Why Change The Oil At All?

[BlueOvalFitter]

1996 Corolla, 1.8, 203K miles
My son recieved this car with 112K miles on it. The oil has been changed every 3-5K miles with 5W30 and 10W30 that is on sale or ST, including both synthetic and dino, along with various brand name oil filters.
At about 180K miles it started consuming a qt. of oil about every 800-1000 miles. A member here, KCJeep, recommended he try a HM 10W40 oil. The consumption has slowed down, 3/4-1 qt. about every 1200 miles.
I was thinking, if it consumes this amount of oil, why even change it? Why not just replace the filter every 3-5K miles and just top it off? Or, buy an expensive filter (FU, M1, BD, Platinum, etc.) and change it every 8-10K miles and top it off?
My son tells me the oil looks clean every time he has to add a qt. so in theory the oil will never get dirty or lose its add pack. Does anyone else do this? Does it make sense?

 

[R80RS]

A buddy of mine in high school had a Yamaha XS400 that went through oil like crazy. He used to joke that it was self changing oil. But he would still change the oil and filter.

A 96 Corolla with 203k on the clock might be a good test vehicle for your theory. You could use some of the money you would otherwise spend on OCs for ongoing UOAs instead and report back here.

 

[Johnny248]

Originally Posted By: BlueOvalFitter
1996 Corolla, 1.8, 203K miles
My son recieved this car with 112K miles on it. The oil has been changed every 3-5K miles with 5W30 and 10W30 that is on sale or ST, including both synthetic and dino, along with various brand name oil filters.
At about 180K miles it started consuming a qt. of oil about every 800-1000 miles. A member here, KCJeep, recommended he try a HM 10W40 oil. The consumption has slowed down, 3/4-1 qt. about every 1200 miles.
I was thinking, if it consumes this amount of oil, why even change it? Why not just replace the filter every 3-5K miles and just top it off? Or, buy an expensive filter (FU, M1, BD, Platinum, etc.) and change it every 8-10K miles and top it off?
My son tells me the oil looks clean every time he has to add a qt. so in theory the oil will never get dirty or lose its add pack. Does anyone else do this? Does it make sense?

Pretty much what I did with my '96 4cyl Camry once it started running trough oil bad. It would burn and leak. I would just keep adding oil. I would change the filter at the normal intervals. You didn't even have to get under the car to change it. So anyway, that little car had 274k on the odo when I sold it

 

[faramir9]

Might be worth trying M1 HM 10-40 with a M1-EP filter. If that does not slow the leak, nothing will.

From experience: When I bought my 2000 Saturn SL1 last year it consumed a quart of oil per 2K miles. Not bad for a Saturn SL, but since I tried M1 HM the consumption dropped to almost nothing. I have added less than a quart, (in doses of a few ounces each) in the 4,500 miles and seven months since the last OC. I plan to go to 12 months/7.5K miles, which would be unthinkable for almost any other oil in a Saturn that old.

And I use 5-30, since it gets down to single digits here in winter. It's not cheap, but if you buy the oil at WM and the M1 filter at AAP with a coupon code, then change it yourself, it's not 'too' bad. Worth it, in my case.

Has the timing belt been changed, btw? Good luck.

 

[BlueOvalFitter]

Originally Posted By: faramir9
Might be worth trying M1 HM 10-40 with a M1-EP filter. If that does not slow the leak, nothing will.

From experience: When I bought my 2000 Saturn SL1 last year it consumed a quart of oil per 2K miles. Not bad for a Saturn SL, but since I tried M1 HM the consumption dropped to almost nothing. I have added less than a quart, (in doses of a few ounces each) in the 4,500 miles and seven months since the last OC. I plan to go to 12 months/7.5K miles, which would be unthinkable for almost any other oil in a Saturn that old.

And I use 5-30, since it gets down to single digits here in winter. It's not cheap, but if you buy the oil at WM and the M1 filter at AAP with a coupon code, then change it yourself, it's not 'too' bad. Worth it, in my case.

Has the timing belt been changed, btw? Good luck.

My son lives in FL. I moved back to La.(health reasons) last year after living in FL for 25 years.
Before I moved he helped me change the timing belt, tensioner, wp, crank seal, by-pass hose, and t-stat. That was his intro into what PM will do to save your engine.
I would never buy M1. But, I do like MS5K.
Right now he has ST HM 10W40 oil in it with a Purolator Classic filter.
If he does try this idea he will use Maxlife 10W40. He has not decided on what oil filter to use yet.

 

[Kuato]

Yeah, just change the filter every 5k and keep it topped off...


(Smart Guy reply to thread title: no problem, just replace engine every 60k)

 

[BlueOvalFitter]

Originally Posted By: Kuato
Yeah, just change the filter every 5k and keep it topped off...

Purolator Classic filter every 5K miles, or a synthetic filter every 8-10K miles?

 

[HTSS_TR]

Purolator classic every 10K miles, or Fram Ultra every 15-20K miles.

 

[OneEyeJack]

If you just change the filter and top the oil off the lighter fraction will burn off or evaporate. This way you can keep the heavier fractions and concentrate the contaminants into the oil left over. If you change the oil you will loose all work you've done to create a viscous, contaminated soup.

 

[Wolf359]

The heavier stuff will still be at the bottom of the oil pan. When I had a car that burned oil, I still changed it, I just waited til it was about a quart low before changing it. Just go with 5k-7k change intervals with conventional. There's being cheap, and there's being too cheap.Heck if you really don't care that much about the car, I'd probably search on Groupon or some local deal site for oil change specials. I usually see them in the $10 range which includes the oil and filter. They might even top you up for free between changes. Just refuse all the extra services they might try to sell you.

 

[SuperDave456]

I have 4-5 5quart jugs in my garage for putting used oil from the oil pan in.
Sometimes they sit for months before I run them by an automotive chain so that they can recycle the used oil.

I keep 5 because I have several cars that I keep up, and when I do a OCI on a transmission that holds 12 quarts I want to have all the containers ready.

That being said.
They all have a layer of goo on the bottom of them.

When you do an oil change, especially when the engine is hot, the contaminates that are in there will cool and fall to the bottom of the container you store it in.
If you don't change the oil, they will accumulate.
I don't know how fast, or how long it will take, but it will happen.
This includes synthetics, but they just don't do it as severely as worn out dino oil does it.

That being said.
Any Name Brand High Mileage oil in the 10w40 flavor for 7,500-10,000 mile runs sounds fine to me in your application. After disassembling a Purolator earlier this week, I think it would handle 10,000 miles in just about any condition except a severely sludged engine.

 

[Sequoiasoon]

I had a '93 with 1.8 that did the same thing. Well documented on many forums about the oil control rings. I used to add 1/3qt every fill up so it stayed full (and changed every 3k). Going back about 10 years when ARX was the fashion/rage here at BITOG, I used it. It slowed my oil usage to half after all was said and done.

You might want to try doing some MMO/Kreen in the oil and/or a piston soak. Somebody Had commented not long ago about letting a snowmobile part soak overnight I think in Regane and the stuff that normally had to be ground off, wiped off instead. Maybe add some with piston soak to try and free up rings.

Many here comment on I think PYB being great cleaning in short intervals. Combine with the MMO/Kreen and you might be able to save it and free them up.

 

[901Memphis]

I would say that its an okay idea, but you might want to modify it a little by say changing it every 3rd time you change the filter just to keep the low lying contamination out of the pan. Even at that rate you are still saving a bit of money and keeping the pan clean too; remember the oil pickup is in the pan!

 

[GreeCguy]

The oil in the ever faithful soon to be world famous "Luv" Machine has not been changed since December 2009. (For the uninformed, the "Luv" machine is a 1986 Chevy Astro Van 4.3 V-6). It burns oil and I add oil. The oil on the dipstick is a thick, black, heavy goo, (which, in my opinion, works well for this motor as two of the rod bearings are held in place with JB Weld). I keep saying one of these days I'm going to do a UOA simply for the shock value.

In my opinion, it depends on why you're wanting to do this. If the car is in decent shape and you want to drive it for another ten years, change that oil! If it's beat up and rusty and has one wheel in the grave, I wouldn't even bother changing the filter, let alone the oil - just keep adding.

 

[GreeCguy]

I also have a 1950 Case Model "D" tractor that was burning a quart every hour of operation, (original motor - hours unknown). Several months back, I changed the oil, (using 20W50) and added three cans of "Restore," (the eight cylinder size cans). Consumption dropped to one quart every four hours of operation.

From what I have read, the only drawback to using this product is you have to use it at every oil change as it's not a "one time fix."

 

[SwampSurvivor]

I told my parents to do that with their 08 Wrangler. Over the course of a 5K mile OCI, they would end up adding 7 quarts anyway. Although, if I had that vehicle, I would have just dumped a 10w-30 or 10w-40 in it. But that's a different story!

I had a friend that did just change the filter once a year. The vehicle was in pretty rough shape - the transmission was failing, there was severe rot. It didn't burn oil, but the VC leaked real bad. He would add oil when the oil light came on (as in low pressure) and the filter change was once a year.

 

[The motor guy]

Yeah I had a buddy that did this. He had a 1.9 liter Saturn I think it was. It would burn a quart every 1000 miles or so and he changed the oil like every 15,000 miles. I think it had around 180,000 miles when it started burning oil and it had like 220,000 miles on it when they totaled it. The sump only held like 4 qts so I guess it made sense. He should have changed the filter though.

 

[TomYoung]

I would be interested in the overall condition and your intentions for this vehicle. While it may have consumed less oil in the past, it is certainly not consuming an undue amount now. This suggests that the engine has loosened up, has some wear, but still has a long way to go.

The problem with only adding oil is that the oil that is burnt off does not take contaminants with it. In fact, they concentrate. This motor is known to be prone to sludge.

My opinion is that vehicles should be maintained properly throughout their lives for the simple reason that you don't know how long that life would be. A few of the posts are looking for you to stop changing oil and essentially "see what happens". You could do that and squander 100k of usable life remainining.

I would go to a 5 or 10 40 high mileage Dino oil, bought on sale and change to ab7500 to 10000 oci.. That is the grown-up solution.

 

[BlueOvalFitter]

There have been some great replies here with some good advice. Some replies are wanting to see this as a "test lab" subject. I was just asking, being it's losing oil at this rate, would it be ok to just change the filter and add oil as needed. Some have taken this personally, IMO. I was merely asking if anyone else has done this and wanting to hear their experience. Or, does it make sense to do this....???
After seeing these replies I now know the advice I will give my son about this situation. Thanx to all that replied.

 

[05LGTLtd]

Originally Posted By: Sequoiasoon
.

You might want to try doing some MMO/Kreen in the oil and/or a piston soak. Somebody Had commented not long ago about letting a snowmobile part soak overnight I think in Regane and the stuff that normally had to be ground off, wiped off instead. Maybe add some with piston soak to try and free up rings.

Many here comment on I think PYB being great cleaning in short intervals. Combine with the MMO/Kreen and you might be able to save it and free them up.


The tinkerer in me likes this approach!

I'd also like to know where the oil is going to some degree before much more action is taken. Stuck rings? Soak and cleanse with your preferred additives, and see if it helps. PCV clogged? Replace PCV valve and hoses if necessary. Clean and re-install if your playing on the super cheap. Valve seals? RMS? well options are limited depending on condition of the rest of the car.