Most people talk of quarts in a mileage sense. Well, I am thinking that we need to really see how are cars use oil.
There are many variables, such as engine size, rpms due to gear choices, steady state vs city driving etc etc.
What can we honestly due to figure out our oil consumption. I mean, if I tracked a car for an hour and used a quart after 250 miles, yet on the highway and I am cruising in OD till I hit 250 miles and I use no oil, what has changed?
I am thinking one thing tells us how we are doing with oil consumption, and that is compare it to fuel consumption.
I am no engineer, no mathematician, but if you get 10 mpg and use 1 quart of oil, then you get 20 mpg and use 1/2 quart, you will eventually see a trend.
ANyways, just my thought. Whats yours?

 

Ttt

 

If your burning a quart of oil every 250 miles then you have issues. My car burns about .2-.4 quarts in 3000 miles. Something along those lines. I dont know how you measure how much oil your car burns. WHat I did is save the 6 bottle, do the oil change then the used oil put it back into the bottles and see how much is missing from the last bottle. Unless you have a accurate scale then I dont know how else you can do it.

 

I dont use a quart every 250 miles, it was an example to show the difference of tracking a car to highway useage.
Putting oil back in the bottles is a good way to see how much you used based on your driving style, engine etc etc.
There are many variables from oil type, temps, driving style, engine build etc etc.

 

Good point. But Just curious, Why would it be so important. I dont understand where your going with this Thread? (Not trying to be rude)

 

Well, I am trying to figure out what really would be a credible way to say "your engine is using too much oil".
For example if you started your car and it smoked like a crop duster and used oil as much as gas, well that would be a problem. But there are people that would say "if you use a quart every 1000 miles, its time to rebuild. But some people know that this is not true. Some people dont, and would be told to rebuild when in fact there is nothing wrong with their engines, they are just being taken.
When I found out mine was using about a quart every thousand miles, I was concerned, then looked at the plugs, which were fine. The build of the engine was very good, rings were broken in properly yet they are low tension rings. After researching low tension ring oil useage issues, a 1000 miles a quart if acceptable.

 

I would think the simplest way to track oil use is when you check your oil and it's low and you add some, write it down along with mileage, then the next time you add oil do the same, include oil changes in there and you'll have how much oil you're using over how many miles and between oil changes.

Emptying the old oil at an oil change into jugs to see how much isn't there will only work if you never add oil between changes.

I believe it's GM's stance that one US quart/Litre every 3000 miles/5000 kilometres is normal oil use.

 

Well wouldn't you throw it off completely if you check your oil level intermittently between changes and top it off as necessary? It seems that you'd have to neglect adding oil to really measure accurately how much oil was used. It's either that, or you do an oil change every time the oil dips below an unacceptable level. I guess you could track the amounts you add during top offs, but I guess if you're topping the oil off fairly often, then it would be obvious that your car is consuming too much oil.