While the car has its problems, you’ve contributed by not checking the oil, especially once you found out there was an oil use problem. Next time, you’ll know better.
I had a 2006 Toyota RAV4 with an oil consumption problem. I was adding about a quart of oil a month or 600-900 miles. The dealership said it was within Toyota’s tolerance for oil consumption on these 4 cylinder engines.
Your Camry has the same engine. I would just add a quart about once a month until you decide to get a new car. You can drive it for ever as long as you keep the oil quantity up.
Thanks for all the opinions / insight. @texases, though I disagree. The issue is an engine that burns oil more than is necessary. This issue cropped up after 8 years of ownership and a little over 100k of miles, which in my opinion is not that old of a car. That to me is a manufacturer concern, which is addressed by this warranty they offer to replace it. The proposed fixes are either to fix the engine or add oil to it more regularly. Granted, I have not been as good with these fixes as I was led to believe it wasn’t a problem that was significant since the dealer told me during the 3 times I brought it in that it didn’t fail any oil consumption tests and I thought that meant it was ok. It’s only since it’s continued to occur and coming on this forum and learning about it that I understand how much of a problem it can cause, which makes me question the advice I got from the dealer. As a consumer that admittedly does not know cars well, the main reason I both bought a Toyota and paid the premium of going to the dealership for service is for the perceived reliability and better service / advice I would get. It is not because I think my Toyota is a great car to drive or because the dealer has delicious coffee. Next to possibly a house and education, a car is the most expensive purchase people will make. If a product or service fails to meet that value proposition, then there are other competitors who will. As an analogy, I had an iPhone 5s that ran for 5 years and is still ticking. It’s only problem is that the battery is almost dead. I’d have to charge it consistently throughout the day. Now it being 5 years old and well past the useful life I would have anticipated when buying it, I could buy a new battery, continue to keep it charging, or just get a new one. Although the price points, uses, and industry are different than a car purchase, I will continue to go back to Apple since they have treated me well and I’ve had good service from them. In hindsight, I wouldn’t purchase a car based only on perceived reliability and perceived brand repution, because while that can be one data point, it’s where and who you feel most comfortable giving your money to.
I understand you’re disappointed with the car, I would be too. But as soon as oil use became an issue, you should have been checking the oil frequently to make sure it never got more than a quart low.
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I’ll take that a step further. Every car owner should be in the habit of checking the oil between oil changes, before oil consumption becomes an issue, even if your car is brand spanking new.
@ martslee_143607, back in the day when I took driver’s education, part of the class included teaching us to do pre-trip inspections, which involved checking all the fluids, the tire pressure, the lights, and the mirrors. Nobody expects you do to a thorough pre-trip inspection every day. Heck, most professional truck drivers don’t even do a full pre-trip inspection every day, but it is in your interest to check these items at least once a month on a new car, and more frequently on an older car.
Far too many people don’t bother to do basic car maintenance, leaving it to the mechanic who changes your oil. Negligent car owners got away with that when they were changing the oil every 3,000 miles, but on today’s cars, the oil change interval is usually between 7,500 miles and 10,000 miles. Even with 5,000 mile oil change intervals, you should be checking the oil at least every 1,000 miles, more often if you can.
If you’re not checking the oil (and the rest of the fluids and the tire pressure) between oil changes, I have to call that what it is: owner negligence.
@Whitey, sure, I understand that monitoring of the oil usage should be more frequent, especially now knowing how much of a problem it can be when it gets too low. However, this having become an issue in the first place, where engine oil is being burned a lot (however this is defined), is a quality issue where this should not be the case in the first place for a car with, at least when this problem was initially surfaced, for an 8 year old Toyota with about 100k miles and all recommended service maintenance being done on time.
The thing you should consider is that most engines burn a little oil in normal operation. The oil has to lubricate the cylinders, so it is present in the combustion chamber on the cylinder walls when combustion happens. On a new engine, it will burn so little oil that you might not notice a drop in oil level at all between oil changes, but as an engine ages, and the cylinder rings wear out, more oil will burn as a part of normal operation. This isn’t caused by a defect, poor design, or cheap materials, it’s just how engine wear happens when you have metal-on-metal contact.
What we often see here in this forum is that, due to normal oil consumption, an engine that is neglected runs so low between oil changes that the engine gets damaged and it starts burning more oil, and it becomes cycle where the owner’s neglect caused the engine to burn large amounts of oil in the first place.
As the oil gets low, the cylinder rings wear, and unburned fuel leaks past the cylinders, contaminating what little oil is left in the engine. This also accelerates engine wear and increases oil consumption.
I can’t say whether this scenario applies to you. If you did everything right, getting all the scheduled maintenance and checking the oil once a month, maybe you’re right, that a car like yours shouldn’t burn oil, but at the same time, I read what you wrote about the Toyota brand, and I think your expectations might be a bit unrealistic. Toyota’s reputation for reliability is as much a part of its Marketing Department’s success as it is their Engineering Department’s success, and I can’t help but think that it wasn’t that long ago that an eight-year-old car with 100,000 miles on the odometer was considered old, and you seem to expect yours to operate as though it is new.
I expect a car as old as yours to burn some oil, and if it had a history of not being checked between oil changes, burning a quart every 1,000 miles wouldn’t surprise me.
Like all other car companies, Toyota has had its share of quality issues, but in this case, I’m not sure Toyota is to blame because your expectations come across as unrealistic.
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Thanks @Whitey. We probably have some differences on what is considered realistic or expected of brands and companies, though you have some good points. Appreciate it.
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I would run a synthetic oil as that is less likely to allow the rings to stick as it burns oil.
Since you brought this up MANY times under warranty, I wonder if you can get any allowance to have it fixed. It seems they rode you out until the warranty expired.
On the other hand, no one is going to cover user neglect under warranty.
Forgive me for jumping pretty far back in the thread and for a general comment rather than a specific solution. There is lots of good advice here to simply tolerate the oil loss and drive. Find a good oil source and stock up when you find a good price. Drive it until it is dead.
I’d like to address the rebuild option mentioned by one poster. I know that at least some auto engines are not good candidates for that. The reasons for that are, on the one hand, for some models, lots of used engines are available and thus, relatively inexpensive. On the other hand, at least some engines are expensive and demanding to rebuild. The machining requirements may be above what an ole fashioned machine shop can do. Someone might try it anyway and you can end up with a leaking head gasket among other things.
The parts you need to rebuild can also be prohibitively expensive. I drive an older car with a V8. The last time I checked, a head changing kit, bolts and gasket cost about a hundred bucks from the dealer and I’d need two for a rebuild. The head bolts are not the only TTY bolts in the engine and lots of other parts are expensive. Circling around, I’d have a leaking head gasket anyway if machining was needed to smooth the surfaces 
A crate engine from the automaker might also be an option for some makes.
My wife continued to drive two cars with salvaged engines installed for quite some time. One resulted from a busted cam shaft, and the other was a drowning victim. In fact, at this juncture,the latter leaves the driveway and returns every day.
I have another reason for you to keep running this Camry and keeping the oil level high.
You are usually going to pay full price if you run the car until it breaks and you need one that day. I have found that one usually gets the best deal when they aren’t in any hurry. For example, the electronic circuit board costs $200 on a 10 year old dryer I just replaced. It has been acting up with increasing frequency. The dryer would freak out, beep, lights would flash, and I had no control over it. Unplugging it for a minute and plugging it back in solved the issue for a while. Apparently the board was a common problem with my model and I decided it was time to start looking at what was out there as I didn’t want to put $200 into a 10 year old unit. Anyway, I went to a couple big box home improvements stores and looked online just to see what they had. The prices were OK but they kinda indicated there was always one brand or another on sale so no real rush to replace unless mine went down.
So, I called a local appliance place in town and asked them if they had any used units as I knew they were known for selling these from time to time. They told me they were currently out but had another deal I might be interested in. They had several new old stock Speed Queens that were 7 years old but still in the box for $350. It was surplus from a nearby military base and they ended up with it for cheap so were selling it for cheap. It had no warranty but this is a commercial grade machine and it was a screaming deal so I went ahead and bought it. I didn’t wait around for my unit to die. I kept using it while knowing it was nearing the end of its life but was looking for a deal.
The same happens with old computer junk all the time. Something is in the way, has a minor problem, and people are just wanting it gone when I come out to service their newer equipment. I had a couple older but still working color laser printers dumped on me the other day. Nothing is cheap in the color laser world.
I know a few guys who are always flipping cars as well. They come across some crazy deal and jump on it. Of course this only works with used cars. They buy one that someone is selling so super cheap and then drive it for a while. When something different comes along, they buy that and sell the other car. There are also the cars that “just stopped running” in the Craigslist ads so a new fuel pump, distributor, or ignition module gets them back up and running. Sometimes they just sell the car after it is running for a much higher price or decide they like it and keep it a while. These people always have a different car each time I see them. I saw one of their cars coming and when the guy got out, it was a buddy of the guy I knew. He was like “I needed a new car and he sold me this one.”
Basically, the lesson here is to keep the current Camry running and look for a different car. You will stumble upon a deal you can’t refuse and the Camry will be history.
Used engines are a great idea most of the time. Situations like this might be a different story. You may end up paying a premium price for an engine with the same defects because SO MANY PEOPLE need this same engine because of the same problem. I once tried to help a guy with a blown up Chrysler 2.7L find a new engine. A running used Chrysler 2.7 commands a premium price because so many of them blow up. It was actually cheaper to do an engine swap with another Chrysler engine of higher reliability but my buddy was so mad that his car blew up and was happy to sell it for $500 to someone.
My suggestion would be to try your hardest to keep this car running until you find a great deal on a new car, then trade it in. You don’t sound like you are in love with this car and are kinda looking for a newer car to upgrade to. This is the perfect excuse.
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That’s my suggestion, too. I don’t think it’s gonna take much effort to keep it going - just make sure to keep enough oil in it.
Thanks and to @shanonia as well!
I don’t have a lot of experience trading in cars, but does it seem reasonable that you could get $5000 credit on a car worth, at the very most $7000 that needs an additional $2000 engine work??
Trade it in and get a 2015 ilx, I have a 2016 and it’s not too shabby, sure it’s basically a luxed up civic but honestly, it’s reliable and is decent but if sport is what you’re going for I’d buy a golf TSI, or a Miata MX-5. I still drive daily my 05 Accord it doesn’t burn any oil and it’s now at 547000 miles, it has a problem in the rain where the belt slips, changed tensioner, changed pulleys on power steering and alternator and I’m just assuming it’s the crappy no name belt on it, either way, great car, original timing chain even! Sportier than a Camry but nothing worth calling it a speed demon, just reliable as all hell. If you want reliability I’d say a 7th gen Accord with the same k24 as my car has, and if you want a car with cheap maitainence, the ilx is decent. I haven’t spent more than $500 on basic things for it in 22000 miles, I swapped original tires off (350) and a short ram intake so I mean basically all costs were on me, yeah, ilx. My choice though, only an opinion. Do as you want! Have fun! We only live once! Enjoy!
Is there white or black smoke coming from the exhaust?
I suspect a oil pan leak (tighten the bolts), or a valve cover leak. Check for oil dripping or around the valve covers first.
You state the oil level was “bone dry” That in itself will exacerbate oil consumption because the existing oil is running much, much hotter and that leads to oil coking and oil control ring problems.
Even running an engine chronically a quart low will have the same effect.
If you haven’t been inspecting and keeping the oil level on the FULL mark then this is neglect and the problem falls upon your shoulders alone.
Your car is 10 years plus, and 100K plus. Excessive oil consumption is an indicator that you have problems. If under your hood there’s an oily black soot on your engine, it need’s an overhaul. Cost wise, it’s not worth it, unless you’re really sentimental and have lots of money. If your engine is clean, it could possibly be leaking oil. At any rate, it will still be costly to fix. I would look for another car that is not super expensive to maintain, i.e. oil change on a smart car made by Mercedes Benz - $200. Maintain your oil changes on your next car. As a rule of thumb, 3 - 4K miles or every 4 months, which ever comes first; 6K or 6 months for synthetic oil. Oil changes should never exceed 1 Year. Good Luck on your next car.
Please explain this a bit. How does “oily black soot” mean engine overhaul? To me that means oil leak. And how does clean engine equal an oil leak?
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Before you trade have your Camry checked out by another mechanic. If the diagnosis is the same, then check out Consumer Reports for best/worst used cars. You may have to purchase a subscription to CR but it will be money well spent.