This is for a coworker of mine. He has his son's 1990 Civic hatch (standard 4-speed 1.5 liter) in the shop because it was running rough. The shop told him it needed a valve job and the #2 cylinder was dead. Upon trying to fix the problem, they messed something up, ended up having to replace the timing belt (it was saturated in oil) and now the car burns oil – a lot of oil.

The car now has compression, but is burning oil, and the #2 plug gets dark after a very short period of time (they've only had the car 10 days and the plug is burnt). The shop can't explain it. They said it could be a cracked ring, but they, "Can't explain what is going on."

So, does anyone have any idea what could be causing the car to burn oil?

Summary:
1990 Civic base model (1.5 liter)
-Was running rough, brought to shop to have fixed
-Valve job was done, but they messed up on it, and had to replace the timing belt because oil was leaking onto the belt.
-After valve job and timing belt were replaced, #2 cylinder has compression, but now the engine is burning oil and shop can't figure it out.

Any guesses?

 

could be a number of things.

- valve seals can be severely are worn
- he might have a cracked/broken valve in CYL #2
- rings could be dead in a number of cylinders
(they do a compression test at all? wut are the numbers?)

- blown headgasket
..the list goes on