car using a lot of oil

[kinkbmx4407]

everytime i check my oil its down a quart or more almost every 10 days or so.
what would i check first. on my other legacys i had i never had this problem.

[green97gt]

well first thing is are you leaking it or burning it?

[Brockley]

mine eats oil too. It was mainly the rear cover (crappy plastic one) but I replaced that with the metal one when I did my clutch. Now it still leaks from the gallery plug on top (oil pressure gauge, sunpro POS copper tube) and the oil pan leaks a bit. Still not sure if its burning or what tho, since it leaks fairly quickly

[2.5GT]

Subarus tends to eat a little bit of oil.

What weight of oil are you using? ie 5w-30? 10w30?

Too thin of oil, it'll just burn right up. Try using a different weight of oil. ie 10w-30, 5w-40.

or find out where you're leaking oil from, and get it fix.

[kinkbmx4407]

I don't think its burnng. And I'm trying to make time to look at it and get it fixed just don't have much time with work. I use 5w30

[ouch1011]

Subarus have kind of a bad recipe for oil consumption. 1) they have a lot of external gaskets and seals and seams, and as the engine ages, they start leaking. 2) they are built with kind of loose clearances internally so they tend to burn a bit of oil. I removed and resealed my entire engine, it doesn't leak a drop from anywhere anymore, but it still uses about 1.5-2qts every 5k miles. Thats a totally acceptable amount of oil consumption for an engine with 156k miles, but it is consumption none the less.

[patrack92314]

r u using synthetic or regular motor oil synthetic seams to leak easier then regular

[impreza_GC8]

Is there a puddle under your car? Any smoke that comes out from under the hood?

[kinkbmx4407]

i use synthetic i actually switched to it to see if helped from what i see it did a little. and no i never see a puddle and no smoke from the engine bay

[impreza_GC8]

No puddle or smoke means you are burning it, which is bad. I'd check for sure that its not leaking out anywhere as that is a more common and fixable problem. Crawl under your car and investigate.

[kinkbmx4407]

ok ill have to check when it gets a little warmer its 8 degrees and i dont have a heated garage lol

[danci1973]

If my engine is burning oil, there should be at least some blue smoke from the exhaust? And some smell too? Or can the catalytic converter remove the smoke & smell?

My car (a 2,5 SOHC BH) is also using a lot of oil. At first I blamed the leak at the rear main seal - but I fixed that (I also replaced all other seals while I had the engine out for clutch replacement) and it's still using oil... There are no oil stains / puddles on my parking spot, so I'm pretty sure it's not leaking.

However there is also no blue smoke or 'burned oil' smell behind my car - I had a friend drive behind be for quite a distance and he sad, there was nothing...

What gives? How can oil just 'evaporate'??

D.

PS: I tried a variety of oil brands and types - some semi-synth, some full-synth... Nothing helped.

[02legacygt]

.. somehow mine over the last oil change i lost, 3 qts. ////// no leaking, puddles or burning.. at least none that i can see.

I always check after I get the oil changed as well, and it was full when I got it home. .. now its low again about 1qt.

im getting the oil changed friday, im going to have them take a peak under there becuase they did my head gaskets, and all main gaskets with the head gaskets and it warrentied for the 100k so well see whats up!

[legacygt420]

hey my car does the same thing. i got 140something on it and i think its cause of the exhaust setup w/ headers and such but what do i know... ive had 6 other subies and never had this happen. my BG's leaked from the oil pan alot but had stock exhaust. the loyales i had i just beat the piss out of so i didnt really care what was leaking. but my BE leaks maybe one or two drops over night or when its idling outside in its spot and looks clean underneath.

[immortal1kon]

check valve covers, oil pan gasket, cylanderheads all around, does your car smoke when you turn it on ( just a puff of two) when mine was loosing a qaurt inbetween oil changes i started using 10w40 which really helped alot. and use regular oil vs synthetic... one thing to check is the sparkplug seals, if oil is present do a full gasket swap of both valvecovers. also i once had a cam seal break and i was leaking alot of oil but because of the cover over the belts hid it for a bit. as for the smoking it should happen when the car sits over night and you start it up you should see regular smoke blue smoke only cause when coolant mixes with the oil. check inside your intake and the return hose from the engine to the pcv see if you are getting alot of blow back. check if the oil filter is the right one i know it's kinda random but sometimes they put one that has the same threads but larger/smaller in size. hope any of this works. know that oil cannot go anywhere but out theres not many places it can fill up without overflowing after 3 qaurts. goodluck

[ouch1011]

If you still have the stock cats, they can mask burning oil. You'll only get the blue smoke if the oil makes it through the exhaust without being fully burnt. My parents' van does this, it has a bad valve seal on 1 cyl, leaves ashy deposits on the plug for that cyl (which is how I know where it is burning), and yet it never, ever smokes out the exhaust. The only thing that ever shows is soot, which occasionally results in a black cloud when you floor it (if you go for a long time without driving it hard).