Oil consumption

DAVID BARNES

MEMBER
CHEVROLET

My daughter just bought a 2001 Chevrolet Prizm, 1.8L auto, 102K on engine. The car does't smoke. I have put cardboard under the engine and there is no ecessive oil leaks, but it uses about 3 qts. Of oil every thousand miles. The car runs great and gets very good gas milage. Any ideas on where all that oil is going? Thanks.

1 Reply

KASEKENNY

MECHANIC
18,907 POSTS

If there are no leaks which seems like you have confirmed or at least confirmed it is not leaking this much oil then we have to be using the oil through the engine. There is just no other place for the oil to go.

So I would suggest using this guide that help with checking for leaks one more time:

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/engine-is-leaking-oil

If there are no leaks or substantial leaks then we need to suspect the engine is using the oil even if you are not seeing any smoke. I suspect the smoke is there but just hard to see.

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/blue-smoke-from-engines-exhaust

More than likely this is due to a piston ring issue not sealing but we should do two things. First pull the plugs to do a compression check and so that we can inspect the plugs.

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/how-to-test-engine-compression

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/replace-engine-piston-rings

Below is a chart that will help help with what issues could be as a result of the plugs.

Please run through this info and let us know if you have more questions. Thanks

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