Hi Scotty,
I bought an 01 Lexus ES300 with only 91K miles (clean title, no codes on scan tool, no smoke or anything). I drove it from Seattle to Lincoln NE (1700 miles) and it used 6 quarts of oil on the trip. I was shocked and alarmed especially since it doesnt seem to smoke at all. It slowed down the consumption quite a but when I added a quart of Lucas oil additive. Do you think this has the piston ring issue? Or could it be something else?
What should I do? Its a very nice car otherwise but thats a ton of oil consumption so I know cats and plugs will fail quickly if I just keep driving it like it is. Help me, I’m sad and poor.
- check for oil leaks on the engine exterior, filter, cooler lines, etc.
- perform a cylinder compression test. That will give you an idea about piston ring condition
- if compression tests good, then you could just have worn out valve seals (it is a 20yo vehicle), which only require removing cylinder heads.
are you sure the 91k is accurate?
Thank you! Yes, it now has 93K after the long drive but the carfax shows linear mileage all the way to now. The original owner had it till 2020 but I have no way of contacting them.
I’ll start with a compression test. Hopefully it ends up being valve seals, I cant justify throwing thousands at it, no matter how nice it is. Thank you
A new pcv valve might be in order. When, or has it ever, been renewed?
I don’t know if its ever been done. I felt confident buying it because it had good history (carfax) and it had the timing belt replaced a few years prior. Usually people wont go to the trouble of changing the belt and water pump if they arent maintaining the car well since it is an $800ish service. I’ll have a mechanic check that as well
It is a small, inexpensive part that is often overlooked but is important for the proper functioning of the engine.
Not sure what engine it has, but Camry and Scion all had years of engines with defective rings that were oil burners. Out scion didn't smoke but drank oil like no tomorrow even before 100k miles. We traded it.
I had read that the 3.0 had some oil burning issues that were mostly fixed by the switch to the 3.3, but from what I had read it was only about a quart per 1000 miles at the worst. Mine was consuming 2 quarts every 500 miles. If it werent for the oil level sensor in the oil pan, I would have locked it up before I got out of Washington for sure.