Oil Disappearing!

Discuss any problems, warranty, repair, or replacement issues you are having with your Vibe & Matrix
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bgerwig96
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri May 12, 2017 4:58 pm

Oil Disappearing!

Post by bgerwig96 »

My 2004 Pontiac Vibe Base is currently losing oil somehow... So much so that I go through almost all of it in under 1,000 miles. I don't have any noticeable leaks and it is not burning it to the point where I can see any smoke or smell any burning. I've checked the coolant and it's not going there I've checked the transmission fluid, and that's normal as well. I honestly don't know where it could be going... Any ideas as to what it could be or what to check next would be greatly appreciated! I really want to keep this Vibe but at this rate I can't afford to be spending money on 4 new quarts of oil every 1,000 miles...
Caretaker

Re: Oil Disappearing!

Post by Caretaker »

yep, you are right. Up to 2 quarts every oil change is still considered normal. The amounts you are stating are outside that. I wish you well. My first and second gen Vibes all have burned oil. I add it all the time to keep it topped off, but the loss I suffer is still considered within "specs."
circuitsmith
Posts: 242
Joined: Sun Dec 04, 2011 11:26 pm

Re: Oil Disappearing!

Post by circuitsmith »

Is the inside of the tailpipe very sooty and/or oily?
That would be a clue that it's burning oil.
Check underneath while idling to make sure it's not leaking only while running.
I've seen a crankshaft seal act that way.
2006 Matrix 5-sp
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ColonelPanic
Posts: 8419
Joined: Sun Jan 05, 2003 8:48 am
Location: South Central Indiana

Re: Oil Disappearing!

Post by ColonelPanic »

Might not be a bad idea to also check the timing chain tensioner (passenger side of the engine on the back.) The O-rings are problematic, though I don't know if it would cause *that* much loss.
03 Vibe base. Born 10/14/2002 06:07 AM
Auto, Moon & Tunes, power package. 143k
Neptune/dying clearcoat/primer grey. :lol:

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Caretaker

Re: Oil Disappearing!

Post by Caretaker »

good call there CP. I have some oil seeping down from the tensioner area. My mechanic is going to steam clean the engine and add some dye to determine the exact location before doing any repairs. The seepage is minimal and hasn't even reached the ground yet, so it isn't the cause of my oil loss (1.5 quarts per oil change).
jolt
Posts: 945
Joined: Sun Mar 02, 2014 2:07 am
Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota

Re: Oil Disappearing!

Post by jolt »

If the oil is leaking that much, it would cover the underside of the car. Look under car and you should see that it is wet with oil. If the underside of that car is not wet with oil, you are burning it. The catalytic converter will burn off the oil and reduce the smoke until the convertor goes bad from oil fouling, at which time the smoke will show up or the cat will plug and you will have reduced or little engine power as time goes by. It most likely needs new piston rings and the oil return holes cleaned in the pistons.

How many miles on this car? Is your "Check Engine" light on? Does the "Check Engine" light work? How often do you change the oil? What color is the anti-freeze? Have you added any engine oil treatments lately? The reason I ask this is motor oil treatments like the old Slick 50, etc. , can cause newer vehicles with low tension rings to use a lot of oil.
bgerwig96
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri May 12, 2017 4:58 pm

Re: Oil Disappearing!

Post by bgerwig96 »

Well just yesterday I discovered that it is in fact burning. I took the filler cap off to add some oil and noticed some smoke coming out of the filler hole. So just to be sure I had the girlfriend run up the RPM's to around 3k so I could watch the exhaust, sure enough as soon as she backed off the throttle smoke came out (this was at operating temp). Kind of disappointing as the car only has 138k on it... I've been trying to determine if it is more likely to be the piston rings or valve stem seals. I'll be running a compression test later tonight and I'll be sure to post the results. Any ideas as to what it could be or ways to tell the difference between the rings and seals would be appreciated as the internet has not provided me with a single answer. Also any other ideas as to what tests to run would be appreciated as well, I may try a leakdown test if tonight doesn't yield any results. Also, there is no check engine light and it is not throwing any codes.
jolt
Posts: 945
Joined: Sun Mar 02, 2014 2:07 am
Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota

Re: Oil Disappearing!

Post by jolt »

You could not get that much oil past bad valve stem seals in that amount of mileage/kilometers. Leaking valve stem seals show up as smoking from the exhaust when you first start the engine after the engine as sate shut off for awhile. The smoke goes away as the engine runs. The reason for this is as the engine is running, the exhaust valves ports have pressure on them from the hot exhaust gases. This back pressure pushes the oil up out of the valve guide and past the valve stem seal. No oil gets pulled into the exhaust port from the exhaust valve stem seals when the engine is running because of the back pressure. When you shut off the engine there is no back pressure in the exhaust ports. The oil can now run down the valve stem, past the seal and into the exhaust port or the cylinder if the exhaust valve was open. When you first start the motor this oil gets burnt at first but as the motor runs the back pressure will stop the oil flow and the smoke disappears.

Did you take the oil filler cap off the valve cover with the engine running? If you have smoke coming out with the engine running, you have blow by. Which is compression loss past the pistons, rings, and cylinders. Cylinder compression and a leak down test are two different things and require different tools. If doing a compression test, do it dry first then do it wet. To do this first just take compression readings from each cylinder and write them down. This is referred to as a dry compression test. Next, squirt one or two pumps of oil from a oil can into each cylinder through the spark plug hole in the cylinder head. Then do the compression test again and write down the results. This is the wet compression test. Compare the reads you took.

What would be normal on a good engine is that you should see an increase in the compression values in the wet test when compared to the dry test. This is because a good engine will have some compression leakage past the rings when checking the compression, which produces a compression reading loss. When you do a wet compression test, the oil helps seal up the rings and the compression reading will increase because of the better seal. On an engine that is sucking oil because of bad rings, you will see little change in the compression readings because the rings were already covered in oil and adding more oil to do the wet test does little to help. You will still see a small increase in compression because adding the oil can change the static compression ratio of the engine so that is why you only add one or at the most, two squirts of oil. You want just enough oil to help the top piston ring seal up.

Rings go bad if the motor has ever been run hot or over heating will kill the rings. Also extended oil change intervals can plugs the oil return oils in the piston (which is a problem with the 2.4L and Toyota's) which leads to oil use.

A couple of YouTube videos about the the problem and the repair for the oil use problem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgdZSXOslDM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A595LR4SQpI

I've rambled on long enough, good luck!
bgerwig96
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri May 12, 2017 4:58 pm

Re: Oil Disappearing!

Post by bgerwig96 »

So it's more likely than not the rings? I ran dry compression on all 4 and got 180;180;210;200 across the board. I'm not quite sure how to interpret that... But I have another problem to tackle first and that is the fact that the adapter for my compression tester got stuck in one of the plug holes. And on top of that, my buddy managed to get a socket stuck down there as well while
He was trying to get the adapter out.... so I'll be trying to figure that one out today before running another round testing to check dry and wet numbers. Any tips for getting either of those pieces out would be greatly appreciated as well. The adapter is threaded down in there but the socket is just plain stuck. Thank you for the videos as well! I'm not sure if I'm feeling ambitious enough to attempt the whole procedure but we'll see!
jolt
Posts: 945
Joined: Sun Mar 02, 2014 2:07 am
Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota

Re: Oil Disappearing!

Post by jolt »

If your compression gauge is accurate, those numbers are to high which would indicate oil is already up there driving the compression readings high. You have bad rings by those numbers for a dry test. Normal compression on a good used engine is ~120 psi, even the factory new spec compression is listed as 140 psi.

It sounds like you used the wrong adapter to get down in there. The right adapter would have a whip hose on it to get down in the spark plug hole and would be about 12 inches long. You screw the that in first then hook your compression gauge to it. You might be able to get the socket out with a seal puller. If it has a small enough hook on the end of the puller to get inside the socket where the extension would plug into the socket. Hook the top of the socket with the puller and then hammer it out. The tool look like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Old-Forge-OLD701 ... eal+puller

If you are going to re-ring it, you need to pull the head anyways and then you could just drive the socket out with a punch through the spark plug hole from the cylinder side.
bgerwig96
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri May 12, 2017 4:58 pm

Re: Oil Disappearing!

Post by bgerwig96 »

Really? From what I've been reading that's within the acceptable range (with 210 being a little high) My compression tester has the hose but I opted to use the adapter since I wasn't sure the hose would be the correct thread. I'm gonna go try to find one of those seal pullers but as to the adapter I'm not gonna have time to pull everything apart and do that job this weekend. The vibe is kinda my daily driver and I wasn't planning on having this issue :| I wish I could find some sort of reverse thread that I could toss on my socket and pull it out that way. Or even a really thin socket that would actually fit down there. Anyways, guess it's time to run to the auto parts store...
jolt
Posts: 945
Joined: Sun Mar 02, 2014 2:07 am
Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota

Re: Oil Disappearing!

Post by jolt »

The test adapter would look like this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mac-Tools-CT120 ... SwONBZCP-v

https://store.snapon.com/Compression-Ga ... 73159.aspx

And the compression gauge, with it's own hose, couples to the adapter hose.
circuitsmith
Posts: 242
Joined: Sun Dec 04, 2011 11:26 pm

Re: Oil Disappearing!

Post by circuitsmith »

I just looked in the service manual for the 2007 Matrix 1ZZ-FE.
It lists nominal compression 189 psi, minimum 145 psi.
2006 Matrix 5-sp
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