Hi Mr. Scotty Killer,
Hope you are doing well.
I have a question about my vehicle (2015 Hyundai Santa Fe 2.0L Turbo Limited Sport) which is burning engine oil. I thought it could have been the oil I was using, but the same issue occurred with the titanium full synthetic Castrol Oil too. I have always used Full Synthetic Oil and religiously changed my oil at around 4500km (even if that is too early). Could you give any suggestions on what I can do to reduce the oil burning? I was told by many people that the oil was burning due to the turbo built into the vehicle. I am currently at 107000km and would love to see my vehicle last until 500000km at least; I keep my vehicles for long time. Please kindly advise what I can do to fix this issue along with any regular maint or cleaning I can do for my vehicle to keep it running well for my years.
Thank you
Besides rebuilding the engine, you can only change oil and top it off (between the oil changes if necessary) to make your car last as long as possible. Some may advise you to use heavier oil but do not do that, you have a Turbo engine and this trick does not work well on modern cars.
Since it's a 2.0L turbo engine, I suspect that it's one of the Theta II engine series used in various Hyundai/Kia models through the years. More specifically, in your case it's probably one of these: G4KF, G4KH or G4KL.
I don't have any experience with turbo engines of the Theta II family, but a non-turbo 2.0L engine (G4KD) is known to develop small tears along the surface of cylinders when not taken proper care of. These tears can lead to loud knocking sounds (especially when you start up a cold engine) and oil burning. They can eventually lead to engine seizure in theory, but I never met anyone with G4KD who had this issue — most of the time people keep using the car until the sound becomes too loud and/or oil burning gets too bad (which can take years) and then they go for an engine rebuild.
Find a car mechanic with an endoscope and take a look inside the engine block — check if there are scratches/tears on the exhaust side of the cylinders. If there are none but the combustion chamber is full of carbon, chances are that the piston rings (or those rubber things that keep engine oil from leaking in through the valves) have gone bad.
Also, turbo Theta II engines are twin brothers of the Mitsubishi 4B11T engine, so any information related to similar issues with it (e.g. Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X) can come in handy too.