2016 Honda Pilot appears to be consuming oil

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Hi all, I usually post about my Subarus but this time it’s my wife’s car. She has a 2016 Honda Pilot EX-L purchased new in July 2016, with the new Earth Dreams V6 engine and the 6 speed transmission. AWD.

Today she was taking a day trip to visit some friends so since she’s about 75 miles each way, I thought I’d pop the hood.

The oil level is just a hair under the low line. I didn’t have any 0w20 on me as my cars run 5w30, so I didn’t want to play around with that - still under warranty. Funny, Subaru mentions I can use other viscocities in the manual but the Honda is pretty firm and direct.

Her car has 20,500 miles on it. Normal commute for her is about 8 miles each way in some nasty urban city bumper to bumper traffic.

Warranty is out to 3/36 so we have about a year left on it, don’t think the 36k will be a factor.

Should I top it off or is it a better plan to take it in for a warranty claim? She has a few months before the next oci, which runs about 5000-6000 with maintenance minder.

I don’t know anything about this engine and Honda’s. I don’t know if this is normal or expected. I could talk all day with you about Subie stuff.

I have Mobil Super 0w20 ready to go if that’s the best route. (Best does not mean easiest.)

Thanks.
 
Originally Posted By: pilot1226
She has a few months before the next oci, which runs about 5000-6000 with maintenance minder.


So are we talking a quart in 3500-4000 miles?
 
Well let us know what they do. My guess is they more or less tell you politely to get screwed. This is what Subaru did to their customers for years that warm place is going to freeze over before I buy a Subaru.
 
Originally Posted By: JohnnyJohnson
Well let us know what they do. My guess is they more or less tell you politely to get screwed. This is what Subaru did to their customers for years that warm place is going to freeze over before I buy a Subaru.


That about sums it up. The smart money is on they'll send him packing saying it's normal unless there's a leak they can see. It will probably go something like this after the mention of oil consumption: How much oil is it using sir? A quart in x miles. That's well within the acceptable oil usage range. Their magic number for oil usage will always be less than x, unless x is about 400-500 miles. Good luck!
 
Have you gone under to take a look for anything abnormal? It sounds like this is sudden so check the filter and elsewhere for leaks.

Let’s not shoot the Vehicle until we know the whole story
 
Originally Posted By: pilot1226
Hi all, I usually post about my Subarus but this time it’s my wife’s car. She has a 2016 Honda Pilot EX-L purchased new in July 2016, with the new Earth Dreams V6 engine and the 6 speed transmission. AWD.

Today she was taking a day trip to visit some friends so since she’s about 75 miles each way, I thought I’d pop the hood.

The oil level is just a hair under the low line. I didn’t have any 0w20 on me as my cars run 5w30, so I didn’t want to play around with that - still under warranty. Funny, Subaru mentions I can use other viscocities in the manual but the Honda is pretty firm and direct.

Her car has 20,500 miles on it. Normal commute for her is about 8 miles each way in some nasty urban city bumper to bumper traffic.

Warranty is out to 3/36 so we have about a year left on it, don’t think the 36k will be a factor.

Should I top it off or is it a better plan to take it in for a warranty claim? She has a few months before the next oci, which runs about 5000-6000 with maintenance minder.

I don’t know anything about this engine and Honda’s. I don’t know if this is normal or expected. I could talk all day with you about Subie stuff.

I have Mobil Super 0w20 ready to go if that’s the best route. (Best does not mean easiest.)

Thanks.


Are you sure it wasn't short-filled at the last oil change - maybe even a half-quart short? Sounds like the dealer did the last oil change - not you.

Just use your 5w-30 grade. One quart top-off won't hurt a thing. You could run the entire crankcase on 5w-30, if you wish.
 
At least register the complaint with Honda, they will tell you a qt in 1K is normal and to go pound sand but at some point it possibly will get much worse and need a short block at a minimum.
At some point if they find oil fouled plugs are causing a misfire and the engine is done.
 
Originally Posted By: dishdude
Originally Posted By: pilot1226
She has a few months before the next oci, which runs about 5000-6000 with maintenance minder.


So are we talking a quart in 3500-4000 miles?


No, it's been about 2500-3000 miles at most. Probably closer to the 2500 number. This is not my DD, and I actually don't care for the car at all. But, I seldom drive it so I don't mind her preferences, but I don't want a 40k+ car becoming a large paperweight shortly out of warranty.

Originally Posted By: demarpaint
Originally Posted By: JohnnyJohnson
Well let us know what they do. My guess is they more or less tell you politely to get screwed. This is what Subaru did to their customers for years that warm place is going to freeze over before I buy a Subaru.


That about sums it up. The smart money is on they'll send him packing saying it's normal unless there's a leak they can see. It will probably go something like this after the mention of oil consumption: How much oil is it using sir? A quart in x miles. That's well within the acceptable oil usage range. Their magic number for oil usage will always be less than x, unless x is about 400-500 miles. Good luck!


Well, I suppose before I tell them what my range is, I should compel them to tell me what the mileage is that qualifies as a problem? I know Subaru kept vehicles with the oil control ring issues from the first sets of FB20/25's and did an oil consumption test on them.

Originally Posted By: PimTac
Have you gone under to take a look for anything abnormal? It sounds like this is sudden so check the filter and elsewhere for leaks.

Let’s not shoot the Vehicle until we know the whole story


I usually try to check it about every other week on the weekends. But, I'll admit that it's probably been about a month since I've last checked it. I'm a little more vigilant about my car, but that's partially because I can do it anytime I want. With rotating shift work, sometimes I don't have an opportunity to check hers, and I'm not going to check it in the middle of the night before or after a shift.

Previously it had not any type of oil consumption to cause any concern.

I am not seeing any visible problems in the engine bay, like fluids. Also not seeing anything on the driveway.

The long-term concern over burning, say, 2 quarts of oil (out of the ~5ish that's in there for an oil change) is that it'll mess up the catalytic converter.

Originally Posted By: Triple_Se7en
Are you sure it wasn't short-filled at the last oil change - maybe even a half-quart short? Sounds like the dealer did the last oil change - not you.

Just use your 5w-30 grade. One quart top-off won't hurt a thing. You could run the entire crankcase on 5w-30, if you wish.


What I can say is that when I checked it the last time, it was comfortably within the middle of the high/low markings. However, while I try to do a bi-weekly interval for her car, I will admit it's probably been about a month since I last checked it.

I would be hesitant to run 5w30 unless I saw some UOA's showing that there were no elevated metals in comparison to the 0w20 OEM stuff.

You're correct. Mostly out of peace of mind, I take my wife's car to the dealer for service. Again, I've done my own oil changes on my Subarus, but I'm familiar with them and the steps. The EarthDreams engine is new to me and I'd rather not tinker around in uncharted territory on her car. If it was my car? Sure, I don't mind having a few learning curves and gotchas along the way.

I did buy the Mobil Super 0w20 - I mean, it's unopened, I can return it... but I have the correct viscosity... why not use it?

The bigger question is whether or not I should bring it to Honda to look at and log and document, or just take care of it on my own and keep an eye on it. Again, adding a quart once or twice over an OCI isn't the end of the world, but, I'm sure that oil is going to degrade the efficiency and eventually kill the cat, which is a more substantial repair compared to the "$5" quarts of PP or M1 0w20 that I can ship-to-store. I paid a little extra at the local auto store because they had it on hand and close, and hey, the money stays in my town, that's always good. Small business!

Leaving for a vacation in the relatively near future, so I may have to pursue this a little more aggressively in the following weeks.

I just don't want Honda to tell me that they'll keep an eye on it for next time at the 30k service, and then at 36k, they're telling me I'm out of warranty but confirm the problem.
 
Originally Posted By: Stevie
Has a bad engine. I would trade it in for something more reliable.

My Q7 doesn't consume a drop, maybe the OP should get one!

thumbsup2.gif
 
Seriously though - I wouldn't be at all concerned with a quart of consumption over 5-6k. A change in brand may make it stop entirely.
 
Originally Posted By: Stevie
Has a bad engine. I would trade it in for something more reliable.


Are you saying that this particular engine design is a bad engine (The Earth Dreams V6) or my particular engine in my Pilot is a single instance of a bad engine?

Originally Posted By: Trav
At least register the complaint with Honda, they will tell you a qt in 1K is normal and to go pound sand but at some point it possibly will get much worse and need a short block at a minimum.
At some point if they find oil fouled plugs are causing a misfire and the engine is done.


I'll do that. 1 quart in 1k miles is absurd.

I wonder if I can find a TSB on OC... Hmmm...


Originally Posted By: rooflessVW
Originally Posted By: Stevie
Has a bad engine. I would trade it in for something more reliable.

My Q7 doesn't consume a drop, maybe the OP should get one!

thumbsup2.gif



The Q7 is in a completely different league. We are not trying to get into the luxury category. The starting price on the 3.0T is 56k, and goes up to 65k. That's significantly out of our range for what we are looking for.

Regarding your comment about changing the brand, I've always had and continue to get the service done at the same local dealer. It's only had 3 oil changes so far, I think. I can ask if they have a "Premium" synthetic that they'd use or if they'd use my own sourced oil (I'd probably go for PP, as I've had good results with it in the past, though not in the 0w20 that it calls for)
 
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Originally Posted By: JohnnyJohnson
Well let us know what they do. My guess is they more or less tell you politely to get screwed. This is what Subaru did to their customers for years that warm place is going to freeze over before I buy a Subaru.


I know you meant well with this post, but I'm compelled to comment my own personal opinion: The problem with the oil consumption was caused by bad oil control rings from the supply company that provided them to Subaru (or, the Gunma plant in Japan). Some of the dealers themselves were quasi-resistant to doing this because it took a substantial amount of time to do, and from what I understand, warranty work is not as profitable as regular service. However, as long as things were logged appropriately, they were doing short block replacements under warranty and I think might have even extended the warranty for many of the years affected. I believe Honda's warranty is 3/36 for everything? Subaru's regular warranty for my car is 5/60 with my powertrain, and then 10/100 for my transmission components. I'd like to believe if anything nasty appears, it would do so once everything's seated and within 5/60. 3/36 is kind of aggressive for my liking.

Originally Posted By: Dave9
It'll run fine on 5W30 in summer. Maybe fine in winter too but they wouldn't reach their MPG claims.


This is actually an interesting comment. Again, I'd like to see a UOA of one of my model engines running 5w30 without any increased wear metals in the analysis before I really bought into that. I don't even know what the engine code of the Earth Dreams one is.

Personally, I do not care about gas mileage. Sure, I want my cars to be as efficient as possible and not needlessly waste fuel, but if my end game was 30+ mpg, I wouldn't have purchased an SUV.
 
“....Previously it had not any type of oil consumption to cause any concern....”



I would top it off and check it regularly or get it looked at. Either that last oil change was shorted or something loosened up. The calls for impending doom are premature.
 
So you estimate it's consumed just over a quart in 2,500 miles? Sure that's irritating, but Honda likely won't conduct a consumption test based on that. Question: I thought the VCM consumption issues in the newer Honda V-6's was solved. My 2017 Odyssey has 14K miles and uses zero oil. That's why I ask. Personally I prefer to use 5w-20. I don't care what Honda recommends.
 
My pilot is also 2016 MY purchased in July same year. Almost 20K on the clock now and also driven by my wife - mostly short trips. No consumption so far and I had ran M1 and PP lately in 0w20. I had few UOAs done and posted them here. You consumption could be due to VCM and some people install VCM muzzler or VCM tuner which disables it and consumtion improves dramatically. You can give it a try - around 90$ thing with 5 min install.
 
Also, changing oil on this car is very easy. Filter location is a little stupid but not horrible. Powetrain warranty is 5/60 so you got plenty of time. Plus you can get honda care and extended all the way to 120K or 8yrs ( for 1200$ roughly)
 
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