How To Reduce Oil Consumption In Car?

Your car needs to be fit in every way. Oil being the most important component of your car, it becomes the owner’s duty to keep a check on the consumption of oil in the car. If you are noticing or experiencing high oil consumption and wonder what’s the issue and how to reduce the oil consumption in the car, you’re at the right place.

In this article, we will tell you how you can reduce the oil consumption in the car. Let’s get started!

How To Reduce Oil Consumption In Car?

High oil consumption is a complaint of many car owners these days, and that is why it has become a thing of concern. Well, you should never ignore the high oil consumption in your car because it will cost you high oil expenses and can also be a danger to your car and you. Using an oil life monitor may help in keeping count of the oil health but it doesn’t solve everything.

Before understanding how to reduce oil consumption in cars, first look at some of the points that cause high oil consumption in the car.

Things That Cause High Oil Consumption In Car!

Although there can be many reasons behind high oil consumption in cars, we will cover some common reasons.

Faulty piston rings

If the piston rings in the engine are faulty or worn out, or leak, they will consume more oil than normal and might be a root cause for high oil consumption.

What Do Piston Rings Do?

Piston rings help transfer the heat from the piston to the cylinder present in the engine, and from there, the heat is transferred into the coolant.

The engine parts need to be cool, and piston rings play a major role in that. If the piston rings were faulty or worn-out or leaked, they won’t be able to hold lubricant oil effectively and would require more oil for the transfer of heat.

Poor or dirty oil filter

Oil filter, filter outs the dirt and other harmful contaminants from the oil. If the oil filter is choked, it will make the flow of oil slow, and hence this will cause high consumption of oil.

How Does Poor or Dirty Oil Filter Affect Oil Consumption?

With time, oil gets dirty due to a large amount of carbon and other deposits that it takes while keeping the engine clean during the run. Now, whenever this oil passes through the oil filter, it slowly chokes the oil filter.

Oil is viscous, so it needs to flow smoothly, choked oil filter obstructs the smooth flow of the oil, and with the dirt contaminants, small amounts of oil stay in the oil filter, and therefore it requires more oil to filter out and pass for the lubrication of engine parts.

Wear in engine parts

If there is a leakage or wear in any parts of the engine, it will consume more oil than required and cause high oil consumption.

Why Does Wear In Engine Parts Affect Oil Consumption?

Our vehicle’s engine contains a huge amount of parts, and some of them are known to be the wear parts which means these parts wear out or fail after some time due to high use and need more maintenance than usual parts.

Parts That Get Worn Out More Often And Cause High Oil Consumption!

Piston Rings often get worn out, and worn-out piston rings require much oil to hold and require a high amount of oil to pass the heat away from the piston to the engine wall.

The PCV valve in our vehicle’s engine controls emissions caused by the crankcase, and these valves help transfer emissions to the combustion channels for safe burning out.

Now, if these PCV valves are worn out, they will get free and open and start sucking engine oil and the emissions from the crankcase, which will burn the oil along with the emission gasses.

Rod bearings help the connecting rods in the rotation of the crankshaft. If these bearings are worn out, they won’t be able to control the oil and will push a large volume of oil into the cylinders. As a result, piston rings won’t be able to handle this excessive oil and will let it flow in the combustion chamber, where this oil will get burnt at the end and result in high oil consumption in your vehicle.

Inappropriate Oil Type

If you are using an oil that is not suitable for your car or that is not according to the owner’s manual, this might also increase your car’s oil consumption.

Why Does Oil Of Different Viscosity Cause High Oil Consumptions?

Your vehicle is designed to use a certain viscosity of oil, and if you use an oil with different viscosity, that might cause high oil consumption.

People usually use low viscosity oil to save on oil costs. Still, that might increase your oil cost as the oil with lower viscosity than what is suitable for your vehicle’s engine will cause higher oil consumption. Therefore you will have to top up your vehicle’s engine oil after very short intervals.

Now that we have had a look at some of the main reasons behind high oil consumption let’s see how you can reduce oil consumption in cars.

How Can You Reduce Oil Consumption In A Car?

There are a few ways that you can try to reduce oil consumption in your car.

Try Switching to oil of different types or different viscosity

If you notice a high oil consumption in your car, you can try switching or replacing your car’s engine oil with a different type or viscosity.

Synthetic oils are known to reduce your vehicle’s oil consumption. Synthetic oils have higher boiling points, which means they boil off less than traditional engine oils and can save around 26% oil compared to other petroleum-based oil.

Get old piston rings and valves replaced with new ones.

Piston rings and valves present in the engine play the most important role in oil flow. If there is a leakage or wear in either of them, it will cause high oil consumption in your car. Hence, it is advised by the professionals to get them replaced after 100,000 miles on average or earlier if they are worn out or damaged.

Timely Service

The engine burns some amount of oil when we run a car. If your oil is burning excessively, that means it needs service. Try to get your car service done at regular intervals so that oil does not burn excessively and there is reduced oil consumption.

Defect In Vehicle

Some customers have raised complaints regarding defects in new vehicles. Even after checking all the possible things, oil consumption remained high. If you fall in this category, contact your car seller and get your car checked, and you might get compensation or reimbursement for the same.

Filter Change

As mentioned above, a choked oil filter is also a cause of high oil consumption. So make sure your car’s oil filter is not choked, and in case it is, gets it replaced with the new one as soon as possible.

Weak Engine

A weak engine will require more oil for lubrication of parts, and this is why you might be facing high oil consumption. If this is the case, visit your nearest mechanic and get it diagnosed and repaired accordingly.

Bottom Line

High oil consumption will empty your pocket due to the cost of frequent oil changes, but it is also harmful to the car’s health. To reduce oil consumption, you can try the ways mentioned above.