1996 SL2 Oil burning

Do Saturns burn more oil than other 4 cyl motors?

5000kms between oil changes and the oil is down a litre?

 

Stardate 10/31/03 9:33 AM, Just Wondering sat a million monkeys at a
million typewriters and produced the following:

I add a litre every 1500km or so in my '94 SC

 

The Saturn 1.9L engines do tend to consume some oil, it seems, some more
than others. However, the rate of oil use you gave is not unusual for many
engines.

 

Your usage is better than a lot of Saturn owners. My daughter's '95 SL2 goes
through a liter every 1500 kms, sometimes more. The good news however is
that there is 263,000 kms on the car and the engine is still running strong
and it still passes emissions testing. My '87 Toyota Tercel never burned oil
but the engine only lasted 204,000 kms. So I guess the extra oil cost per
year on oil isn't bad, although it is a nuisance. The only other negatives
were the rattles under the dash and having to replace the entire sunroof
module because they said it couldn't be repaired (would not close all the
way).
George

 

All engines burn some oil The nature of piston engines requires that a
thin film of oil must be left on the cylinder walls. At least some of
this oil is consumed on every power stroke. Certainly some engines use
more oil than others, but it also true that some engines allow more
"stuff" to low by the rings and make it seem as no oil is being used.
Using some oil is nothing to be worried about.

Regards,

Ed White

 

But what does that work out to? About a quart every 800-1000 miles?
That would definitely be "excessive" for a relatively new car, but
is probably fairly normal for one with about 150,000 miles on it.

Of course I remember my brother's old Corvair with about 90K miles

 

When my '92 Saturn SL2 was new, it too burnt a lot of oil. At that time the
dealer did some engine work which was apparently a manufacturing defect.
Since then, and until summer '03 when I traded the car (for a 2003 SC2)
there was virtually no oil loss.

I'm not a mechanic but maybe there is an old "fix" available...