98 SC2 drinks oil like gas!

My 98 SC2 will burn a bit more than a quart about every 1000 miles give or take. I have heard that a bad PCV will cause this. Mine looks fairly clean but I haven't got around to changing it yet. I am watching this thread to see if you get a better answer. I am still using the 5w30 and am thinking about switching to 10w30 on the next oil change.

Ours started BURNING oil around 38K , by 45 it was major .... went thru hell and back with the local dealer here in Pougkeepsie, NY to get them to even acknowledge that this is a problem. I was told that a new car burning oil was acceptable ... excuse me but I'm not a rocket scientist ...but I thought cars were supposed to burn GAS ... .NOT OIL ! I have a Nissan Sentra ... with 178K on it ... you put 4 quarts of oil in ... run it for 4K and you get 4 quarts out ! Never had a problem ... and I was under the asssumption that oil is there to lubricate not burn. Maybe it's me ... ? Anyway ... they did a head job on it .... yada yada... made it majorly difficult for us. After the head job ... it was good for about 25K then it started all over again... I've not had the time, energy or will to do battle with this dealer all over again .. we're just getting rid of it... and writing it off as a horrendous product. I was wondering if there is any kind of permanet fix for this but after browsing this newgroup and a few others I've seen nothing that looks promising ... so getting rid of it is what I think if going to be our solution.

Signed .....

One person that will NEVER buy a Saturn ... Or let anyone I know buy a Saturn!

You live in POK?!

I'm over the mountain in Kerhonkson!

The permanent fix is to rebuild the engine and use different piston rings(other than Hastings; as Saturn uses Hastings rings from the factory and that is the cause of the consumption).

Jamie

I bought mine used as a repo, so it doesn't surprise me. I think it has about 90k miles.

'97 SL with 122k miles: burns 1qt each 1K miles.

Warmer, warmer... mine, a '95 SL2 with 114K of, mostly highway, and mostly spirited (I live in LA), miles on it burnt more than a quart of oil every fill-up (~400 miles). I have it since new, and the oil has been changed quite regularily (every 3-4K miles). I consider myself lucky as the only thing that I had to fix on the car has been a watter pump (original rusted and I replaced it with an after-maket one with a nice all aluminum body), and a couple of upper engine mount replacements (well there is a bit of "perspiration" around (manual) trany seal, and the clutch is getting a bit too slipery for my taste, but neither is an emergency). Even though the car really drank oil, the performance drop over the years was not noticable for me (it was lackluster when new... it is still so today), and I would still get, as I always would, 30-31 MPG. So much for the background. The cure for the oil burning (you can exhale now) has been simple... I switched to good/better oil... Vavoline Max Life. Still

5W30, but the oil loss has been cut in 3rd... now I'm burning "only" slightly more than 1/4 of a quart every fill-up (which would translate to about a quart evey 1.5K+ miles), and that I can live with.

/Mariusz

I have a '91 SL that burns a lot of oil! I didn't buy it new, I bought it off of my Uncle. I burn about a quart of oil every fill up. The car has 184,000 miles on it though. I've been reading online about a product that's supposed to stop burning oil. It's called Auto-RX. Go to

and try it. I've read about many Saturns that swear by it to stop oil consumption, so I'm trying it. It's $25 a bottle, but it's supposed to work wonders!

That's just my 2 cents. I hope this additive works though!

Peace. Jim

...nothing like a rebuild with new parts to stop the oil usage. There's no amount of snake oil that is going to restore worn parts. Save your 25 bucks.

Skydude, I guess you aren't aware of the long history of heavy oil consumption in Saturns. When I started to read this newsgroup around '97, it was full of such complaints. I think that eventually car owners had to prove their cars got less than a 1000 miles per quart before Saturn would fix the engine under warranty. If it's out of warranty -- you can basically forget about any coverage. Saturn began building their engines better in the mid-nineties, but it appears yours still went bad. I wish you luck.

r.b.

I have a '98 SC2 that was built in '98. It has 48,000 miles and zero oil burning so far....