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dx92beater,

I drive a dx91 beater which i actually like very much (91 honda civic DX). And i've been going through a similar problem.

I just want to add two additional comments to what everyone else has said.

Thick oil reduces smoking in the summer months. But i have found that it can actually make it WORSE in the winter! One cold morning i started my car and got a ton of smoke! I thought that i must have tore a ring/gasket or something major. But actually the motor honey had made the oil so thick that it wasn't circulating properly. So switching to thinner oil actually made my beater smoke less at start up. I'm not sure exactly how cold it gets in your part of Virginia, but maybe something to consider.

Now, while using moderately thick oil i make sure to warm it up first so it thins and circulates before I drive. (Reving a cold engine is especially bad in our cases)

Also, instead of using 15w-50 in the winter. I'm now considering 3 quarts inexpensive rotella 5w40 with one quart of 15w-50.


A second long range plan. With my car, the 4rth generation civic, a low-miles jdm engine is somewhat of an affordable option (single overhead cam). I'm not sure if this is the case with your make and model.

good luck!

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Try a dose of Auto-RX, follow instructions. If you are still getting smoke in the morning and on slow down from a run on the freeway but it still runs good you might want to replace the valve seals. They can be replaced without removing the head. It's a common cure for old Civic's. Do not go thicker than 20w-50 and add nothing to the oil, no honey, no STP, no fix-it-in-a-bottle, nothing. I put myself through college buying smokers and fixing them, except I did not have something like Auto-RX. I used hugh doses of Marvel Mystry Oil and did valve seals in my garage. It just takes an air compressor and a few tools, but if it's not what you do find an independent mechanic that knows your brand of car.

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Beater cars are all over the place. I know, I own bunches of them. Easy solution? Sell it on craigslist for whatever you can get for it. Buy another beater on craigslist. Lots of good $1000 cars for sale. Lots of them. My latest, 1998 Ford Escort 5 speed for $800. Great gas mileage, ac blows cold. It needed a radiator, thats it.

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Thats a tough question but really you can do no wrong when
your car is on its last legs.
I'm not a fan of lucas OIL additive.
I would just use something like castrol HM 10w40
or maxlife 10w40

Maybe straight 30weight delo.
sounds like oil is leaking down after the engine is shut off
making it smoke like crazy on startup
(dont know if that makes sense)

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You could always try the notorious oil thickeners such as Motor Honey, Motor Medic, Motor Paramedic, Motor Mortician, etc., but after a point that's playing with fire, namely by clogging the oil intake. One quart every 1,000 miles should not nearly be enough to be seeing blue smoke all the time as you are.

The white smoke you remember from before concerns me. You haven't said. Are you sure you aren't losing coolant? My hunch is that you will have to get the head pulled to do a valve job (to replace the valve stem seals at least) and a head gasket job.

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Get a used cylinder head from a junkyard. Toss a friend a case of beer and 50 bucks or so and have him/her change the head on a free weekend.

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No pals. All dead, or moved on.

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Are you sure the oil isn't getting into the combustion chamber some other way other than the rings or the valve stem seals? Maybe it's being drawn into the manifold thru the PCV system? See if you can somehow get a look in the manifold. What did the plugs look like when you pulled them? Is all the smoke coming from the tailpipe? Or is some of it possibly leaking onto the exhaust system?

If your on a military base, most use to have auto hobby shops. Hunt down a copy of a shop manual, or goggle for the procedure, and see what it would take to replace the valve stem seals. With a $100 in parts and a weekend at the hobby shop, you might be able to replace with a little help from one of your buddies.

After HM 20w50, there's little else that can be done oil wise.

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No buddies....all passed on.

All the smoke is coming from the tailpipe and I changed the PCV valve. Plugs are never wet with oil though. HMMMMMMM

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Continue the 20w50 or thicker with walmart motor honey additive. Replace any oil fouled spark plugs with hotter ones. Check the PVC. Make sure the head is not sludged, blocking the oil return. Try idling a minute before shutdown. Park at the far end of the parking lot at work.

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Pennzoil 20w-50. Eventually, after a week or two, the wax will fill in around the valve stem seals and plug up the leaks. Problem solved. Then you can go into the candle bidness

On the other hand, if the seals are really old, cracked and messed up, you could run 85w-140 gear oil and it wouldn't help the situation that much.

I'd simply run a 20w-50 high mileage oil (seal conditioners), like Supertech, and hope for the best. It's a beater, your topping off a lot etc.; go at least 7500 before doing a full oil change. Heck, you could go 10,000 miles with ease, with a filter change half way through. Your doing a full oil change every 3,000 miles anyhow with a quart ever 1K, provided you keep it topped off. That wouldn't even be pushing it. Good luck.

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Next time buy a more trusted model like Corolla, Civic, Neon, Focus or Cavalier.

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Gas mileage tells you you are probably ok on compression but the cheapest look is to pull the plugs to look for oil soaked ones with bad compression or white ones that mean a cracked head with coolant leak. Do check the pcv and its hose qand grommet as you'll get more consumption if that system is bad and you tend to get more head carbon that leads to a lifted head gasket.

You can't run 30 delo in the winter period. I'd try the 10-40 HM like castrol and pennHM as they're close to 50 anyway and I wouldn't use a 20 weight in even a DC winter. I do think ARX will narrow down if its valve stem seals as it sounds as the ARX won't help that much but does cure alot of other abuse. If you have a head gasket cracked I'd be looking at used JDM motors as that motor is relatively cheap like the honda and tercel ones. You've already used too much solvent cleaners so I'd layoff those before you do effect the bearings.

I lost track of whether you smoke just on startup or off every traffic light?

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