Cars requiring oil between oil changes- Consumer Reports

We always see people wondering if their oil consumption is too high. Consumer Reports got involved and listed models. They also said there are class action suits underway. Here’s a link to the full article. https://www.yahoo.com/autos/s/excessive-oil-consumption-isnt-normal-100000921.html

I wonder why VW isn’t on the list. Isn’t their turbo 4 the same as the Audi?

Let’s see…someone is filing a class-action lawsuit because a car requires care and maintenance.

Can I now also sue my dentist if my teeth need cleaning in between my regularly scheduled dental exams?

The roof on my house is supposed to last 30 years but it developed a leak when it was only 12 years old. Who do I sue?

My refrigerator stopped working because the coils underneath the unit need periodic cleaning but no one ever told me I needed to do that and I never had to do that with my old fridge. Can I sue KitchenAid?

I’m going to talk to my lawyer about this and see what he thinks.

That is a very helpful article, but it is worth noting that not every owner of those vehicles will have an oil consumption problem. For example, my 3.6 liter Subaru engine uses–at most–1/4 of a qt between oil changes. Most of the time, it uses none at all.

Before the car’s first oil change, I did have to add 1 qt, but once I got past that “break-in” period, oil consumption has been minimal (1/4 qt) to non-existent. Currently, I have 55k on the odometer, and I have not had to add any oil between oil changes for the past couple of years.

Caveat Emptor!!

For Me The Real “Take Away” From The Report Is Cars To Avoid Purchasing New Or Used. Nobody Needs The Aggravation. Why Chance It When There Are Plenty Of Other Nice Cars To Choose?

All of these cars on the list are “exotic cars” to me because of virtually no dealer support within hours of my residence (except a Chevrolet Spark) and because of ridiculous tire maintenance requirements in the case of one of the manufacturers.

So, the oil burning is just frosting on the cake.

I wouldn’t get within a 10-foot pole distance to any of them. You’d have to pay me to drive one, seriously. I’ve got better things to do.

CSA

@texases
"I wonder why VW isn’t on the list. Isn’t their turbo 4 the same as the Audi?"

Consumer Reports says, “… these 30 models have much higher rates of oil consumption overall than the average for their model years.”

I’m pretty sure that starting in 31st place are many cars with high rates of consumption, rather than much higher.

Perhaps plain old high oil consumption would appeal to some folks more than very high.

I see from the article that Honda and Toyota have some disgruntled owners of some of their vehicles utilizing certain power plants.

CSA

Whew…I looked at the list and none of those vehicles would ever appeal to me at all. So I guess that oil consumption is something I don’t need to worry about.

I remember reading CR back in the 1950s through the mid 1960s. The auto tests reported the oil consumption for each vehicle tested after the engine was broken in. I remember the 1960 Valiant used a,quart of oil every 450 miles on the new slant 6 engine. There were few engines back then that didn’t use some oil and 1 quart per 1000 miles was the norm. Coming from the old days, I don’t worry much if I don’t have to add more than one,quart between changes.

@Triedaq
"Coming from the old days, I don’t worry much if I don’t have to add more than one,quart between changes."

I suppose I could put myself in that group, however…

Not long ago I had four drivers living under my roof and several could put on a couple thousand miles per month, and some (not to name names) were less responsible at checking fluids than I was. Then there’s those weeks of near or below zero temperatures…

Even so, when my daughter takes a car to college several hours away and even though she knows the procedure, it’s still a concern and would be too much concern with one of these oil-burners. She’s got learning, schedules, friends, and other things distracting her.

So, that’s us, old school, but look at the one statement from the report. We’ve talked about this for years, probably weekly on this site…

“A recent CR national survey of 542 American owners of a 2000 to 2016 model-year vehicle showed that 39 percent either never check their oil or only have it checked when taken in for service.”

Wow! Yikes!
I don’t believe that the 39% can be educated to be more responsible, therefore it’s up to the car companies to provide more idiot-proof (no insult intended) vehicles. We’re from the old-school, but many younger people expect fairly trouble-free products.

CSA

^
Obviously we can’t quantify it, but–based on the number of posts we have had over the years regarding cars whose engine self-destructed after the crankcase went “dry” as a result of failure to check the dipstick periodically–I think that, sadly, the 39% figure is probably pretty accurate.

I’m surprised to see Subaru mentioned. Never owned one, but have the impression that they are a quality ride.

These 39% should have had to drive used cars like I drove some years back. My questions to the seller weren’t “Was this car ever wrecked?” and “Does this car use oil?” My questions were “How bad was the accident?” and “How much oil does this car burn?” I could nurse a lot of miles from an old car by keeping tabs on the oil.

“I’m surprised to see Subaru mentioned. Never owned one, but have the impression that they are a quality ride.”

I think that impression many people have of these cars helps lead drivers to believe that the (perceived/implied) high quality of Audi, BWM, Subaru, etcetera, surely wouldn’t result in an oil-burner vehicle that would run low or out of oil between changes.

I believe it would behoove these manufacturers to deliver the oil consumption that one would expect and not a surprising consumption rate.

Somebody here mentioned that some (all?) BMWs have a “low oil” warning device, as does my Bonneville. Do the others have that, too?

I know some will say it would be ignored. Perhaps they could design it to text-message the driver.

CSA

I remember the days when many things had to be lubricated. When I was growing up, we had a Sears Coldspot refrigerator. Once a month, my dad would pull off the top cover, vacuum the motor and surrounding area, put a few drops of oil in the oil passages on the motor and put the cover back. There were places to oil the well pump motor, dump pump motor and furnace fan motor as well as the blower shaft bearings. Household electric fans had to be oiled occasionally. There were two holes at either end the motor housing marked “oil”. My Western Flyer bicycle had a New Departure coaster brake that had to be oiled. Now. days, everything is permanently lubricated. Going people don’t understand what lubrication is all about. I was playing in a band next to a recent college graduate who was struggling with the fast runs. I had her give me her French horn and I could hardly .move the valves. I got the valve oil from my case and oiled the valves. She said " The music store should have oiled the valves when I had it there for repairs only 6 months ago". I gave her the bottle of rotator oil and told her to oil the valves at least weekly.

The “refrigerator” people live among us! Plug it in and ignore it until the light does’t turn on or it stops getting cold, throw it away and get another. Thats why a dipstick was replaced with an oil level sensor, I guess.

I was never sold on the notion that consuming a quart of oil every 1,000 miles is acceptable. Yeah, it may happen after your odometer gets into six-digit territory, but if I read the article correctly, they are talking about 2014 cars here. If I spent the money on a new Audi or BMW and had to add a quart of oil every 3 weeks with 12,000 miles on the clock, I’d be pretty ticked! My crappy Nissan Versa has 104,000 miles on it, and I never have to add oil between changes.

I agree with doubleclutch. I’ve owned 10 cars over the last 50 years and never had to add any oil between oil changes. If I bought a new car and had to add oil every 1000 miles (that’s 5 quarts for every oil change), I’d be angry.

Plus there is the chance of forgetting and resulting in a blown engine.

My present car (a forester) is on the list, but at the 2% level. It does not use any oil that I can detect, and the car has a low oil indicator plus the usual oil pressure one. On the negative side, the dipstick is almost impossible to read with any accuracy.

Interesting is that the other Subaru’s that use the same engine are not on the list.

b

I wonder if the improvement over time is due to age or improvements in the engines? That is, has the BMW engine’s oil use decreased as the years passed, or does it just get worse over time?

I remember reading complaints about the 1953 Buick Super and Roadmaster with the newly designed V-8 engine, now known as the “nail head”. Apparently, the piston rings took a long time to seat–as long as 10,000 miles. After this prolonged break-in, these engines quit using oil. Buick did install new rings if the owner complained loudly enough. A running change was also made and a redesigned piston ring was used. I had a,1954 Buick with this engine. I knww, the history of the car and it never needed oil added between changes even after 150,000 miles. I wonder if the cars on CR" s list may have rings that are slow to seat.

Ha ha

When the Benz M272 V6 and M273 V8 came out . . . their bread and butter engines until a few years ago . . . came out, the engine oil consumption was an issue right from the start

On every single vehicle that used it, no exception

It did not get better . . . even/especially after the company’s 100% BS break-in procedure. I performed that break-in procedure many times. And I can tell you with absolute certainty that it didn’t change/improve anything.

And the manufacturer’s ideas of “acceptable oil consumption” were so high, that virtually nobody qualified for a replacement engine

And their method of measuring oil consumption was so outrageous and tedious, that it was almost certainly meant to discourage and/or weed out just about everybody, even/especially the ones with “real” complaints

I’m pretty sure they’re not on the list, because they were replaced with a new generation of direct injection engines a few years ago, and aren’t current enough anymore

:naughty: