99 crv burning oil
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99 crv burning oil
Hey everyone i got a 99 crv 160k and i noticed im burning oil. Its not a crazy amount but its probably half way down on the dipstick over a month of driving. It might smoke a little bit while driving but coming to a complete stop then accelerating or accelerating from going into reverse it will let out a puff of smoke. Just wondering if anyone might know the cause. It is my daily and other than that bit of oil burning i have no problems with it.
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Joined: Jul 2016
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From: Maryland
Re: 99 crv burning oil
Roughly how many miles are you covering in that month of driving? Oil use is a lot easier to evaluate when you look at it as volume per mile rather than volume per time.
The reason it's burning oil is probably because the piston rings are caked with carbon and burned oil, keeping them from cleaning the cylinder walls on their trip to the bottom of the stroke. The only true way to fix this is to fully disassemble the engine and clean the piston ring lands/install new rings. That's an incredible amount of work for something that's probably not a big deal (as long as you keep on top of your oil level). You may be able to mitigate this by doing a few oil changes in rapid succession with a high-quality oil. For instance, doing 3 oil changes with 1,000 miles between them and then sliding back to a 5,000 mile oil change interval (forever), may make a difference and is probably the simplest and most cost effective solution. If it works, that's great! If it doesn't, you're only out maybe 80-100 bucks for oil and filters if you're doing the changes yourself.
You could use a compression test to verify if the piston rings are adequately doing their jobs, and you could also do a compression test now, and then again after 3 or 4 oil changes to see if there's been a measurable change in chamber sealing, but the effect of the stuck rings may be so slight that it wouldn't show that much of a difference, especially for the trouble of conducting the tests.
Ultimately, the reason this happened is from using cheap oil, or running the oil too long. Depending on your driving style, 5,000 miles on an oil change for modern, quality oil is a pretty good rule of thumb.
The reason it's burning oil is probably because the piston rings are caked with carbon and burned oil, keeping them from cleaning the cylinder walls on their trip to the bottom of the stroke. The only true way to fix this is to fully disassemble the engine and clean the piston ring lands/install new rings. That's an incredible amount of work for something that's probably not a big deal (as long as you keep on top of your oil level). You may be able to mitigate this by doing a few oil changes in rapid succession with a high-quality oil. For instance, doing 3 oil changes with 1,000 miles between them and then sliding back to a 5,000 mile oil change interval (forever), may make a difference and is probably the simplest and most cost effective solution. If it works, that's great! If it doesn't, you're only out maybe 80-100 bucks for oil and filters if you're doing the changes yourself.
You could use a compression test to verify if the piston rings are adequately doing their jobs, and you could also do a compression test now, and then again after 3 or 4 oil changes to see if there's been a measurable change in chamber sealing, but the effect of the stuck rings may be so slight that it wouldn't show that much of a difference, especially for the trouble of conducting the tests.
Ultimately, the reason this happened is from using cheap oil, or running the oil too long. Depending on your driving style, 5,000 miles on an oil change for modern, quality oil is a pretty good rule of thumb.
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