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Oil consumption and PCV Value

17644 Views 8 Replies 2 Participants Last post by  mike1967
So I have a (new) Used 2011 Mini Cooper S. Car runs great, starts easily, idles fine, no codes, 64K. After I bought I changed the oil, replaced the plugs, the coils, new HPFP, new Fuel Filter. However, since my oil change, I've put about 700 mile on the car and after 500 or so it was a quart low. After another 200 miles, it looks to be another 1/4 quart off top. That seems like a lot of oil use to me.

I'm running 5w-30, Castrol, Full Synth. I see no oil leaks under the car, around the valve cover or anywhere obvious (yet). Muffler pipes are black at the rear of the car.

My question is even though my PCV value is working and there are no codes, is it possible that it gets clogged, or weak and this is causing more oil by-pass into my turbo and intake?
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all the pcv valve is is a thin rubber bellows with a very light stainless spring that works is in a way that when inlet pressure drops or increases will open and close the flow between inlet and rocker crankcase as to allow crankcase gases to be fed into the inlet ie to burn off NOX gases, when this happens it also includes any oil that is in the pipe work, what causes oil to be in pipework tends to be where crankcase pressure is to high, what tends to cause this is blow past form piston rings and turbo failure between the compressor to oil chamber in middle of turbo, this also causes blue smoke from exhaust if its exhaust side to oil chamber it tends to be white smoke as oil is not totally burnt it more like spilling oil on a hot surface effect,,, if piston blow past this tends to be due to build up of carbon on rings as if cat gets contaminated with oil or car not driven hard enough as to clean the cat causes back pressure to increase and the carbon has to go somewhere, hence why i use seafoam engine flush in the oil just before oil changes it cleans all this out.
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I used seafoam before/in my last oil change.
I don't see any colored smoke at all. Also, I don't see/feel anything out of the exhaust except for hot Co2.
I'm trying to find out why my car is using so much oil.

A quart every 1000 miles seems like too much oil to me.
Also,
"
Symptoms of a Bad or Failing Positive Crankcase Ventilation (PCV) Valve
Common signs of a faulty PCV valve include excessive oil consumption, oil leaking, a blocked breather filter, and reduction in overall performance."

and this-->
1/4 every 1000 miles is good for a prince engine, the reason they use oil is by design ie coated bores and rings added to run at 109c temps add thin oil used ie 5/30w fully syn, add to this its highly strung and its pcv breather system is heavy duty compered to most ie they just wanted that engine to be low emissions so mpg was a must so a engine will run on oil or petrol do a degree ie its poss to gain some more power by using a tiny bit of crankcase oil as such this all when car is tested look like its ultra low emissions compared to others in the class, hence why these engines won loads of awards when were new,, Ferrari have been doing this for years on a lot of their engines including the F1 v6 engines so have vw audi on tfsi and fsi engines hence why so many people have slagged it off for using to much oil,, trouble because they already allow oil past the rings it dont take much carbon build up to make it look so much worse, if you live in a hot country maybe changing oil to a 5/40w fully syn this will be thicker slightly when engine at 100c or should say 109c at worst,, its possible to do same in colder climates but would advise when start engines first thing to sit there for a few minutes let oil get around before any revs etc,
the way around the cost of using oil is buy a 20 or 25 litre drum at any time in the uk they sell for £45 and just except they use oil and its part of ownership, joys of new low emissions and plenty of power tech i'm afraid,
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1/4 every 1000 miles is good for a prince engine,
Not 1/4...that would be great.
One FULL Quart (1 L) of oil ever 1000 miles. I stress full because I'm only 900 miles and I burned a whole quart.

That much oil going into my turbo and intake will kill the turbo real soon and the intake will look like a dirty BBQ. That can't be right. I'm using a 1/2 L of oil will each full tank of gas. I can't find any oil on the ground but I do see some old dirty oil under the filter housing but it could have been from some sloppy oil changes eons ago. Its not fresh.
yep that is still within the spec the factory says to people who bought brand new no mileage cars and they also use as much in some cases more depending on if use all the rev band when driving them, not many petrol turbo if any cars on the road these days that use no oil due to pcv,, you could catch can the system but would need to have ecu programmed ie remove the self check file from it so dont throw eml on, and of were me while having that done might as well have a map dropped on it and better panel filter as well as wont be much more to do,
yep that is still within the spec the factory says to people who bought brand new no mileage cars and they also use as much in some cases more depending on if use all the rev band when driving them, not many petrol turbo if any cars on the road these days that use no oil due to pcv,, you could catch can the system but would need to have ecu programmed ie remove the self check file from it so dont throw eml on, and of were me while having that done might as well have a map dropped on it and better panel filter as well as wont be much more to do,
  1. I' believe you can put a catch can in line with the existing piping so as to not have to change the ECU. I think I have seen a YouTube on that. I've thought about the oil catch can so far I haven't find one that has both a baffle or way to produce more cooling condensate as well as a fullness indicator and drain on in the same design. I may have to modify one is what I am thinking to my liking.
  2. I'm not sure where I would go for a remapping. It looks to all be in the UK or Netherlands and I'm here in the US. Also,not sure I want to deviate too far off stock. It looks pretty expensive 1/5 of what I paid for the car. Also, it would be higher insurance.
  3. By Panel filter, you mean the air filter right? Something like this??
276050
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panel filter is straight swap keep factory airbox link below
as for remapping etc there are people in this country that do generic maps and deletes etc ie post it gets wrote then posted back again, dale PHONE NUMBER 07807 222262 i'm sure fedex it could be a option etc, you wont beat prices he's very good, i do it all the time send a ecu to him he drops a map or deletes what i need etc posts it back never have any issues with it, little tip if anyone else is reading this etc delete what you intend to remove run car get the fault codes caused by it and ask for these to be deleted on say a ecu that has egr or dpf or cat deleted etc,,, car makers say this is impossible but its not its common practice within the mapping trade.
i would think is usa you have checks like we do once a year so always good to keep things looking stock for sure and we have same game here so delete stuff where it cant be seen from out side common practice
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