GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

Hello All, I am the original owner of a 2009 Pontiac Vibe with a 2.4 Liter engine, I have taken excellent care of my car and I have changed my oil every 3000 miles since day one. I Just hit 67,000 miles on my car and it's been perfect. I love this car. Sadly I began burning oil last month and it's gotten worse Quickly, I do not leak oil and the car doesn't smoke or show any signs of anything being wrong out of the blue one day I checked my oil and it had 1/2 quart in it I had to add over 3 quarts of oil to it so I brought it the shop immediately. we put synthetic oil in and I began monitoring it weekly. sadly I burn a quart of oil every 400-500 miles every 2 weeks I am adding oil. I am adding it constantly. My mechanic went through the car and checked it all out and told me the motor is notorious for burning oil at about 60K Miles, he told me the motor I have is not good and it's a real problem. He suggested I sell my car ASAP and get rid of it before it's worth nothing. I am shocked the blue book is so low on this and if I am lucky I can get 4000-5000 for it in good condition. I have new tires and breaks on it and it's in great condition. I don't want to sell it as I just paid it off after 7 years of payments. He told me the pistons are bad and the repair is around 4000 minimum. I am wondering if this is really true. the mechanic said the piston issue is a well known fact and that this engine is done. What to do? any advice? I am really wanting to get it fixed but the mechanic said it's not worth me fixing it but he will do it for me if I want him to. I'm thinking about trading it in and getting a used car but I won't find one as nice as mine and I paid a lot of money for it. Thank you in advance.

Maybe you should look at the price of a used / rebuilt engine?

If the motor is the only problem with this car and it is in otherwise good shape it would be a shame to get rid of it with such low mileage on everything else.

Check the PCV valve and hose.
Find a good indy shop on yelp etc. that specializes in the Japanese cars.
get a second opinion/estimate.
In the meantime no point using more expensive synthetic.
Try some 10w30 or 10w40 if it's not going below freezing where you are.

Yes, there is certain 2.4L Toyota engines that burn oil. There were 2 TSB's issued with the VIN numbers that affected specific Toyota/Scion models from 2007-2009 depending on when the engine was built. The problem was bad piston/piston ring assembly in certain batches. I would imagine some probably made it into our Vibes but with Pontiac gone GM made no mention of it. At this stage if you purchased an extended warranty and/or have a good relationship with your dealer I would bring these TSB's, you can try for some goodwill with GM customer care or at least a discount of some sort.

SCION AND TOYOTA Several models with the 2.4-liter 4-cylinder engine may be using too much oil. In T.S.B.’s SB002411 and SB009411 issued on Aug. 11, the companies said the problem was traced to the piston assembly. Replacing the pistons and rings should solve the problem. Affected models are the 2007-9 Scion tCs and the 2008-9 Scion xB as well as these Toyotas: 2006-8 RAV4, 2007-8 Solara, 2007-9 Camry, 2007-11 Camry Hybrid, 2009 Corolla and 2009 Matrix.

Here is some further reading.... http://www.scionlife.com/forums/scion-x ... sb-209859/

http://www.rav4world.com/forums/99-4-3- ... ption.html

http://www.corolland.com/forums/index.p ... nsumption/

You'd be looking at just pistons & rings. A few gaskets and a lot of labor. If this is the only problem then fix it and keep the car for a long time. My son's 2009 vibe GT also has the 2.4 engine that burns oil. We purchased the car at just under 36k miles over five years ago and was it ever a mess (thus the good price). Anyways since we switched over to synthetic, the oil burning rate has dropped off a bit. He usually is down one quart every 2000 mikes or so. It was worse but has actually gotten better. Did you just recently start using synthetic or had you gone with synthetic from the beginning?

Welcome and sorry to hear you are having these issues! I would do as others suggested and have the PCV checked and get a second opinion on it. If they both conclude it needs to be rebuilt, I would probably find a motor from a 2010 Vibe or 2010-2013 Matrix or Corolla and swap that one in for probably $2,000 -2,500 or so. I see them with 70K miles or so for $1,500 average on www.car-part.com

Good luck with it!

Sorry to hear about your oil consumption issues . Both our 09 GTs just turned over 67,000 miles and don't consume any oil whatsoever.

Would you please do the GenVibe community a huge favor and let us know when your Vibe was built? Go to the Comp Nine VIN Decoder and enter your VIN number and it should show the build date. So far, it seems as though 09s built in early 2008 are the ones experiencing oil consumption. Our GTs were built in October and November of 2008 and as I said above, neither consume any oil between 5000 mile changes.

Keep us posted. Thanks.

My build date was Sept 3, 2008 and it burns at least a quart of oil every 5000 miles; well within specifications. Neither my Fit nor my HET burns a drop of oil in that same amount of miles.

Are you running any oil additives in with the motor oil? I made that mistake once and my Ford was using oil after that. I went to the dealership and was told that they could not do anything about it till it was documented that it was using at least one quart per 500 miles. They marked my dipstick and sent me on my way. I later was thinking more about it and the one thing that I had did different with this oil change was added Slick 50 engine oil additive after being told how great it was. It was on sale and I thought I would give it a try. The Ford sucked oil big time after that so I change oil in it again to remove the Slick 50 and my oil mileage improved. The more I drove it after that, without the Slick 50 in it, the better it got. After a couple of oil changes and some more miles to wear off the Slick 50, the oil usage stopped and my motor was back to normal. New motors have such thin, low tension piston rings in them to try to get better gas mileage, that even a little thing like an oil additive can upset the sealing ability of the piston rings and oil usage in the engine. BEWARE!

I was going to buy a AWD Trix with the 2.4 but backed out because of the piston issue leading to burning of oil. As far as Toyota is concerned, if the engine burns through four quarts of oil between changes, it's OK. That also means your engine has no oil in it when it's due for the next change!

Read this: http://www.toyoheadquarters.com/threads ... c-ze7.362/

vibenvy wrote:Would you please do the GenVibe community a huge favor and let us know when your Vibe was built?

The VIN sticker inside of the driver's side door jamb will have the manufacture date on it.

I thought of that after I posted !

MacGyver wrote:As far as Toyota is concerned, if the engine burns through four quarts of oil between changes, it's OK. That also means your engine has no oil in it when it's due for the next change!

Um...not if you check the oil level between changes.
The manual says check the oil every time you re-fuel, a bit conservative IMHO.
I recommend every 1000 miles unless it's a known oil burner.
Lots of people trash engines (and tires!) because they don't check anything on their own.
They give their toaster more attention then their car when they empty out the crumbs.

A lot of people, my wife included (unfortunately), think a car IS a toaster.

Hi,

I am having the same issue with my 2009 vibe. The Toyota 2.4 litre engine has a defect, Toyota used the wrong tool and so the orings do not sit right in the pistons which leads it to burn oil, and Toyota has even issued a warranty enhancement notification ZE7 and are willing to warrant this issue until October 31, 2016 and the secondary coverage is until 10 years or 150, 000 miles which ever comes first. I have contacted GM and they are saying they have never heard of this issue and will not warrant this even though they could probably go back to Toyota. I am hoping that anyone that owns a 2009 Vibe with this issue contact GM and request that they too warrant this issue.

Thank you

Vicky

My 2.4 AWD 2009 Vibe is also burning oil like crazy. Haven't had it very long, but looks like about a quart every 600 miles or so.

(Looked up VIN: built November 14 2008)

I haven't checked the PCV valve yet, so there's a chance it's that (but wouldn't there be oil residue in the air filter in that case?). I don't recall ever having an engine w/163k on it that ran as quietly and smoothly as this one does though, oil burn or not.

Here's my question: other than the six or eight buck a month I'll be pouring into the oil hole, is there anything wrong with just driving it this way? I assume eventually the leaky bits are going to get worse and then I'll have to have some work done, but is there any point in trying to do that sooner rather than later?

I drive as a courier (~8-10 hours a day, ~75%hwy 25%city) 2009 vibe awd It burns oil but it's not very bad. I change my oil every 5,000 miles and Around 2,500-3,000 I put in another quart. The car has nearly 250k miles now, original engine, new transmission at 200k. I use high mileage oil (valvoline maxlife) with normal oil that my mechanics use it doesn't really burn much oil at all

Owim wrote: The car has nearly 250k miles now, original engine, new transmission at 200k.

Please let all of us know when you hit the 300,000 mile mark. Very curious to see if the odometer stops at 299,999 like the first generation Vibes do. In the meantime keep racking up the miles

tpollauf wrote:

Owim wrote: The car has nearly 250k miles now, original engine, new transmission at 200k.

Please let all of us know when you hit the 300,000 mile mark. Very curious to see if the odometer stops at 299,999 like the first generation Vibes do. In the meantime keep racking up the miles

2003-2008 Corolla/Matrix/Vibe only, and 2004-2005 Prius. That's what someone on reddit told me, I'll be testing it for sure in the next year XD