856

Thanks for that kink. Sounds like my problem, except we probably use a quart per 400 miles.

quote:

Originally posted by 4x5:

quote:

Originally posted by PowerSurge:
Corollas from that year have a known oil consumption problem due to sludge build up. This could be your problem: https://www.bobistheoilguy.com...wflat&Number=2529856

Thanks for that kink. Sounds like my problem, except we probably use a quart per 400 miles.

Anything over a quart every 1000 miles is A LOT of oil.

A quart every 400 miles is a lot cheaper then a new engine. I have used Automatic Transmission Fluid to clean out the rings before an oil change. I would let it get a quart low and then add the ATM fluid.

If the valve seals are worn, you will see it smoke when you start it up.

I would go to a heavier oil as others have recommended.

I would just add the cheapest oil that meets spec. this car is beyond economic repair. Just make sure it has oil and move on.

Had a Hyundai that started drinking oil. Same thing, no leaks, no burning. One day, it started but didn't shift. Turned out the oil was leaking into the transmission.

if you do several trips that consume many quarts then no its not leaking into the tranny or cooling system. If its not on the ground its burning it.
Stay full and carry on.

What does the cylinder look like inside the valve cover? Does it look all sludged up if you look in the oil fill cap? If so a solvent wash may clean out all of the sludge, then a high mileage motor oil would probably help. Back in the used car days, we'd drain the oil. Put a gallon of kerosene in the crankcase, run it for 60 seconds, drain it, fill with a gallon of cheap oil, run it for 10 minutes, drain it and put oil (if it was a visible smoker, using synthetic it would still burn it but no longer have visible smoke! LOL).......or there was always Motor Honey, which helped with vehicles that would use a lot of oil.

Solvent can do more harm than good when added to a high mileage engine.

Basically, you have to drill into her head that she HAS to check the oil. If its burning a quart every 400 miles, thats really bad. Buy a case of the cheapest store brand oil you can find and keep it topped up until you can get her a new car.

It will run a long time AS LONG as you keep the oil topped up.

If you suspect this oil sludging, it isn't that difficult to pull the valve cover on this engine and have a look-see. This is acceptable (2001 Lexus ES300 shown):


This is bad (similar engine, different car):

Wow. Look at that crap. Is that the result of using cheap oil, or just not changing it at the required interval?