Oil Consumption in '12 R-Spec

[Philth]

If I had to guess, there is an intermittent assembly problem with the ring seals of the pistons.

 

[Crusty Old Shellback]

Did you get a low oil pressure light?

Nope. I had actually overfilld it when I did the oil change. I didn't feel liek going back to the lift to try and drain some of it after I had found out that I over filled by about 1/2 qt. It's not showing about a qt low.

I did have the light come on once, and that was when I realised that it was using oil. I had to add almost 3 qt's to bring it back up to the fill line. Funny in that the light came on as I was pulling into a parking spot. When I went back out and restarted the car, no light. I imeaditly went around the corner to a station and bought some oil to refill. This was all after I had the oil changed at the dealer so I'm not sure if they filled it properley or not. That's why now I do my own oil changes so I know for sure where the oil mark is.

 

[jnc2000]

Another thing to note... high rpm driving will also throw more oil on the cylinder walls, so oil consumption can occur even with good piston rings. I'm not sure how your guys drive your car, but I have no problems using the full RPM range provided.

I've also noticed is the TAU draws quite a bit of pressure through vacuum. PCV blow-by is on the high side - and depending on operating conditions you might see more usage.

 

[homeofstone]

I drive all my cars spirited. Still no oil consumption. The fully loaded Suburban pulls a boat for 7 hours going to Florida at 70 mph, no oil used.

 

[Crusty Old Shellback]

I drive mine like I stole them. The only ones that have ever used oil are the Hyundai and my over powered Harley that I built. .

 

[jnc2000]

just saying guys... install a catch can. Drive it like you stole it, then watch as it fills up.

 

[Philth]

IMO, a catch can is only a band aid to the real problem.

 

[GJEMD]

Simple solution is take your own oil (7 quarts) and demand the empties. This will
protect it from most technician errors

 

[Genny4me]

I bought my car two weeks ago. It was a demo with 4600 miles. I checked the oil when it was still on the show room floor and noticed it was down a half quart. They changed the oil before I bought it and I will be keeping a sharp eye on it.

The car has been a joy so far

I'm now at 8200 miles and have put in a total of two quarts. It's due for an oil change soon and I will make sure the service advisor documents this. I'm going to wait until the next change to go to synthetic.

My commute to work is about nine miles and I'm sure the oil heats up pretty good (Florida, garaged car). Plus my speeds get up to at least 60 during the trip.

The car has been flawless otherwise

 

[Rey]

I have 35K on my RSpec. My oil consumption is about a quart every 2.5K. Recently, I had the throttle body off the intake manifold, and reached inside the manifold to see if there was any blow-by oil accumulation. Found maybe 1/3 cup + of oil, which I mopped up with a rag.
My driving is mostly short errands, no commuting as I am retired, punctuated by long road trips of at least 4K each. These road trips consist of many 500 mile days back-to-back. On my last road trip I did notice gas mileage improving, which may indicate a "cleaning" of the intake valves.
I am impressed by the throughness of forum members on this subject; and I thank you. I have ordered a JEGS catch can, which I will fill with copper mesh (Choreboy) so as to provide more surface area. I may order as second catch can, as I think it is physically possible to precipitate most of the blow-by oil into catch can (s), and thus reduce to intake carbon build up to a tolerable level.

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[mikec]

Instead of a catch can, what about an oil separator. Many turbocharged engines use them. Basically, PCV systems use intake manifold vacuum to suck air out of the cylinder heads (via the PCV valve(s) connected to one(both) valve covers) which draws oil and gas fumes from the engine crankcase. Normally there are small baffles on the inside of the valve cover to allow air to flow through but oil droplets can't make the sharp turns and thus stay inside the valve cover.

On turbo engines though, when accelerating with turbo boost pressure, there is no intake manifold vacuum - instead the whole intake manifold is pressurized. The PCV slams shut to keep this pressurized air out of the valve covers and rest of the crankcase area. Meanwhile though there is NO crankcase ventilation... So what some turbo engines do is take advantage of the vacuum between the air filter and turbocharger inlet generated by the turbo's voracious airflow appetite. Running a hose/pipe from the valve cover to the oil separator gives the vacuum... the oil separator acts like a "T" pipe fitting. The top of the tank goes to the turbo inlet, a pipe coming half-way up the side goes to the valve cover, and a hose at the very bottom drains captured/separated oil back to the oil pan. Inside the separator are air baffles again that catch oil mist and make it drain downwards (back to the pan) rather than letting it flow upwards & out of the separator and into the turbo inlet.

mike c.

 

[rockymax]

In my first 4500 miles driven, my car had used 2 qts. of oil. The dealer service rep put the car on "oil monitoring". Back to the dealer yesterday with 3000 miles since last service for oil change and car was down a little over a qt. Service rep had car inspected and they could not find any leaks in system. Rep called Hyundai and, according to rep, they said oil usage is normal as this is a high performance engine. They said that there should not be any concern unless usage is one quart in a 1000 miles. I asked the rep if she believed that and she smiled. She established a Case with Hyundai regarding my oil usage and a case number is on my service record printout. I also learned from the rep that there is a recall for a brake line check that I was not aware. I could not have it done as rep said that it would take 1 - 1 1/2 hours to perform.

 

[EXBMWGUY]

IMO, a catch can is only a band aid to the real problem.

How would you define the real problem?

 

[Rey]

Let's look at the problem from another angle - possible overfill of oil sump, even at OEM specification 7 qts.

My experience is that once a quart or so is lost or burned off then oil consumption decreases. I do my own oil changes; and next change I will put in but 6.5 rather than seven quarts and monitor closely.

I read everything written by A. Graham Bell, a Brit who has emigrated to OZ. In his latest book "Four Stroke Performance Tuning" he devotes over 75 pages to lubrication alone. Amazon has the book. Here is what he writes on oil fill level at page 549.
"Having considered the foregoing information it should be obvious that the sump should never be overfilled, otherwise you are sure to have the crank and rods dipping into the oil every revolution. If that is not bad enough, you will end up with a situation where too much oil is being thrown up the cylinders; the the rings have to drag it off the walls and that consumes power. If the rings cannot cope with this additional oil load you will have combustion chamber and plug oiling problems, which will effect combustion and rob you of performance.

Personally I keep the oil level well below the full mark on the dipstick. First, I check for oil surge with 1/2 litre less. Then if there is no surge problem I drop another 1/4 litre and so on down to a maximum of 1 litre below full. With a complex baffling system involving several swinging trap doors and a swinging pick-up I have been able to drop to a 50% oil. Fill. This is dangerous territory thought, and the hp gains are minimal. Lowered 1 litre, some engines have shown maximum hp gains of around 2.5%, but a little over 1.5% is more usual. In road cars at cruise the gains are much greater, and this pays a nice fuel economy dividend."

 

[EXBMWGUY]

I will be taking a 3,500 mile road trip in my 2012 R-Spec beginning on Wednesday, March 20th. I have almost 3,000 miles on the current oil, which is Pennzoil Ultra 5w-30 full synthetic. The oil level today is squarely between the two marks. I'll be bringing two quarts along and will check the dipstick every fill-up and report what happens.

Historically, I have added a total of two quarts in just over 25,000 miles and done 7,500 mile change intervals except my first change at 3,000 miles.

 

[Philth]

How would you define the real problem?

A catch can is only catching oil, not stopping the source of the consumption (i.e., ring blow by, PCV problems, etc).

I had a turbo'd 4 cylinder pushing over 32 lbs of boost and up to 32.5* of timing advance that NEVER used oil anything remotely close to what the Tau 5.0L is experiencing.

This is surely a design flaw that I can safely assum Hyundai has already figured out what is causing it. I'll place money that a subtle design change to the internals of the engine is being implemented soon, if not already in the works.

 

[Philth]

They said that there should not be any concern unless usage is one quart in a 1000 miles.

I mentioned this earlier in the thread. Classic song and dance from an OEM. Acura told me the same thing when my '02 RSX Type S was using roughly 1 quart every 2,000 miles.

 

[Mark_888]

Have any Equus owners with the Tau 5.0 V8 experienced high oil usage?

 

[Philth]

Have any Equus owners with the Tau 5.0 V8 experienced high oil usage?

That's a great question. Whatever the issue is, I think it's not like this on all engines. I notified a buddy of mine with an R-spec and he is showing no oil consumption; has been monitoring ever since I told him.

 

[GJEMD]

It may be the operating temp gradient in cold start short driving.
Its a fact that oil temp lags engine temp. 0-20 5-30 oil viscosity is dynamic. If you never get the oil up to temp then you are essentially using 0-5 wt oil. Especially in colder months of the year. It seems this could be a factor. The 0-20 wt oil is used to get mpg up for the Feds.