Are saturns notorious for burning oil?

I have a '97 Saturn SL1, that I have not had any major problems with since I
purchased it. I have noticed, however, that if I do an oil change myself or
take it to a shop to do it, there always appears to be a bit less than what
I would normally expect to see. One tech said that Saturns are notorious
for burning oil. Is this true? If it is, no big deal, I still like my car,
but I wanted to make sure that there might not be something else wrong. The
engine never overheats (at least as far as the gauges are concerned) I never
run OUT of oil, and I have yet to see any leaking anywhere from the engine
or on the ground underneath. I've never noticed this on other vehicles
(ruling out a normal allowance of burned oil)

Any ideas?

 

I have two Saturns, 97 & 99. Both use a little oil. I think most
here will agree that the majority of the SL's use oil in varying
amounts and a few lucky ones don't. It isn't a big deal. To keep
from adding between changes, I have started putting in a can of
Restore. All of my miles are hwy. and I change around 6k miles.
There is a fix listed below that someone in the group posted awhile
back and has had some good reports. I just haven't had time to do it,
but it's worth a try. Instead of using the GM cleaner, some have had
good luck using Marvel Mystery Oil.
MR
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Engine - Excessive Oil Consumption

BULLETIN NO.: 94-T-59A

ISSUE DATE: February, 2003

CATEGORY TYPE: Engine-16

CATEGORY: General

CORPORATION NO.: 03-06-01-001R

SUBJECT:
Oil Consumption Concern
(Diagnosis/Service Procedure)

Due to the addition of a new internal engine cleaning procedure, this
bulletin has been revised and supersedes bulletin 94-T-59, which
should be
discarded.

MODELS AFFECTED:

All 1991 - 1997 Saturn S-Series Vehicles

CONDITION:

Some customers may comment that the engine is using 1 quart (0.951
liter) or
more of oil every 3000 mi. (4827 km).

CAUSE:

Engine oil consumption greater than 1 quart (0.951 liter) in 3000 mi.
(4827
km) may be caused by stuck/sticking oil control and/or compression
rings.
Engine deposits may build up on and around the oil control ring(s),
compression ring(s) and piston ring land(s) causing the ring(s) to
stick and
become less effective.

CORRECTION:

Perform internal engine cleaning procedure or engine repair procedure
depending on amount of oil consumption.

IF engine uses 1 quart (0.951 liter) of oil in:

1500 mi. - 3000 mi. (2414 km - 4827 km), perform Procedure-1: Internal
Engine Cleaning

1499 mi. (2414 km) or less, perform Procedure-2: Engine Repair

While Saturn still considers oil consumption of 1 quart (0.951 liter)
in
2000 mi. (3218 km) to be an acceptable level, the engine cleaning
procedure
contained in this bulletin may improve oil consumption performance to
an
even more acceptable level.

============================================================================
===========

Bottom line:

If your engine consumes less than one quart every 1,500 miles, you
should
buy a bottle of GM Piston and Ring Cleaner (part nr 12378549) and put
3
ounces of it into each of the four cylinders. Make sure that the
piston is
half way up on all four cylinders (engine at 90 degrees before or
after top
dead center).

Then, blow it out the plug holes by cranking the engine with rags over
it.
Do an oil change and replace the oil with Mobil 1 (yup, the TSB says
to use
Mobil 1) for one 3,000 mile oil change.

It looks like it's official - the oil consumption is due to ring
sticking.

 

I'd strongly encourage you to check your oil more frequently. A good
practice is to check it every 500 miles or so, especially if you know you
consume oil or are going to be taking a long trip. Also, as you already
likely know, you don't have to wait till the oil level gets below the fill
line or the oil pressure light is illuminated to add. By that time it is
already at least a quart low, and since there are only 4 quarts in the
system when full, it could easily result in a major (and very expensive)
mechanical problem. You should still keep track of what you add between
changes since this provides some indication of the overall health of the
engine.

Our '96 SL1 with 120K (mostly highway) miles goes through a little over a
quart between changes (every 3K miles), but a small portion of this leaks
onto our driveway so the amount burned is probably 3/4 of the total loss.
By the way, I use 10W30 in the summer and the manufacturer recommended 5W30
in the winter. I only mention this since the heavier oil helps increase the
oil pressure and reduce consumption (at the price of slightly reduced fuel
economy.)

Bob

 

Hmm, if the car burns 4 quarts of oil every 3000mi, and I add a quart
every 800 miles or so, then I should never have to change the oil,
right?

-rj
98SL2

ps. j/k

 

More or less, but you would still have some crud drop-out in your oil
pan which could pile up if not drained.
MR

 

I was one who initially had good results with the Marvel Mystery
oil treatment. It didn't last long for me. My Saturn is back to
losing oil, sad to report. Guess I'm back where I was before.

 

Yeah nothing replaces good ol' metal... There is a way to test if it is
being lost through the rings or the valves. While someone else is
driving, if you see smoke while accelerating its the rings, if it smokes
while decelerating its coming from the valves. If its not a big oil loss
you probably wont see it though.
One thing to really consider is the PCV. 4 Cylinders are prone to loose
oil through there. If you replace it be sure to get an OEM pcv. The
tolerances on those are pretty high and non-oem pcv's are pretty sloppy.
With any luck thats where the oil loss is!

 

Never see any smoke, and am losing ~2 qts per 1200 miles. No oil
drips showing up. I've used OEM pcv valves all along. I lose! At
least the AC still is OK. Oh well.

 

Holy toledo batman, thats a lot of oil. Whats the history of this car?
Miles, any previous ownership, oil and filter change interval? Your
catalytic converter must be doing a hell of a job. Btw you never see any
smoke watching the tail pipe while it idles or when someones doing test
runs in a parking lot? Something should show up unless its sporadic like
a pcv I would think.

 

It lost oil from day one, somehow. Just wasn't horrible, ~1qt
per 3k miles. Then in the last year or two it's gotten worse.
The marvel mystery oil seemed to have fixed it, but only for
awhile, i.e. an oil change or two. Therefore, I'm assuming the
problem is in the rings. I'm gonna talk to a local dude about a
ring/clutch/seals job. Or else I'll be on the lookout for
another engine. Crap.

 

I'm gonna throw this out as food for thought:

* If your rings were lousy, wouldn't you also be getting lots of blowby
and dirty oil real fast?

* My harley used to drink oil like crazy - it was the valve stem seals.
I think you can do these without pulling the head - at least I've heard
there's a way to..

 

I've been basing my thinking having read a lot of posts in this
ng and most have said that my Saturn's excessive oil loss
problem is probably due to the rings. Many have said, or posted,
there are improved newer and different designed rings used for
Saturn ring jobs, or rebuilds. I'm assuming the compression
isn't too bad as it'll get around and up and down hills pretty
good. There is an oil loss problem that's gotten worse for
whatever reason so guess I'll have to bite the bullet and get it
to someone as I don't have the facilities, tools, nor a good
place to do too much of this myself. If I take it somewhere
they'll replace the seals and check/repair the valves and,
hopefully, get me a solid repair job that'll hold up for awhile.
As for Harley's, they are definitely out of my league. I did use
to hear that if there wasn't a puddle of oil under a Harley,
then it didn't have any to begin with. That was a long time ago
and I'm sure Harley's are way tighter sealed now than when I
used to see a few about. Thanks for the input.....

 

I've owned 3 Saturns. A 93 SL1, a 95 SC2, and a 96 SL2. None of them
burned any oil. However, I did use Mobil 1 synthetic oil in all of them
from about 1000 miles onward.

 

You're triple lucky. After breaking mine in, I too used mobil 1,
but it was blowing oil from day one so after awhile I decided to
use a less expensive, yet qualified, oil per owner manual
recommendations. Saved money by blowing less expensive oil.

 

Anyone know how tight the space is between the oil rings on these
things? Are they a low friction motor? If the 1.9 is a low friction
motor then oil deposits and that snake oil might have things gummed up.
The fix would be to use a high detergent oil and drive it like you stole
it.

Where do you think Milwaukee Oilers got their name? People who have
Harleys often use the "motorcycle tight" method when they work on those
things. You can get them to seal if you got good gaskets, flat surfaces,
a torque stick, thread lock, and move around tighting the bolts in the
good order. Sure wish I had a Harley...

 

Welp nevermind then. You will need a rebuild. I cant figure out why
your engine got so hurt unless you drove it to hard from the get go or
you had a defect. During the rebuild if you can have someone show you
what the cause of your oil loss was that would be great. We would like
to know.

 

True. Though even my '99 Wide Glide *still* has a little seepage. The
primary case is where it's mostly going on. I never understood how the
heck HD manages it, but I don't think any of them were ever truely leak
free.

BTW - A Panhead and earlier is *supposed* to drip a bit of oil. What
you're seeing isn't a leak, but rather excess from the primary
lubrication setup - after the oil's sloshed around long enough in there,
it comes out a hole somewhere on the primary case, a drip every now and
then at a time.

 

I'm no metal to the pedal type and I change the oil every 3k
miles. It lost oil from day one, just not as much as now. There
was some kind of rumor way back then that the rear main seals
were causing oil loss. I thought Saturn was going to issue a
campaign repair or recall order for this so kind of let time
slip and nothing official was ever announced. So I always
assumed from this rumor the oil loss was mostly from this rear
seal. I did try to return the vehicle and Saturn wouldn't take
the auto back. Some other thing were done to the auto during
shipping that came to light after taking delivery. I am not so
gung ho on American made auto's any more after that experience.
I'll leave it at that.

Will have to weigh whether to have anything done now or drive it
as it is, and keep on blowing oil. It's only got ~86k miles.
Money is tight so don't know as I can afford to sink all that
much into it. Maybe it's time for a new used car. I'll do a
compression check, or have it done, and decide.

 

My 98SL2 does not burn any oil at 50,000 ... I replace the PCV valve yearly ...
and add some DuraLube each oil change ... only other thing is I had the Coolant
Temp Sensor replaced ... which should be done if you have not had it done on a
98SL2 by now ... Roy

 

<snip>

You can read a good post about this at:

"http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&selm="