Macster

appears to be real. After leaving for an over 4K mile road trip in my 03 with fresh oil (Castrol Syntec 5w-50 and a bottle of Swepco 502 oil treatment) in the oil tank and then a few days after returning home heading out again this time up north to Washington (Lakewood) and back -- approx 1500 miles the car has racked up nearly 6K miles on this oil. Car has just over 40K miles on it now. When I had the oil/filter service done it had nearly but not quite 35K miles on it.

Oil level is down as near as I can tell just 2 barely bars. Not even down enough to add any oil. Before the engine would have used nearly a quart of oil in 5K miles. Sure the vast majority of the miles were highway miles but I've had the car out on the open road before under similar conditions and oil consumption was higher then too.

My impression is the oil consumption has improved. And impressively so.

Oh, and the car has collected a bunch of trash in its radiator openings. This thing's a highway Hoover! Had to run almost 100% of the time with A/C on which of course means the radiator fans run full time and anything that even gets close to the radiator openings gets sucked in.

Sincerely,

Macster.

dantzig

Do you attribute the reduced oil consumption to the 5W-50 oil or the Swepco oil treatment?

Macster

Neither. I believe the oil consumption drop arose from the additional miles I put on the car.

You didn't have this info but the oil consumption was high even before this last pair of trips even with Castrol 5w-50, and before that Mobil 1 5w-50 and before that Mobil 1 0w-40, with or without Swepco oil treatment.

The car has had at least 5 oil/filter services (every 5K miles since I bought it -- I've added almost 30K miles to the odometer since June 09) and only the last couple has it been running Castrol 5w-50 oil. I tried Mobil 1 5w-50 oil but switched to Castrol cause Castrol easier to come by -- it is available at local chain autoparts store. Before that I used Mobil 1 0w-40 for probably 2 changes. The use of Swepco has been intermittent though I believe I'm going to make this a permanent addition to the engine's oil going forward.

I'm going to take the car in for an oil/filter service Tuesday AM and while at the dealer I'll speak with the tech to see what his opinion is regarding this apparent drop in oil consumption, what he makes of it.

Sincerely,

Macster.

LVDell

Sorry to hijack your thread Mac. But, what is acceptable for these cars to burn? And are they supposed to burn through oil? Reason I ask is that I don't seem to ever need to top off my oil.

03911TT

I have the same situation Dell, my TT has more miles than Macster's, but I don't burn much oil at all. Maybe Macster is correct in the thinking that they TT needs enough miles to fully seal effectively?

LVDell

Thanks AJ. If you can believe it I was actually a tad worried that I wasn't burning any oil. Guess that shows my ignorance since I'm new to the Turbo world

BostonDuce

Factory limit is 1 qt/600 miles.

Short trip operation will give a false sense of low oil consumption due to condensation build up-but this is not Mac's case.

Each bar is .25L/.26 qt so Mac's consumption is down a little less than 50%.

IMO the biggest potential oil problems in the TT is the turbos. Bearings on their way out are are a continuous source of oil getting sucked into the intake an burned. Check you intake hoses for oil.

BD

Macster

IIRC the owners manual states oil consumption can be as high as 1 liter per 1000km or about 1 quart every 600 miles.

Zero oil consumption can be an artifact of the way the car is driven. Lots of short trips that never see the engine up to operating temperature can still result in oil consumption but the oil consumed is replaced by water and unburned gasoline.

One sees this occasionally when someone unfamiliar with his car takes the car out on its first long trip without treating the car to an oil/filter service beforehand and reports oil consumption quite high.

What occurs is the water and unburned gas are boiled away once the engine and its oil gets nice and not and this very quickly results in a drop in the oil level.

It looks like the engine has suddenly developed an oil consumption problem when in fact it has been consuming oil -- maybe at a rather lazy rate - all along.

Or zero oil consumption or close enough to zero can be real the result of superior ring/piston/cylinder sealing along with the car receiving the "right" kind of usage. Little idling. Little high rpm usage. And the oil is of the proper type, viscosity and "fresh".

All of the above factors meet to form a perfect storm that will almost certainly result minimal oil consumption.

Sincerely,

Macster.

No HTwo O

Mac, this is the first I've heard of people using an oil additive (Swepco #502) on Rennlist. I'd like to hear more thoughts.

Why the #502 vs the #505?

Thanks.

LVDell

Well after 2 days on track running pretty hard with no oil burned, I think I have a good one!

Macster

Porsche techs advised I use it because it helps quiet engines upon startup, engines that aren't run too often. Now while I regularly use both my cars anything that promises to quiet the engine upon startup has to be a good thing cause noise means wear.

OTOH, I always felt that if I believed the oil I was using needed an additive I was using the wrong oil.

But given the apparent cut back in oil quality -- mainly due to a reduction in the very critical additive package which is where the bulk of any cost cutting can come from -- I changed my mind.

Why 502 vs. 505? Good question. 502 was what was recommended. I had a sample analyzed and it contains 200ppm olybdenum (micronized). Swepco claims it also contains additives to fight corrosion arising from combustion by-products but by the analysis (done at a Speedco big rig oil changing business out off of 99 highway around Ripon, CA) there was no evidence of additives. The analysis machine probably geared towards recognizing contaminants that would prompt a customer to have his rig's oil changed, and not geared towards a thorough and complete analysis of the contents of the sample being analyzed.

Also, I believe 502 is cheaper (I paid less than $10 for a bottle) compared to 505.

Lastly, the Swepco web page for 505 and 502 appear to tout the same benefits.

http://www.swepcousa.com/lubesite/products/h502.htm

http://www.swepcousa.com/lubesite/products/h505.htm

I realize the wording is different but reading between the lines both additives appear to offer the same benefits. 505 is stressed as being a must for turbo-charged engines but my experience is generally anything specifically targeted for a turbo-charged engine is just an excuse to charge more for the product.

Maybe I'll have a sample of 505 analyzed and see what it contains.

Sincerely,

Macster.

TT Surgeon

Mine does a qt every 2k miles like clockwork.

Michael-Dallas

My oil consumption is based on how I drive. Been like this on my M3's as well.

/m