I have a 1999 Saturn Sl2 with a 1.9L engine and approximately 160,000 miles on it. I drove this car for years and it has used some oil for quite some time now. I gave it to my daughter 3 years ago to be her daily driver. Last year she took it to college (close to home), but I have her checking the oil and other fluids once a week at least and the car has blown out some white smoke but nothing excessive until just recently. About 2 weeks ago she brought the car back to us and she said that a lot of white smoke was coming out of the exhaust, so I checked it out and of course it was. The only conclusion I can come up with is that the piston rings are worn out allowing the oil to be burnt through the system and out the exhaust. The last oil change I put lucas oil in it to try and help. The car still runs good and has some good life left in it, but I am not sure what to do. Any suggestions on what I can do besides having to tear the motor apart and replace the piston rings, because I don't believe the it is worth the time and money to do so? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
CoachStorms
@coachstorms
Sounds more like a head gasket. Check the oil filler cap, does it have any milkey color substance on the inside of cap? Start the car, and get a smell of the exhaust, does it have a sweet smell as that of anti-freeze, and check the radiator when the car is cold, is the level low? if so these would all point to an issue with the head gasket.
I have checked the head gasket theory numerous times. The oil cap used to get the milky froth on the bottom of it and I looked into the head gasket, but the coolant doesn't get low and once I replaced the oil cap it went away. Thank you for the feedback!
@JohnBuilt please copy and paste your answer into the appropriate box, titled, "Your Answer". Comments are for clarifications or further discussion of a suggestion only. Thank you.
Try to find a motor from a wrecked one in a junkyard. Probably hard to find but will save you the time and money of rebuilding it.
@cjbman
To be honest I don't think that I want to put that much into the car. It is 21 years old and is worth about $700 and I would be putting probably at least half of that into it if I were to drop a new motor in it. I am looking for something that will help keep it going for another 6 months or so.
Take the spark plugs out and let gear oil sit on top of the cylinders. At least for an hour. Run some high octane gas through it for a while afterwards and beat the hell out of it. Either you will reseat the piston rings or it will go back to what it was.
I will give that a try and let you know what happens. Thank you!
Found out after a lot of troubleshooting that my seals are letting some oil get by. This only happens if I idle.
Overly rich mixture = black smoke
Burning oil = blue smoke
Burning coolant , blown head gasket = white smoke (does not include translucent white smoke on a cold morning startup for a few minutes)
