oil consumption

Merch

My car (fiesta 1.25, 99) is looking like its starting to consume oil, 115k miles on the clock, runs reasonably well, but I just noticed recently for the first time the oil was quite low when checking it, checking again 2 weeks later, I see it is back to where it was, no leaks so it must be burning oil?
emissions were all fine on past nct's including the most recent one in June where I squeezed out 2 years till my next NCT.

I always used motorcraft ford formula E 5W30 up to 95/100k miles, then switched over to halfords brand which says it is the same spec (exactly), Im not sure there is even much of a saving in cost now, at the time (maybe it was an offer)they were half what the motorcraft ones where but lately they are 31.99 for 5litres.
My oil changes have been more or less around 10k (or slightly sooner, every now and again I changed earlier, like 5-7k miles)

Anything I can do?, change back to motorcraft? or just go cheaper at this stage? I saw a 5W30 for 6 euro in a motorfactors earlier in the year, might go back and buy a few if they still have them or something like it, or is that just going down the slippery slope to further engine wear?
No noticeable smoke or anything out the exhaust either.

Advice?

Cionád

Lidl have these today, 3.40 a litre for part-synth 10W40 aint too shabby http://www.lidl.ie/cps/rde/xchg/lidl_ri_ie/hs.xsl/index_15584.htm

George Dalton

Just keep it topped up and change the oil regularly is all you can do. With a 99 car it is not worth the expense of repairing it.

Don't use 10w40 in the zetec se engine by the way. 5w30 is what is required so keep doing what you are doing.

Merch

I was thinking if I keep it topped up, I wont need to do oil changes, if it keeps needing filling up every few weeks.
I got some 10W40 for my girlfriends car in LIDL but I wouldn't use it in mine, not that Im a snob , always used 5W30 as its the spec, was just wondering if I used really cheap oil (that is 5W30) would it be any worse than me putting in halfords oil, which expected would be ok as it says it meets the ford spec. That was the reason I didnt go for the really cheap oil, although i didnt check to see if it met the ford spec, but it was still 5W30.

It was around the 100k miles I noticed I was topping up between oil changes, at around the same time as I was replacing my oil though, perhaps it is coincidental.

I'm less confident about getting to 200k miles then I was a month ago
Think I will have to revise that figure to 250k km's
I will check every week now without fail opposed to every few weeks,
any opinions on really cheap oil? for the price I saw the 5W30 in a motorfactors,
Or is that just not worth going down that road?
I will look to see if it is still available, maybe it was an offer/special and is no longer in stock.