V6 Oil Burn

[bono83]

1500 and still full

[scrming]

Originally Posted by Susantroy1

Ok... so if a motor is burning any oil at all wouldn't that indicate piston ring blow by or some type of engine leakage whether internal or external?? I'm not an engineer but to me there are only two ways for an engine to loose oil 1, leakage through faulty gasket seating or 2, faulty engine break in procedures causing piston rings not to seat properly to the cylinder wall....thereby causing engine blow by when internal pressures exceed the rings capability to hold that pressure.

actually... i think you can get a fair amount of oil from the PCV... I noticed my intake had a surprising amount of oil in it... Really kind of hard to tell from this picture but you can see the inside of the intake tube where the PCV tube comes in is wet with oil:

[Susantroy1]

Originally Posted by scrming

actually... i think you can get a fair amount of oil from the PCV... I noticed my intake had a surprising amount of oil in it... Really kind of hard to tell from this picture but you can see the inside of the intake tube where the PCV tube comes in is wet with oil:

Agreed but that is minuscule wouldn't even show up on the dip stick. folks on the OPs are talking about 1/2 - 1 full quart low thats what...7-15% of the cars oil capacity?? Come-on scrming, I would think surely you would have to raise an eyebrow on that much loss. If I loose 7-15% of my oil in 6k you can bet your last dollar I'm looking for a reason as to why.... not marking it off as simply normal operating parameters

[scrming]

Originally Posted by Susantroy1

Agreed but that is minuscule wouldn't even show up on the dip stick. folks on the OPs are talking about 1/2 - 1 full quart low thats what...7-15% of the cars oil capacity?? Come-on scrming, I would think surely you would have to raise an eyebrow on that much loss. If I loose 7-15% of my oil in 6k you can bet your last dollar I'm looking for a reason as to why.... not marking it off as simply normal operating parameters

Actually OP was talking about "a little" bit of oil.. I was pretty amazed how much oil came out of my intake tube!

Your post said that there was only two ways to loose oil:

1) faulty gasket
2) blow from the piston rings

I simply pointed out another place you can loose oil... and while it may not be a lot, it is certainly some... I mean I had a fair amount in the tube... how much actually made it through the tube into the motor that I don' know about? What's interesting is on some of my hard launch videos you can actually seek the exhaust smoking a bit when the car really winds out... assuming this is some of the oil from the PCV...

I have two LLT motors in my drive way... neither burn oil...

[Susantroy1]

Originally Posted by scrming

I have two LLT motors in my drive way... neither burn oil...

Amen brother.... Thats why 1/2-1 qt every 6k indicates a mech problem would you agree?

[Agent Atomic Orange]

Is anyone else seeing this in their V6? I have about 8k miles on my car. I use Mobil 1 and I have to add about a 1/2 quart every 3 to 4k. My dealer said it is normal. (I am heading out to add another 1/2 quart).

[Russell James]

1/2 qt in 3 - 4,000 miles is next to nothing, I wouldn't give it a second thought. 1 qt in 1 to 2,000, I'd start to wonder why.

An engine has to use some oil. Anyone that doesn't agree with that can explain to me how they would expect an engine to last if it had rings that scraped cylinders completely dry on every stroke. Or valve seals that kept valve stems completely sealed from any oil. Or pcv systems that didn't recirc some oil vapors up into the intake...

Cylinders are honed in a cross hatch pattern for a reason, to leave a very thin film of oil for the rings and pistons to slide on. That minor amount burns off in every power stroke. At the same time an engine is using a very small amount of oil, it is adding other things such as condensation and combustion by-products. Which makes some people think that after 3 - 5,000 miles and they check the dipstick to find it perfectly full, that motor didn't burn a drop of oil. Sure it did, a very small amount, and it also added a very small amount of other stuff = still looks full.

Take a brand new car and never check the oil until 10,000 miles? I'd be very surprised if anything showed on the dipstick. New cars use a little more oil as they are breaking in. Don't replace that oil and now the lower volume will burn off even faster. The condensates and byproducts become a higher percent compared to what oil is left, take a long highway trip and it burns off like crazy.

Just my opinion but if folks opened their hoods more often and kept it topped off, wouldn't be an issue to be concerned with. 1/2 qt or so between 3 - 5,000 mile oil changes is nothing. Being really low after 10K of not checking it, I wouldn't be surprised by that either. When I was a tech many years ago, saw it all the time. Especially when leasing became popular, people forgot how to open their hoods. Saw tons of leased cars pull in at around 15,000 miles with the low oil light on and a cheesed off customer that his car is "burning oil". Let me show you where the hood latch is, and here's the dipstick, and here is where you add oil.... oh no, this is a leased car, I just put gas in it.

[mtcwby]

Most dealers will tell you that burning a quart of oil in 1 - 2,000 miles falls within specs and is not considered excessive. I don't agree, but that is what they will tell you. That's why you are supposed to check the oil at every other gas fill-up or sooner.

[duder4thgen]

Originally Posted by Susantroy1

Agreed but that is minuscule wouldn't even show up on the dip stick. folks on the OPs are talking about 1/2 - 1 full quart low thats what...7-15% of the cars oil capacity?? Come-on scrming, I would think surely you would have to raise an eyebrow on that much loss. If I loose 7-15% of my oil in 6k you can bet your last dollar I'm looking for a reason as to why.... not marking it off as simply normal operating parameters

I'll admit I have no experience with the 3.6, but I can tell you LS based engines can easily burn a qt or more of oil between changes through the PCV system, including LS1's that only have a 6qt capacity, which is ~16.67% of it's capacity.

As for the OP's post, I could see if you've ran it pretty hard (high rpm's burn oil on any engine) maybe it being that low on oil, but I would take it to the dealer and have them check it out to be sure. You said it wasn't showing on the dipstick, were you getting a warning message for oil level? How long after you turned your car off did you wait to check the oil? Did you fill it up and how much did it take?

[tradosaurus]

Originally Posted by Russell James

1/2 qt in 3 - 4,000 miles is next to nothing, I wouldn't give it a second thought. 1 qt in 1 to 2,000, I'd start to wonder why.

An engine has to use some oil. Anyone that doesn't agree with that can explain to me how they would expect an engine to last if it had rings that scraped cylinders completely dry on every stroke. Or valve seals that kept valve stems completely sealed from any oil. Or pcv systems that didn't recirc some oil vapors up into the intake...

Cylinders are honed in a cross hatch pattern for a reason, to leave a very thin film of oil for the rings and pistons to slide on. That minor amount burns off in every power stroke. At the same time an engine is using a very small amount of oil, it is adding other things such as condensation and combustion by-products. Which makes some people think that after 3 - 5,000 miles and they check the dipstick to find it perfectly full, that motor didn't burn a drop of oil. Sure it did, a very small amount, and it also added a very small amount of other stuff = still looks full.

Take a brand new car and never check the oil until 10,000 miles? I'd be very surprised if anything showed on the dipstick. New cars use a little more oil as they are breaking in. Don't replace that oil and now the lower volume will burn off even faster. The condensates and byproducts become a higher percent compared to what oil is left, take a long highway trip and it burns off like crazy.

Just my opinion but if folks opened their hoods more often and kept it topped off, wouldn't be an issue to be concerned with. 1/2 qt or so between 3 - 5,000 mile oil changes is nothing. Being really low after 10K of not checking it, I wouldn't be surprised by that either. When I was a tech many years ago, saw it all the time. Especially when leasing became popular, people forgot how to open their hoods. Saw tons of leased cars pull in at around 15,000 miles with the low oil light on and a cheesed off customer that his car is "burning oil". Let me show you where the hood latch is, and here's the dipstick, and here is where you add oil.... oh no, this is a leased car, I just put gas in it.

Just add 1/2 quart extra at the next oil change.

[2ndgenz28]

Oil can be very tricky on why it’s gone sometimes.
But being diligent on checking it, if you have a problem or not is smart insurance. As it may be full one day, and a quart low the next.

Ya don't wanna be racing Vetts on the low days

[alan422]

When I put up my V6 for the winter it had 320 miles logged. At that time I dumped the oil and filter. I measured the oil that came out of the motor. It measured exactly 5.0 quarts. The 3.6L V6 oil capacity is 6.0 quarts.

I know I didnt burn a quart of oil in 320 miles. Im sure I would have been seeing large clouds of blue smoke if it burned that much in those few miles. In fact I know the dipstick level never changed from day one, as I kept track of the oil level.

Only thing I can guess is GM is only putting 5 quarts of oil in the motor to begin with.
In otherwords... They're saving a buck. Actually, I was surprised the V6 had a 6 quart sump. Maybe one quart of your oil that may have been burned was never there to begin with. Just my observation...

Has anyone else changed and measured the oil amount with low miles on the car?

[duder4thgen]

Originally Posted by alan422

When I put up my V6 for the winter it had 320 miles logged. At that time I dumped the oil and filter. I measured the oil that came out of the motor. It measured exactly 5.0 quarts. The 3.6L V6 oil capacity is 6.0 quarts.

I know I didnt burn a quart of oil in 320 miles. Im sure I would have been seeing large clouds of blue smoke if it burned that much in those few miles. In fact I know the dipstick level never changed from day one, as I kept track of the oil level.

Only thing I can guess is GM is only putting 5 quarts of oil in the motor to begin with.
In otherwords... They're saving a buck. Actually, I was surprised the V6 had a 6 quart sump. Maybe one quart of your oil that may have been burned was never there to begin with. Just my observation...

Has anyone else changed and measured the oil amount with low miles on the car?

Did the 5 qts include what was in the filter canister? Meaning did you crack open the lid to the oil filter housing before or after you drained the oil? Should be right around a qt in there, and it isn't going to drain down into the pan until you open it.

[theholycow]

Originally Posted by alan422

I know the dipstick level never changed from day one, as I kept track of the oil level.

Only thing I can guess is GM is only putting 5 quarts of oil in the motor to begin with.

Did the dipstick level that you saw indicate that it didn't need any oil added?