I know I have a valve cover gasket leak so I'm gonna deal with that this weekend, but with 221k on the clock, I'm worried that my motor is burning oil. Would I be able to smell it if the motor was burning (using) oil but not leaking?

 

try standing by your exhaust pipe

 

i'd say probably not; the car will burn the most oil at higher rpm when you're driving, and obviously the exhaust isn't going into the car.

 

Yeah that makes sense. All right, I'm hoping that most of the oil loss will be gone once I take care of a couple of minor leaks.