3GSLEX

hi everyone:
this is my first post....i've owned my 93 GS3 for about 4 years and would get the oil changed at the dealer or more recently at jiffy lube...anyway about 5k miles ago i decided to change it myself and noticed the oil was at the bottom of the dispstick.

its now time to change the oil again and the dipstick once again has no oil above min....this means its using about a quart per 5k miles of city/highway driving...the car has over 160k on it...any ideas?

the car does not leak oil(none on garage floor) and i have changed the PCV and the valve cover seal so i am pretty sure the oil is not being blown out that way, although not completely convinced(i see oil around the PCV hole)....

thanks for any info...

Pianoman72

Hey man, welcome to clublexus. Sorry to hear about your prob I guess you're burning oil? Check out the "maintenence" section here on CL, and also there is a forum specifically for the 1st gen (93-96) models. It's a sub-forum in the one you posted. Good luck!

3GSLEX

THANKS for the warm welcome..i tried to post in the first gen forum but it kept timing out....maybe a mod could move this thread over for me? it would be greatly appreciated.

and yuppers, the car is burning oil, which is weird since there is no smoke from the pipes and i recently did a smog test and my car passed with flying colors...

LB Lex

Welcome to the club!

It's not uncommon for older cars to burn a quart of oil in 5,000 miles. How many miles do you have on your engine? What weight oil do you use (5-30, 10-30, etc)? Switching to a heavier weight oil might reduce some of the consumption, so maybe you can try that.

3GSLEX

93LexoGS300:
thanks for the welcome ...it has ~165k miles....i use MOBIL1 5w30...i will try 10w30 in the lex and hopefully that will help....i dont wanna have to change rings on that engine for awhile...how long does the GS engine last on average anyway?...
thanks for help on this issue...

LB Lex

I have a 93 GS with 188,000 miles on it and it burns a little oil too. I've heard that some of these engines last up to 400,000 miles, unless it is seriously abused.

3GSLEX

how much oil does your engine use? this engine gets zero abuse, my wife drives the GS most of the time and she doesnt know what redline is and thats what worries me about the oil, there is no reason i can think of why it would be using so much..my t100 has 170k and uses zero oil....the temp also looks good, and to my knowledge the engine has never overheated (wife woulda told me)....

LB Lex

It uses about 1/2 to 3/4 of a quart between oil changes, pretty normal even for some new cars. I don't think you have anything to worry about, just take good care of it and it will last you a long time.

3GSLEX

ok cool..THANKS Eric, that makes me feel a lot better...i will also try a heavier oil and see how that works out and post what happens at my next oil change....

Threxx

Brand new zero mile BMW M3s commonly use up to a quart of oil between oil changes. BMW is quoted as saying that this is normal (1 quart of oil between changes is listed as normal in their factory specs).

I'd say if a brand new 50k dollar BMW can do it, then a 170k mile 10+ year old Lexus can do it.

Do you see any grey smoke coming out of the exhaust when you hit the gas?

Honestly though... I'd recommend running 10w-30 Mobil 1 with a couple of treatments of Auto-RX ( www.auto-rx.com ), then stop the auto-rx but keep on using 10w-30 instead of 5w-30, I bet your car will quit using oil and run much better. Worse come to worse, even if that doesn't help, it's still not necessarily a sign of bad things to come. I've seen cars burning a quart of oil every thousand miles that still manage to run a hundred thousand more miles.

3GSLEX

thanks for the info....my M3 uses no oil and it has 90k miles on it and i change the oil every 9k miles as BMW recommends...i dont run my M like other's drive theirs tho...no tire burning and donuts for me...just spirited driving....and the engine is so clean u can eat off of it...actually the entire car is that clean...

the GS3 does not smoke at all as far as i can tell and emissions are GREAT..much better than the M...that would suggest my oil rings are fine but the oil must be going somewhere...i will try 10w-30 and auto-rx and let everyone know how it goes...yeah i hope the engine is fine....changing rings in that thing is gonna take an entire weekend or more for me to do
thanks again for the info guys

indypwr

welcome to the club, bro..

if your car is consuming oil like you explained, most likely piston rings might be worn out since you alrdy have a lot of miles. i've got 123000 on mine and i only use mobil 1 synthetic oil with 10x30 or 10x40.
keep changing oil every 3000 miles and you'll be good.

3GSLEX

thanks for the info..i'm changing to 10w-30 this weekend....wonder if it will give me 200k MORE before a rebuild..hehe...time will tell...

cjnmel

why not change oil every 2k miles or 3k miles. maybe that would help.

3GSLEX

honestly because i believe it to be a waste of money to change synthetic every 2 or 3k...even at 6k it still doesnt show excessive(read:above normal) engine wear(from tests i have read about mobil1 synthetic 5w30)...but i will be checking the oil every 1k after this oil change to see how long it takes to drop to an unacceptable level for me....it might turn out to be 3k, but i really hope not....i will let u guys know...