There are many things that could cause your car or truck to burn more oil than what is considered “normal.” Leaking gaskets, bad piston rings, or even just an engine with high mileage can all cause excessive oil consumption.
But, what if none of these things have been proven to be true in your specific vehicle, and you still notice that you are having to add some oil in between what you think are regular oil change intervals?
Your vehicle might just have a design flaw that is causing it to use “excessive” amounts of oil.
What is “Normal?”
Here is where it gets tricky, because there isn’t really a cut-and-dry answer to what is truly normal. The amount of “normal” oil consumption for a particular vehicle is dependent on the type of engine within that vehicle.
A good example of this is the Wankel rotary engine. This engine was used in several Mazda models, the latest being the Mazda RX-8 sports car which was discontinued in 2012. Because of its unique design, the rotary engine had many advantages over a traditional piston engine, along with several drawbacks as well. One major drawback was the oil consumption.
On top of the Wankel rotary engine being inefficient and fairly unreliable, it was not uncommon for the RX-8 to burn a quart of oil every 1000 miles. That’s generally considered quite a bit of oil for a normal vehicle. At the same time, the Wankel was designed in such a way that burning oil was inevitable.
Many regular engines don’t burn nearly this much oil, though all burn at least a small amount in between normal change intervals. That being said, many mechanics agree that a normal engine in good condition will burn a quart or less of oil in between normal change intervals: about every 3000-7500 miles depending on the vehicle.
What is the Problem?
In the past decade, there have been an increasing number of reports that newer vehicles are burning more oil than expected, and certainly more than should be acceptable. These reports especially focus on certain automakers such as Subaru, BMW, Toyota, Audi, and Honda.
In fact, there have been enough consumer complaints to warrant responses from many of these automakers. Most have explicitly stated that the perceived “excessive” amounts of oil their engines burn are normal, but many have also offered extended warranties to those affected by the alleged excessive oil burning issues.
And, it is here that we run into the problem.
Automakers that reportedly make vehicles that burn too much oil are claiming that the amount of oil burned is completely normal. This puts them and us in an awkward situation.
For them, it is like making a product that claims to be one thing, but is perceived to be something else by a great many people. The materials they use make their product perform a certain way and therefore, make them what they are. If they claim that their product is a certain thing and acts a certain way, how can the consumers say with certainty that product doesn’t work?
For us, we know that things could be different or better. We have multiple functioning examples of similar engines that don’t burn oil at such a high rate. Because of this we have an expectation of what is normal and what should be acceptable.
So, who is right?
I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “the customer is always right.” There is a strong case to be made that the consumer has the upper hand in this battle.
Because we have so many examples of current engines that don’t burn oil at as high a rate as some of the engines that allegedly burn excessive amounts of oil, we can definitively say that the expectation has been set for a normal vehicle without a highly specialized engine to burn a certain amount of oil during a certain time period.
Many mechanics agree that one should not have to add more oil to a vehicle’s engine between normal change intervals. Under normal circumstances then, engines should reasonably burn about a quart or less of oil every 3000-5000 miles.
On top of this, technology has come so far that it has become expected that a modern engine should be better than those of the past – presumably, a part of this would naturally include burning oil at a normal rate.
However, it may be difficult to just state that a manufacturer is wrong when they say that a certain engine is supposed to burn a certain amount of oil, even though that amount is higher than expected. After all, they manufactured it and should know better than anybody about their own product.
The issue, perhaps, lies in something deeper than all these claims. It may be that the rising costs of production and materials, along with the increase intricacy that comes with advanced technology has brought about the use of cheaper parts. Additionally, increasing the level of complication could also have a negative result on many different functions of a vehicle.
If a design flaw is present in an engine due to a decrease in quality parts or an increase in complication, it may very well be expected that more oil would be burned under certain circumstances than before.
Likewise, an engine that used to use one part to control a certain aspect of its performance and now uses ten parts may suffer in some aspect, because it has become ten times more complex.
Conclusion
Is excessive oil consumption a problem? Simply put, it is because the expectation has been set by what we currently have and consider normal. It’s just hard to argue against that logic, no matter how much a manufacturer argues against it.
At the same time, there may be some reasons that excessive oil consumption is more normal for a certain engine, whether manufacturer knows it or not.
The solution is for manufactures to continually improve on what they know to be broken or deficient, which is what usually happens. As much as we hate dealing with them, they aren’t stupid, and they know that losing customers because of a bad product is bad for business.
The truth of the matter is that there will some aspect of just about every car on the road that isn’t ideal. Parts will fail, things will happen, and people will get blamed. There is no perfect vehicle.
The engine just happens to be the heart of nearly everything a vehicle is, so when something goes wrong with it, it is much more serious than many other issues people may encounter.
Burning excessive oil isn’t necessarily detrimental to your vehicle as long as you know about it and add oil when necessary. However, it shouldn’t be accepted as normal, and many manufacturers have recognized that something needs to be done.
Remedies have been made available for many vehicles with excessive oil burning issues. It may be a pain to deal with, but at least it’s something. The best thing you can do is understand which vehicles are affected the most and plan what you are going to do about it. Knowing is half the battle, and the more you know, the better prepared you will be to face whatever problems may arise from excessive oil consumption.
