Have any knowledge about oil?

Dan fnuts · 26-05-2015 7:11pm #1

Hi

I have a Toyota corolla (1.4 petrol) that's burning a bit of oil. Its too pricey to have the whole engine rebuilt/ resealed. My mate suggested changing the oil from 5w-30 to something thicker. has anybody done this before. has it worked? also what oil you reckon would do the job of being thick enough it is less likely to slip through the seals and get burnt up (also not break the engine).

any suggestions lads or lassies?

Toyotafanboi · 26-05-2015 7:29pm

How much oil is it burning?

Dan fnuts · 26-05-2015 8:39pm

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

How much oil is it burning?

in 260 miles the oil on the dip stick went from the top to under half way. not sure how else to measure the oil loss rate.

martinr5232 · 26-05-2015 8:41pm

What year is it is 5w30 even recommended for it ??

martinr5232 · 26-05-2015 8:50pm

Dan fnuts wrote:

in 260 miles the oil on the dip stick went from the top to under half way. not sure how else to measure the oil loss rate.

Fill it to max drive for 100 miles fill it to max again multiply the amount of oil used by 10 that gives you oil consumption per 1000 miles.

Dan fnuts · 26-05-2015 8:58pm

martinr5232 wrote: »

What year is it is 5w30 even recommended for it ??

its a 2002. Yeah 5w-30 is recommended for it in the owners manual.

once i find out the exact amount of oil consumption what do you do next with the info?

ofcork · 26-05-2015 9:11pm

1 litre every 1000km was the accepted consumption on my 1.6 avensis.

Dan fnuts · 26-05-2015 9:31pm

so anybody ever step up the viscosity of their oil to reduce/prevent oil burning?

martinr5232 · 26-05-2015 9:50pm

Dan fnuts wrote:

so anybody ever step up the viscosity of their oil to reduce/prevent oil burning?

Yeah its not gonna do any harm at this stage.

blackbox · 26-05-2015 10:00pm

What mileage is on it?
If it is not very high, it could be that the rings are gummed up rather than the bores being worn.
I had a Toyota (4AGE engine) that used a fair bit of oil and changed to Mobil 1 (fully synthetic). It burnt a lot more oil for a while, but after next change it burnt hardly any oil at all. Inside of rocker cover was now spotless. I reckon the Mobil 1 flushed all of the tar and gunge out of it.
If she's very high mileage, thicker oil might be your answer. I found Castrol Edge quite good in this situation (but expensive).

Dan fnuts · 26-05-2015 11:36pm

blackbox wrote: »

What mileage is on it?
If it is not very high, it could be that the rings are gummed up rather than the bores being worn.
I had a Toyota (4AGE engine) that used a fair bit of oil and changed to Mobil 1 (fully synthetic). It burnt a lot more oil for a while, but after next change it burnt hardly any oil at all. Inside of rocker cover was now spotless. I reckon the Mobil 1 flushed all of the tar and gunge out of it.
If she's very high mileage, thicker oil might be your answer. I found Castrol Edge quite good in this situation (but expensive).

Mileage is 111,555. thanks for telling me this, its very helpful. Prob change the oil out this weekend. I am thinking i will go for a thicker oil but i am not sure how thick to go. any suggestions?

cletus · 27-05-2015 1:36am

I have a 04 corolla. I don't have oil burning issues, I use 10w40. I didn't think the 4zzfe engine was one of the models prone to burning oil. Having said that, the oil specified in the system of my local motor factors is actually 10w40, not 5w30. I've often wondered if this is something that Toyota revised, but never got a satisfactory answer.

Anyway, tl;dr version, if you want to increase the weight oil in your car, 10w40 would be a pretty good bet

Toyotafanboi · 27-05-2015 10:15am

What year is the corolla?

Given what you've said it does't sound "that" bad. As said above, toyota (like most manufacturers) state that anything up to 1 liter per 600 miles is ok and it sounds like you are just within that threshold.

What kind of driving do you do?

I'd rather stick to a good quality 5w30 if the car has been using 5w30 to this point.

CJhaughey · 27-05-2015 11:05am

cletus wrote: »

I have a 04 corolla. I don't have oil burning issues, I use 10w40. I didn't think the 4zzfe engine was one of the models prone to burning oil.

Lots of the 4zzfe were fixed under warranty from Toyota with new block assemblies, I don't know if this is the same fix as the one that was done for the other VVTi if this era where it was the pistons lack of oil holes in the control ring that was the issue.
I did read somewhere that the issue was porous liners but I can't confirm that this is actually the case.

I remember a big Cork Toyota dealer having a small mountain of blocks behind their workshop during this period.

Our own 00 4zz has 137k on it now and burns a small amount of oil in between services but not enough to worry about, I just top it up with 250ml and it runs away fine.

OP I guess you should try 10w40 and maybe just a good semisynthetic not a full synthetic oil at first.

Dan fnuts · 27-05-2015 11:15am

cletus wrote: »

Anyway, tl;dr version, if you want to increase the weight oil in your car, 10w40 would be a pretty good bet

Thanks for all the comments. Yeah i think i will go pick up some semi-synthetic 10W-40.

I did a bit of reading and came across people talking about changing your PCV valve. might do that as well

Have any knowledge about oil?

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