oil burner

135

Asked by Ben Mar 18, 2010 at 02:33 PM about the 1998 Saturn S-Series 4 Dr SL2 Sedan

Question type: Maintenance & Repair

im burning a quart of oil every four days, about half a tank of gas. is there any way to fix this. i have a 98 sl2 dohc 1.9.

7 Answers

65

Depending on how much driving your doing, the half a tank of gas per day could be average, or could be terrible. If the gas is being wasted as much as the oil is, you could have major compression problems. Maybe your piston rings are out of whack, or - from what it sounds like - if you have piston rings at all. But I would seriously do a compression test, otherwise the only thing I could suggest right now would be inserting leak dye into the oil so see if its being leaked, or if it's just simply being burned. Ask for more help. Peace.

3 people found this helpful.
975

If the car is burning oil, it'll be in relation to mileage, and you'll likely see some blue exhaust if you stand behind the car when someone else starts it. If it's simply leaking oil, the quart will still be needed if you drive another car for 4 days. As I recall, if the piston rings aren't the problem, there's some seals, I think somewhere above the oil pan if I remember correctly, that can be damaged if too much oil is added during maintainence(my car burns a pint every 1000 miles). i suspect your motor may be ready for a disassembly, but I'll wait for the compression test, as the last person suggested, before I jump to any conclusions.

1 people found this helpful.
195

Saturn's like to burn oil. Simple fix? Not really. You can try soaking the piston rings with seafoam to clear them up but usually the engine needs a tear down and a good cleaning. The valve seals like to leak, and the oil rings hold oil then burn it and than cannot let oil drain so it continues to burn it. Replace all engine seals, replace piston rings and have oil relief holes in pistons and it will be good as new!

4 people found this helpful.
175

My saturn sw1 has a problem with the oil plug gasket leaking - I found it needs changed with almost every oil change or wife complains about oil usage. check for oil leaking at the plug

135

thanks ill do the test. it definitely isn't leaking. I did put some lucas oil stuff in it to see if that would work but so far not much of a difference.

low tension piston rings.. this is what i heard.. the L and LS (3rd Gen) do not have these issues.

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