A whiff of burned oil (R33GTST)

[Torques]

My car has developed a whiff of burned oil note from the exhaust.

It's not not using any excessive oil or producing blue smoke, is there a way to isolate whether it's the turbo or the engine?

No oil visible on the compressor inlet. (from the engine cover vent)

Inlet manifold is clean as well.

Spark plugs look clean, compression is good on all cylinders.

Engine is almost standard with hybrid turbo and low mileage.

 

Cheers ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Duncan]

What do you mean by low mileage? Has it been rebuilt, or does the odometer not show many klm (ie likely wound back)?

By this age, it would be common to have worn valve stem seals. They tend to be noticeable when first driving after the car has been sitting a while (as oil from head gets past seal into cylinder while stationary).

A compression test is the starting point to work out if you have an engine sealing problem. If there is, a leak down test can help tell you where the issue is. Turbo seals are generally not "a whiff", more like a wacky racers smoke screen

[tridentt150v]

Hybrid turbo....as a general rule if you are producing more power then you will use some oil, its a fact of life.  I'm not sure where it starts to burn oil [and would change with each motor anyway] but probably around the 200-250rwkw and increases with power output.  As a rough guide 300rwkw would be approx 1/2 to 1 litre per 1000km.

[Torques]

Hi ..

Thanks for the replies

By low mileage I mean 86,000km! I owned the car for 12 years and the Ks are genuine.The car is sadly rarely used, I bought it with 72,000km on the clock.

It's one of the last made S2s and traffic here is so horrendous that it's mostly not worth driving in the city @ 5 - 40 km/h and zero boost.

Yes, I was thinking maybe valve stem seals but it's hard to ascertain since it's not blowing any blue smoke. If it was I could just close the throttle at higher rpm and in gear to see if anyting is being sucked into the combustion chambers via stems / seals.

I will have to take a look at the turbo's oil return feed too and also see if there's anything wrong in terms of play etc.

As for oil usage, I've driven around 1,500km and according to the dip stick there was next to no oil 'missing'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ben C34]

3 hours ago, tridentt150v said:

As a rough guide 300rwkw would be approx 1/2 to 1 litre per 1000km.

Yeah nah

[TurboTapin]

16 hours ago, tridentt150v said:

As a rough guide 300rwkw would be approx 1/2 to 1 litre per 1000km.

I'm almost at 300rwkw and burn zero oil. Adding 1l per 1000km you would almost do two oil changes before your oil change is actually due. I'd consider 1l per 5000kms borderline. Only time I've seen engines burn that much oil is when they were on their death bed or bubba did something funky with his crankcase ventilation or turbo oil return. 

 

Unless you swapped in a 2 stroke or a rotary, I'd look into fixing that. 

Edited September 24, 2020 by TurboTapin

[GTSBoy]

42 minutes ago, TurboTapin said:

Only time I've seen engines burn that much oil is when they were on their death bed or bubba did something funky with his crankcase ventilation or turbo oil return

Or....just about every modern engine with really thin, low tension rings and 0W oil.

But for an RB, agreed.

[TurboTapin]

29 minutes ago, GTSBoy said:

Or....just about every modern engine with really thin, low tension rings and 0W oil.

But for an RB, agreed.

Manufacturers state normal oil consumption for warranty reasons. If any modern car was burning 1L of oil per 1000kms, they would all be bankrupt due to warranty work. Think of it, that's anywhere between 8-15L added between oil changes, depending on the manufacturer. 

 

Cheers. 

[GTSBoy]

1 hour ago, TurboTapin said:

Manufacturers state normal oil consumption for warranty reasons. If any modern car was burning 1L of oil per 1000kms, they would all be bankrupt due to warranty work. Think of it, that's anywhere between 8-15L added between oil changes, depending on the manufacturer. 

 

Cheers. 

Yeah. Have you heard of the Subaru FA engine? Half the Euros are just as bad. They burn more oil than the Gulf War did.

[TurboTapin]

Just now, GTSBoy said:

Yeah. Have you heard of the Subaru FA engine? Half the Euros are just as bad. They burn more oil than the Gulf War did.

?

[Torques]

Yes, I agree ... 1L /1000 would be excessive .......... and quite expensive too depending on the oil you're using

 

Edited September 25, 2020 by Torques

[SilverECR33]

Duncan is spot on.

Cars don't like sitting. I would drive it for a bit and see if it fixes itself.. or... maybe run a good quality seal rejuvenator like the Liquid moly stop leak or something like that. then drop it out and run your normal oil and see where your at.