burning oil?

Hi,

Others may argue, but if I EVER had an engine which, once well broken in, only used one quart per 7500 miles I'd think I died and went to heaven.

All my engines (can't count how many) use(d) a quart between 2000 and

3000 miles under MY driving conditions. That's dino oil, and synthetic will often use less in a tight engine, but your consumption's nothing to worry about IMO. We've had discussions on oil consumption in the past, and oil consumption's certainly a YMMV item, so perhaps you can google the group and see what others have experienced.

Rick

Others may argue, but if I EVER had an engine which, once well broken

Yep - have to agree. My current OB may 1/2L between changes. Prev Liberty wgn usually used half litre between changes, maybe 1L every fourth change, even at 332,000km. That's 12.5K km changes & not synthetic. Now *two* quarts, *that* might be a worry ... Cheers

Rick

If anything, better than normal. I prefer Mobil1 10w-3 though because it seems to mimize the valve clatter.

My 2000 Forester consumes about 1/3 of a quart in 5,000 miles and I get ~27 mpg on long trips while driving 70 mph. The 1,000 miles per quart is a GM excuse for their dealers to use so they don't need to do warranty work. Your using about 1/2 quart /3,750 miles so I see no problem. Your gas mileage is somewhat low for highway driving so your probable pushing it quite often. Ed Hayes

My wife just bought an `04 Bean and the recommendations it the manual are out of line in my opinion. If I remember right it recommends an initial change at 3K a second 7.5K and the interval progressively go up to 12K @ 150K. You would have to be mentally defected to observe even the 7.5K interval. I know they are built with tighter tolerances, and they burn cleaner. But rest assured they want to sell you another car sooner than later. And it will be later than sooner if you change your oil AND filter every 4K on average. I do it myself and it cost less than $12 a turn buy the oil in bulk.

Ed,

That 1 qt/1000 miles figure has been pretty standard on everything I've read over the last 35-40 years... remember what the "normal" consumption on your early Porsches was? ISTR 1 qt/500 miles on the air-cooled stuff back when I played that game, and even early water-cooled VW engines were "ok by the book" at 1 qt/450 miles!

Times have changed, but I certainly would like to have an engine as tight as the OP's even today!

Rick

I have to agree. We bought an '04 Legacy and did an oil change at 1600 km, and then at 6,000. It's been every 6k since then. Now, at 70,000 km, it burns almost no oil between changes. And we had the same experience with our Loyale. In that case, next to no oil consumption at 230,000 km when we traded it in on the Legacy. It supports the argument that looking after the oil is a good investment. Cheers, Tim

First of all your oil consumption seems to be within what is considered normal. The change interval seems a bit of a stretch.

I think you should switch to 10w-30. Given your milage this viscosity should be perfectly OK, if not preferable (unless you're somewhere in the arctic).

MN

FWIW, I just read that BMW now uses synthetic oil and recommends 15,000 mile oil changes. Many tests have concluded that 7,500 miles is fine, but they are admittedly small scale. With modern manufacturing techniques (i.e. CNC equipment, ultrasonic cleaning) I've got to believe need for oil changes has decreased to some extent. "Break in" rules have also relaxed a lot.

Any company offering lengthy powertrain warranties would be foolish to recommend less than acceptable service intervals. Not to mention the obvious conflict of interest--auto shops make twice the profit with 3,000 miles changes.

I think it's probably more important to pay attention to the oil level and general maintenence. If you run 5,000 miles before service on low oil (because it burns or leaks) it's worse than running 2,000 miles. The old rules keep people alert.

-John