Originally Posted by
Ben Helmich
Take it to the dealer, get it documented. Do it now. You never know how many warranties Subaru has on it and when they all expire. Not everything will be covered for 100K. They may do an oil consultation test. If so, follow their directions to the letter. They will likely have an oil consumption spec somewhere. For Ford, the spec used to be about 1qt per 1000 miles. That’s very generous, but you have to have some kind of spec to decide when to go into a motor and spend the manufacturer’s money on a repair. Oil consumption is uncommon but not unusual. Some cars just use oil. The question is always is it bad enough to spend thousands to make it go away. Make sure you’re using the proper weight oil. Other things can cause oil consumption also, including PCV systems, turbos, and oil leaks. How much oil consumption is “right” or what is “warrantable” may be two different things. I spent about 20yrs as a Ford service tech. I’ve been through this a few times as the tech.
I'd never accept the loss of one quart of oil every 1,000 miles on a car that I owned. The standard time between oil changes is now about 7,500 to 10,000 or 12,000 miles (depending on the type of oil). Assuming your engine had a capacity of four or five quarts of oil, you would be replacing the oil (by your additions) several times between oil changes. Even worse, if you forgot to check the oil on a very regular basis, you'd be getting an "oil light" on a regular basis, and it you didn't react to it pretty quickly, you could run the engine without oil.
It's been a long time since I owned a car that needed to have oil added between oil changes.
Mike
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