high oil consumption

[kurt thorson]

I recently purchased a 1985 Toyota One Ton Long bed pickup truck with a fuel injected four cylinder engine. I bought it from the original owner who said it had been a heavy oil user from the begining. I have to add a quart of oil every fill-up ( about 250 miles) There is no sign of blue oil smoke and no oil leak on the ground. Where is my oil going and what can I do about it? Is it time for an engine rebuild? I have been using Castrol 20-50W.

 

[Jay]

Wow, it uses a quart every 250 miles and no blue smoke?! And you're sure you're not leaking?

A compression test should tell you if it's time to rebuild.

 

[Giles]

Sounds like rebuild time to me. That is excessive by about 4x what is considered normal. Even 1qt every 1000 is pretty high in my opinion. I suspect it was a lemon of an engine if the previous owner said it has always used oil.

Where's it going? It's probably being burned up as you drive. I don't know why you don't see any blue smoke though. Do you have emmission testing requirements where you live?

 

[kurt thorson]

the previous owner said it had always passed it's emission tests and I found paperword ith a passed test as recently as '97'. I am certain there is no leak.

 

[Giles]

quote:

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Originally posted by kurt thorson:
the previous owner said it had always passed it's emission tests and I found paperword ith a passed test as recently as '97'. I am certain there is no leak.

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97 is 5-6 years ago! In California, you can't transfer a car without getting a new emmission test performed.

 

[TheLoneRanger]

Kurt, try looking for a smokey exhaust when driving at night, with other car's headlights behind you. The fumes will show up when looking in your rearview mirror; but the same fumes will be virtually invisible in daylight driving.

I've seen numerous posts that read "Where is the oil going, there is no smoke?" Well, there IS smoke, it's just not visible in the daylight....

 

[widman]

Does the air filter turn black? maybe a bad pcv valve.