Just realized that I have seen several Saturns where they consume a qt every
Most newer cars won't show blue smoke anyhow due to the extra filters, re-circ. gasses, cat. converter, etc. The older, lower emission cars showed it because they had dirtier exhausts and all... In my humble opinion of course. It's rare to see any car that burns oil show much blue smoke after around 1990.
...Let the flames begin!
Joe - V#8013 - '86 VN750 - joe @ yunx .com Ask me about "The Ride" on July 31, '04:
My Saturn used to smoke like a chimney. I don't know if it really smoked though until the burning got real bad - like around qt/700 mi or something like that. When I rebuilt it at qt/250 mi, the thing literally smoked like a chimney.
One thing I do see a TON of smoking is chrysler vans. The early 90's style. I bet 8 out of every 10 of those things I see is trailing blue smoke!
The Chrysler van you reference (early 90's) used several different size/style engines. The 3.0L (Made by Mitsubishi) was notorious for bad valve seals and caused the problem you mention. The 3.3L (Chrysler made) engine had (still has) outstanding durability. The 4 cylinder was under-powered in anything but the turbo and shorter style van.
Bob
My wife had a '91 Plymouth Voyager. Starting around 1999 the thing started putting out nasty blue smoke. We ditched it in 2001 for a new Town & Country with the 215hp 3.3L V6 engine, which has performed flawlessly.
My old '93 SL2 never smoked but it did burn about a quart of oil between 3K changes after about 50K miles.
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