Burning Oil On Road Trip

[jordan]

So far driven 1350 kms from Winnipeg to Calgary and after getting about 300 kms from Calgary I noticed the power of the engine diminished a bit. Example..I have to press the gas peddle in a slight bit more to keep the speed. I was travelling at sppeds of Approx 110kms/hr. I changed the oil last week. I haven't got around to checking the oil yet but is it normal for the car to burn oil after a 1000kms or more of constant hwy driving?

I'm still going to have to drive to Vancouver later in the week so I thought I'd ask now to see if any of you have tips or ideas.

Note: the car (w/2.4Litre engine) has 97000 kms on it, its not driven hard and well kept. its a 2000 GX model.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

[King Asoka]

Sorry cant help with the car, but if u want to hook up for a beer lwhile your in Vancouver let me know. I can also tell you about some good places to go while your here.

[bigd6983]

i cant imagine its "normal" for any car to burn oil, when that starts happening thats when you have problems......blown head gasket, rings, something like that.......lets see what others say

[freakout]

I'd have to agree with BigD on this. Car shouldn't burn oil because of steady driving. I take my car on regular 4 hour road trips. I never add oil to my car, I use Quaker State Advanced Engine and a Fram WearGaurd Filter. I have 126k kms on it.

[ptrudel]

i've got 170 000kms on my 2.4 GX, and after 8 straight hours of driving, its still fine...so somethin's not right with your's...

[Redog]

Yeah I agree. Check the easy first, see if your oil filter is leaking. I smelled burning oil on the way home from MI (700 mi, about 11 hours) and it turned out I had a little bit of oil leaking from the filter and onto the hot engine block

[Oldsman]

after a lot miles on your car, like 100,000 miles. your car will lose some oil and more often.

reason being that the rings are not sealing as good as they did because of the miles there for you get more blow by. now the blow by goes back into your intake so you burn the blow by oil for EPA reasons. so you are burning oil but it is due to the blow by which is caused by rings getting worn for the all the use.

this is just normal workings of any motor.

[ptrudel]

so does that mean blow by hurts performance too?

i mean, i'm sure it does if you're burnin oil instead of the regular air/fuel mixture...but by how much?

mine's startin to have more and more blow by, maybe thats why i seen slower times on the track couple weeks ago...

[Oldsman]

yes it does hurt the performance because the rings are not sealing the cylinders as good and you burn more oil.

[ptrudel]

hrmm...need a beater for winter...must rebuild engine..may as well do it to handle boost i guess

[freakout]

A little oil use is a normal sign of wear. A sudden increase there's something wrong. My alero uses a little but no were near enough to worry about topping it up, moves just enough on the stick to notice. My transport goes through a gallon every 20k miles, needs a gallon when service due.

[urweak]

I lose about a quart ever 1,000 - 2,000 miles. I know my exhuast cam gasket is dripping some oil. But it happens on high milage engines. not that big of a deal.

[CocoaAlero]

Originally posted by urweak@Jul 8 2005, 07:11 PM
I lose about a quart ever 1,000 - 2,000 miles. I know my exhuast cam gasket is dripping some oil. But it happens on high milage engines. not that big of a deal.
Quoted post

I see I'm not alone here. Mine's done that for a while. I'll loose about 1/2 quart per 1000 miles.

[Stencil]

Originally posted by jordan@Jul 2 2005, 11:30 AM
So far driven 1350 kms from Winnipeg to Calgary and after getting about 300 kms from Calgary I noticed the power of the engine diminished a bit. Example..I have to press the gas peddle in a slight bit more to keep the speed. I was travelling at sppeds of Approx 110kms/hr. I changed the oil last week. I haven't got around to checking the oil yet but is it normal for the car to burn oil after a 1000kms or more of constant hwy driving?

I'm still going to have to drive to Vancouver later in the week so I thought I'd ask now to see if any of you have tips or ideas.

Note: the car (w/2.4Litre engine) has 97000 kms on it, its not driven hard and well kept. its a 2000 GX model.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Quoted post




I'm not very familer with Canadian geography, but what is the Altitude difference from the 2 places your driving? I live in Colorado at around 7200 Feet and the difference in air density up here from sea level is 22% - so that means I loose 22% power living up here. On a 200HP engine, that's 44HP lost!!!

I experiance that quite frequently when I travel to sea level - the car gets all nice and peppy and hauls ass, and then when I'm climbing back up into Colorado it feels like I'm missing a cylinder!

As for the oil loss, a properly setup OEM motor shouldn't burn much oil. GM has a chart for each motor that they consider "normal oil loss" for that engine. The condition of the oil rings has little to do with the condition of the compression rings, so burning oil doesn't usually mean you loose power unless it's a BIG and sudden loss. My 92 GTZ Q4 that I bought at 130k always used about a 1/2 quart every 500 miles, and it was especially bad when I raced it, but it dynoed 157HP WHP in stock trim which is right on par for the motor. When I replaced the engine at 170k with a 11.3:1CR Forged Piston setup, I set it up a litte loose for power and it would still burn about a quart every 1000 miles, but it dynoed 192WHP so I know the power was there :)