Y Reg Celica Vvti Oil Use - Help

[Anastie]

Hi again all. I posted a few weeks ago about the oil use in my wifes Celica. You may recall she drove it with almost no oil in :censor:

Well I have monitored the oil use very close and this is the how much on average it is going through. From max on dip stick to minimum in around 800 miles. The car although "Y" reg has only done 40,000 miles, owned by 2 lady owners and my wife drives it very gently. It has a full history and does not blow out blue smoke when revved hard. There is no nasty noises from the enging bay.

So is this use normal? Should she sell it on as this is a bad omen for the future? The dilemma is is the engine Bu***red or the oil use is just high???

Please advise :group-cuddles:

[sotal]

Join the club! I have no idea why my 1996 1.8 Celica ST uses a similar amount of oil.

It just seems to do it - I wouldn't say the engine was buggered, If you are really serious about finding out where the oil is going there is one test you can do but it's a bit of a pain:

People seem to reckopn that the catalytic convertors on new cars are very good at hiding any blue smoke. They get so hot in there so any oil is burnt off before exiting the cat. Now personally I would have still thought you would get a blast of blue smoke when you first start it from cold - but anyway - If you get your car on some ramps and undo the cat so that the exhaust ends just before it, then start the car up and see if blue smoke comes out there.

It's one test I've still got to do on mine but it's a pain to do so it will probably be the last test I do. Also it's not a conclusive test. If blue smoke does come out I would have to guess that the valve stem seals have gone, or some rings have worn. If there is no blue smoke then I would be stuck again!

[Big_Sid]

Sounds a bit dodgy. It's not something obvious like a leak is it? Mind you you'd be up to your knees in oil if it was leaking that amount? Have you checked the underside of the oil filler cap? Does it have any whitish looking sludge on it? I have a Y reg VVTL-i which has done about 50K and since I've had it every time I've gone to put oil in it, the level has barely moved, and the oil on the dipstick is still golden and not black. In 20K miles I've probably only put about a litre in it at most. Then again, I do have it regularly serviced by Toyota and they do a full oil change every 10000 miles anyway.

[Anastie]

The car has a full Toyota history. There are no white residue that I can see. The oil on the dipstick was golden for the first couple of thousand miles after the service but now dark black. Not looking good is it :(

[mikeb]

800 miles per litre is, frankly, shocking oil consumption for the 1zz-fe. Don't confuse it with the issues sotal is having with the older 7a-fe engine (it's a totally different animal).

My guess is that it's down to oil control rings, or cylinder bores. Valve stem seals would be unlikely to loose so much oil, and problems from them usually occur in high mileage engines when the seals have gone hard/brittle.

[T600]

On that kind of consumption you would think you would either see the oil leaking out, or else you would see the effects of it being burnt. i.e. blue exhaust fumes.

Those are the only two options - it's either leaking out of the engine, or else it's leaking into the combustion chambers.

Either way, that kind of consumption is going to be expensive in the long run. But I don't fancy your chances of selling it at a good price if you can't fix the problem.

Has the engine been compression tested? That would show up dodgy piston rings etc.

Doubt it's valve seals - I had an engine (Vauxhall) where seals went and it produced clouds of blue smoke when you pressed the accellerator after an over-run situation. I don't think even that used as much oil as you're going through.

[mikeb]

Compression testing may show something up with the bores/compression rings, but the oil rings themselves have no bearing on compression test results. So you could get a good compression reading, but the oil rings might still be bad.

You don't usually see modern cars putting out oil smoke because it tends to get burnt off in the cat.

Selling it or p/x might not be a bad idea. No one will know how much oil the thing burns unless you tell them. Not until they buy it of course. It's not exactly the most honest thing to do though. At least with part-ex, a garage will end up bearing the cost.

[sotal]

I know that it won't be the same as the 7A-FE but Toyota as a standard comment reckon that 1000Km per litre is acceptable with any engine and would be within operating specifications. They have told me this and it states it in the manual. That's about 600 miles to 1 litre

Following my recent tests I am doing around 600-650 miles to 1 litre so I'm just on the edge. I have no leaks what so ever and even had my mechanic check it over when it last went for it's MOT. My Spark plugs aren't oily. My Oil is mixing with coolant, I've done a compression test which didn't show anything up. It's not lost any power. It's last emmission results were perfect. The mechanic even commented on how good they were for a 9 year old car. I never get any smoke out of the exhaust even from cold when I presume the cat would be cold and wouldn't burn it off.

There doesn't seem to be any adverse affects from adding oil, so at the moment I am happy to just keep adding oil once a month. Luckily I don't do many miles so it doesn't cost too much but I still want to know what it is!! I seemed to notice that consumption dropped over winter last year when it was colder but I'm not 100% so I will continue testing throughout winter and see what happens

[frankie01]

Well at elast u spotted it. My 2000 w Celica ran out of oil this week and the big end has now gone as well as any chance i had of paying off my loan. My fault I know but still gutting. Estecially when i only have 2 1/2 miles to drive before I had the car booked in at Toyota for its service.

Can anyone suggest how I such go about geting it fixed? The car is currently sitting in my drive looking costly!

[Celica_Mike]

My Oil is mixing with coolant,

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If the oil is mixing with the coolant then that points to a head gasket failure, surely?