I have a 2009 Pontiac Vibe with the 1.8L engine and automatic transmission that I bought used. When I bought it the odometer read 45,000 miles but I found I was having to add about 1/2 quart of oil every 1000 miles. I had my mechanic check it out and there are no visible leaks so I figure it's burning oil although there is not much smoke coming out of the exhaust. I switched the car to my oil preference of Mobil 1 at the recommended 5W-20 viscosity. The car now has 160,000 and is still burning the same 1/2 quart every 1000 miles. It's still a good car and I'd like to keep it going but remembering to check and add oil is past being tiresome.
Is there any additive or anything else I can do to help reduce the oil consumption without harming the engine?
You could switch to a 5W30 oil. Might slow it a bit. But don't expect much.
Im sorry but the 2006-2010 generation of Toyota's were a big fall in quality oil burning cheaper interiors transmission issues etc. I would watch Scotty's videos on oil burning to fix it. The Pontiac vibe is basically a toyota matrix. The 2.4 is horrendous I have a friend with one with 60 thousand miles really really bad. The 1.8's are generally good but I think that since the car is burning oil, it probably wasn't taken care of by the previous owner. With such low miles for a 12 year old car, my guess is that they did not change the oil every 6 7 8 months but rather waited for long periods of time just to get 6 7k miles. Not sure though.
