oil questions

[collk88]

1. i checked my oil the other day and it was downa quart, my dad said it was normal for a 10 year old car to use some oil but is there some way to stop this?2. im also wondering if its worth switching to synthetic oil? is it safe to just switch when you change the oil?

[corn322]

1. rebuild the engine, or use thicker oil. high mileage cars will use a bit of oil. but if it's down a quart, go ahead and top it off.2. I'm pretty sure it's fine to pour in synthetic on your next oil change. I'll let someone else take this one.

[collk88]

oh by the way my engine only has 56k mi on it, which i think is pretty low for it to be using oil but i dunno too much about that stuff.

[Smebbin'd'240]

Check for any leaks under the engine or by oil filter housing etc. If it is using oil now a synthetic will loose a lot more by the nature of synthetic motor oils. They are more like water and can get into cracks and stuff like that. Compression testing will tell you the condition of the piston rings and such that keep motor oil out of the combustion chamber. Is it smoking a lot? If not it's probably a leak.

and synthetic isn't cheap either.

[skatanic28]

thats pretty low mileage to be down a whole quart. i have 140k on my vg and i still dont burn much at all. go ahead and try a compression test

[trpower7]

That is very low mileage to be down a quart. I would suggest checking for leaks, as this is far more likely than the engine using that much oil. If in fact you can't find any leaks perform a compression test to check the status of your engine internals. At 56K I would be very surprised if your engine is using a quart between changes. At 165K my KA uses about 3/4 of a quart of heavy dyno oil, which I consider quite bad. Wait to determine the condition of your engine before switching to a synthetic, while I am a huge proponent of it, it will accellerate leaks in a worn engine.