95spiderman

weve had our 4s for 2 yrs and 15000 miles of mostly suburban driving. everything works well except excessive oil use. about 6 qts/yr. no stains in driveway, no smoke from tailpipes, and engine compartment is clean so i assume no leak either. ive read about this issue being normal but this seems excessive. any ideas? thanks

Targa Tim

All Porsches burn oil, live with it. Happy Motoring.

No HTwo O

You are consuming 1 quart per 1,250 miles. That's very much within Porsche spec's.

No they don't.

743CO

I guess they don't then, despite the owners manual saying that up to one quart per 600 miles is possible.

BuddyP

I'm at 6800 miles on my 2012 S, and I have yet to add any oil. The display still shows one bar before I need to add oil. I keep a quart in the car to add when the day comes, but I have no problem with the oil consumption in my car.

pmichaelis

My 4S is currently burning at the rate of 3,500 miles per quart after 15,000 miles. Not in the league with my wife's BMW at a quart every 5,000 miles (with 47,000 miles) but certainly not excessive. At a quart per 600 miles, I would be concerned about coking up the cats probably when the warranty runs out after 80,000 miles which is 130+ quarts down the road.

743CO

From the Owners Manual:

up to 1.6 quarts/621 miles
up to 1.5 l/1000 km

Instead of conjecture, just read your manuals!!

Cheers, JohnnyB

95spiderman

Wow. Just seems like a lot esp since my old 07 gt3 that experienced same condition plus at least 6 track days/yr didnt require any oil between changes

pmichaelis

With this consumption your almost running a diesel with gasoline added to make up for the low compression ratio.

743CO

It is quite a large amount of oil. However this thread shows how little folks read their owners manual.

If your going to buy a very expensive car, read about how to operate and maintain the vehicle.

Harsh, but true. As Joe Friday said on Dragnet; "Just the facts Son, Just The Facts"

Cheers, JohnnyB

95spiderman

thanks for all the advice. if youll re read my op, you will see how i said "ive read about this issue being normal". i read it in the owners manual but its still shocking so i wanted confirmation here

Targa Tim

Post me just one manual of any Porsche saying the car doesn't burn oil.

They are all supposed to burn oil. Owners who have cars that don't burn oil is because they are lucky.

awryexperiment

Just out of curiousity, what causes the oil to burn? Is it loss during a cold start or some type of engineered flow-through?

BuddyP

I guess I am lucky, and that's fine with me. 6900 miles and no oil added yet.

umwolverine

This is within Porsche specs, but it is certainly on the high side of consumption. While Porsches can burn lots of oil, one factor could be the low mileage per year that you drive.

The best way to break an engine in is to do 2,000 miles in one shot. You want to do varied driving - speeds, rpm, gears, without exceeding around 4,500 and half-throttle. From your mileage, it sounds like you probably took 3-4 months to hit break-in mileage, and that would be lots of cold starts where the engine was pretty much drained of oil. The engine will see more wear in the first couple minutes of a cold start than many hours of running after that. Infrequent short trips is the worst way to break in an engine, and a tough way to run it if you want to minimize oil consumption.

I'm not criticizing the way you drive, since you're not doing anything wrong, and maybe you broke it in driving the back roads from New York to Florida. But Porsches and BMW M engines oil consumption will vary a lot depending on break-in and driving habits.