If the engine isn't losing oil by leaking it, a knowledgable technician using a leakdown tester can determine where the oil is going. A compression test can only give up so much information but a leakdown test can tell if oil is being drawn past the valve seals in the cylinder heads, excessive blowby past the piston rings, etc. First make certain there are no significant oil leaks and rule that out.

 

i wouldn't worry about it too much. check for leaks and blue smoke like others have said. if you don't see any of that just keep checking the oil level and don't worry about it

 

i notice my car burns a lot of oil too, but also sometimes in the morning i'll start the car and a puff of white smoke will come out and that's it. is this normal?

 

i dont know if using higher viscosity oil is a myth or not but i know what i've expirienced. i wasing mobil 1 5w-30 and around 3k miles i would be at the L on the dip stick. I've switched over to 0W-30 german castrol syntec which is closer to a 40 weight oil and right now close to 5k with several hard drives its still at the F on the dipstick. This close to my second oil change with the GC and i've yet to burn any oil.

 

FYI - Subaru considers oil consumption up to 1qt per 1000 miles, 'normal'.

 

I know its somewhat of a dead thread but +1 to what this guy said...

While getting my car serviced I asked the service manager about it cuz I use 1 to 1 1/2 and he said the manufacturer states 1 qt. per every 750-1000 miles is considered normal consumption. Coming from driving a tC that might have dropped a couple of millimeters on the dipstick between oil changes I find it hard to believe that having to add 1 to 2 quarts of oil is normal. Whatever.....feed the beast, I guess. lol.

 

make sure that when you get an oil chang they put a new crush washer on the drain plug or you will lose about a drop per 2 hours or so

 

blue smoke is oil and white smoke is coolant .... black smoke is running too rich

 

HOW CUTE........Question answered and thread died like 2 years ago.....

 

^^ lol I was just looking thru this... and i noticed how old it was... thers a lot of old threads on I-club.

 

youre on i-club andrew lol?