My K Series Is Losing Oil Thread

[Slammedk24]

The past two oil changes I've noticed that my car is burning a good bit of oil.  Ever since I've owned my car it has burned oil.  I bought with 80,000 miles and I would have to add about 1/4 of a quart of oil in it between changes. Now it has 120,000 miles and now I have to add a whole quart between changes.  I dont drive my car hard at all maybe once every other day I might hit redline getting onto the freeway but thats about the extent of it.  I usually drive like a grandma and keep the rpms as low as possible at cruising speeds.  Since i've owned it I've changed the oil every 3,000 miles with Mobil 1 5w-20 oil and either a Mobil filter or a Bosch Filter.  And the only maintenance I've done to engine besides oil changes is I put a K&N air filter in it and I changed the serpintine belt.  Is there something engine maintenance I should have done around 100,000 miles that could a cause of this or is there a recommendation on what i should do.  I had thought about going to a 30 weight but I dont know if it would be to thick or not.  I also check for leaks everytime I change the oil and I have not found any leaks what so ever.  PLus I dont know if this has anything to do with it or this may be a factor for something but I have noticed my gas mileage has dropped also.  i used to be able to get close to 400 mile on a tank and now I get about 340 miles.

[Abailey4]

The plugs should've been changed by now...

[Slammedk24]

oh yeah i forgot i did that.  Changed them at 100,000 with the NGK Irdiums.  I knew I forgot to mention something.  The previous owner said they were changed but I didnt believe them so I changed them anyway. But I dont think the previous owner took very good care of the car.  And they werent exactly the best driver either, it had been wrecked over 4 times and thats just what the carfax said

[Milan]

I had (rather, still have) issues with oil burn-off.  When I got the car with about 77k miles I switched over to synthetic against the recommendation of a few people.  Between my 5k mile oil changed, I probably had to add about 2.5 quarts to keep the proper level.  I did three synthetic oil changes to see if maybe the car would get used to the synthetic but every time it drank oil like a sieve.  

After I changed back to conventional, I noticed that I had to add roughly half of what I had to add when I was using synthetic.  I've also thought about switching to a thicker oil like 10W-30 to see if that helps further.  I wanted to use a high-mileage oil but I find it impossible to find it in 5W-20 so maybe I will be forced to go to 10W-30.

[suleman_manji]

this thread makes me think about how lucky i've gotten with my high mileage accord.

155k and it doesn't burn oil at all

[NVA-AV6]

Go to a conventional 10W-30 like castrol, I reccomend that even with my engine builds, the 5-20 is too damn thin when the car gets to full op temp and synthetic is even worse at thinning at temp, but it sounds like you rings are ging causing the oil loss, when you pulled the plugs what did they look like, can you pull the plugs now and take picks of them being sure to mark what cylinder they came from.

[Slammedk24]

yeah I can do it tommorrow, i cant remember what they looked like when i changed them.  So synthetic actually burns more and thins under higher temps.  I always thought it was much better to run and was supposed to last longer between changes which is why I used it.

[NVA-AV6]

Yes, the oil holds it's lubrication properties longer, but it does thin out more than convetional with temp, I tested this using mobil 1 and castrol 5-20 and 10-30, the same car, same pressure gauge, the mobil 1 was only giving a 6-9 psi at idle reading at full temp, a bit low, the 5-20 was only 8-12psi and the 10-30 was 12-18psi, right where I like to see idle oil pressure.

[Slammedk24]

alright I think im gonna switch to just 5w20 conventional and see how that goes then I might try the 10w30 im just afraid to use a oil that thick.  I definetly know I wont be able to use that in the winter my car doesnt want to start as it is with 5w20 when it cold out.

[timot_one]

I'm actually going to be switching to 5W30 for the summer, and possibly 10W30 because of Rick's advice.  I also suffer from the loss of oil in my +150k motor.  I am fully aware that synthetic oil burns off faster than dino oil, in addition to the fact that 5W20 is very thin.

[Mike]

I might also switch to a thicker oil. The only thing lost should maybe be a little bit of gas mileage right?

[NVA-AV6]

^Correct, but not even enough to mesure...... Another persone who has a J35 build now gets 37-38MPG on his drives from VA to NJ, he used to only get 32-33MPG with his J30A5 and now runs castrol 10W-30, there was no decernable loss of MPG.

[Slammedk24]

can you pull the plugs now and take picks of them being sure to mark what cylinder they came from.

Cylinder #1



Cylinder #2



Cylinder #3



Cylinder #4



All of the electrodes were still very pointed and looked fine.

[suleman_manji]

that's the new set?

[Slammedk24]

Yeah they 26000 mile on them