Anyone having oil issues?
 

Read this the other day about Subaru being sued over burning excess oil. Does not mention BRZ but does mention the Crosstrek with what I believe to be our engine.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/...suit/12859865/

I wonder what's considered excessive loss of oil? All the subarus I've had have burned oil, that's just the nature of the beast. From reading that article it sounds drastic though, like they're losing half of their oil in 3K miles.

http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/show...php?p=42274642

1 quart over 3,000 miles.

Edit: with regards to the Toyobaru I'm at about 30,000 miles and I haven't noticed any consumption, it may be happening but not enough to warrant me topping off over the 7,500 mile interval.

FA20 doesn't burn oil from what I have gathered. Factory fill changed at 4800km and Eneos Sustina 0W-20 since, now at 8800km and no oil burning.

nothing here either, but I wonder if that is the reason they shortened the oil change intervals in the 2015 BRZ?

Both of the vehicles mentioned in the article use the FB20 motor (Still a 2.0L but modified from our FA20)

Can't believe Imprezas weren't on that list. Subaru spec is 1 quart/1500 miles is okay!!

Oil consumption on mine varies a lot based on usage. If i drive it hard I'll burn almost a quart per thousand miles. If I just do highway miles, not so much. When driving it hard you definitely need to keep an eye on your fluid levels.

Mines burned about a quart every 1.5-2K miles the first ~30K miles.. now I only burn about HALF a quart every 3-4K miles.

Not that it's relevant, but I used Amsoil 0W-20 the first ~25K miles, then switched to Gastrol.. just switched again to Pennzoil.

hey listen anymore of these illegal links and an injunctive order to cease and desist will be issued and enforced.

I have no issues with my oil. We have a healthy relationship.

The oil fairy sneaks into the engine bay at night and keeps us topped off.

Out of curiosity how did you do your break in?

I've had a couple hard days, on about 6,000 miles on this oil and still right about where I put it (+/-5% depending on conditions during check)

No consumption here. 12k miles now. Changed to Redline 0w20 at 1k miles, changed to M1 0w20 at 8k.

Actually they are. FB25's including Crosstrek's, Foresters, Outbacks, and Impreza's.

Ironically, a thread began at Subaruforester.org about this back in 2011 about the 2011 model year Foresters and that model year was not even part of the oil control ring TSB referenced in the article.

You have an oily fairy in your garage! :confused0068:

That seems like a derogatory way to describe a human rights violation. :D



Wash him off and let him go man!

I basically stuck to the mfr guidlines for breakin-- as I hit ~900mi, I gradually ramped up my rev usage above 4k towards redline. I used the whole tach for the first time at exactly 1k miles.

During the breakin I basically took the car out on somewhat-curvy B-roads where I could simply accelerate and decelerate a bit and/or cruise along at 50-something MPH, changing gears every few minutes to mix up the engine RPMs.

I've had Blackstone look over the engine oil (on my fourth or so fill, since I figured most of the break-in detritus would have washed out by then) and they said the oil looks totally healthy, so the vanishing oil isn't a head gasket issue or anything, and it doesn't sound like there's significant blow-by occurring (since there's no fuel in the oil).

I should also probably note that I'm really not speaking metaphorically when I say, "when driven hard"-- "hard" means 100-250 mile trips through the mountains with the engine revving between 5.5 and 7.5k RPM most of the time.

I don't do much highway driving (mostly short around-town trips and long "fun" drives where I'm pushing the car hard), but I did do a road trip up to NorCal a while back (maybe 600 miles round-trip) and IIRC there was no discernible change in oil level during that trip, so my guess is that if I primarily did commuting I wouldn't really see much oil use.

Interesting, toss a couple track days into this and that's pretty much how I'm using my car too, however I have a lot of freeway miles in between, maybe 3-4 days like you describe per oil change so if this is a consistent degradation as it gets run hard I may be seeing similar consumption in a year or two.

Time will tell.
:cheers:

Keep us informed! Personally I'm very curious to see how these engines will hold up. I do what I can to help mine along (frequent oil changes, allowing the engine to run it's high cold-idle period before moving the car after a cold start, keeping things below 3,500rpm until up to operating temperatures, etc), and so far it's run very nicely. The reports of DI seal failures on track cars make me a little nervous, though-- definitely nervous enough to wait out at least the majority of my powertrain warranty before considering any engine mods.

Hopefully these engines will prove strong in the long run! I'll certainly share whatever information I can collect (hopefully just through UOA results and oil consumption rates :D).

I don't think I've seen more than maybe one or two posts of DI failure in the past 6 months and the main drum bangers have been quiet. I'm tempted to believe that the failures were a combination of the initial tune, unlucky tolerance stackup or QC, and very heavy duty usage.

We're all hoping the engine lives up to the Toyota/Scion badge in terms of reliability, hoping that Subaru has gone back to their 90's stoutness under Toyota's direction, it may be the saving grace from the detractors if these things chug past 200k without issue.

Here with 13k miles + SC and no oil consumption, oil change at 5k and 10k. And yes FI with less than 500 miles, use daily and kind of hard.
Keeping the car NA, with a good tune, any kind of oil cooler and it should last more than 200k miles! With proper maintenance and all the hard driving that you desire!!!

If the oil usage isn't blowby then where is is going? Does blackstone expect to see fuel contamination at your usage level? I'm just curious, because if you are using oil it can only be one of two things, a leak somewhere or it is getting burned up during combustion from the PCV system (blowby). And higher usage during hard driving certainly sounds like blowby...

I sold my STI that had a brand new engine installed at 72K miles because I just wasn't comfortable with the oil usage. Compression and leak down checked out ok, but it definitely had a decent amount of blowby. I actually attribute that to me following the recommended breakin - I don't think you ever get really good ring seal if you don't wind it out until 1K miles. I'm not recommending the 'drive it like you stole it' breakin, but my first STI motor saw full boost way before 1K miles and it never used any oil. High rpm engine braking is where it is at to get a good seal :)

I really don't know. I did ask them to do their spectroscopy test (IIRC that's what it was anyway) to check for coolant and fuel, and they said they found neither. I was initially worried about oil / coolant mixing because I noticed the coolant overflow tank looked quite low, which combined with disappearing oil didn't sound very good. Turns out I think it was just never filled properly from the factory-- I added more coolant and none seems to have disappeared since, and there's none in the oil.

I've considered installing some catch cans-- I guess the rate at which those filled up would tell you how much blow-by was occurring? Also, could pulling and reading the plugs possibly cue you in? (Excess shit on the plugs from more oil getting into the combustion chamber?)

Assuming I still have the car by then, I'll probably try a more aggressive break-in procedure (with proper heat-cycling, etc) when I redo the top end-- it would be interesting to see if it makes a big difference. At least then I'll have control over the engine from the beginning, rather than starting with something with ~15 miles of god-knows-what having happened to it already.

Coolant is tough to get filled correctly on boxers in my experience, it can take 1000 miles before you get all the air bubbles burped out. I'm going to use Blackstone when I start my oil changes (I'm only at 350 miles so far) and I will ask them what level of blowby you have to get before they can start reading fuel contamination in the oil. I would imagine it would have to be quite significant blowby before they can see anything.

I had a Moroso catch can on my STI and I can state from experience they are worthless. I never found anything more than an ounce of water from condensation along with a drop or two of oil even after the engine had burned 1/2 quart of oil. Also, the output line was always wet with oil; certainly isn't doing its job if that is the case. Crawford's AOS seems to be the only good way to pull out the oil, you need the air swirling to get the separation instead of just a mesh filter element. Unlike a catch can, the oil goes right back in the crank; the downside to this of course it that it is tough to monitor your oil 'usage'.

Good to know that the Crawford separator works so well. I may have to install one.

In your gut, would you not agree it vibrates a little too much?

...a little too much for 200K? Serious question.

The engine vibrates too much? Nope, boxer smoothness. I think it's a subaru thing, rely on the balanced nature of the engine and reduce the amount of damping between the engine and the driver because you can. Especially if your basing this on what you feel through the gear lever, remember the gear lever is directly mechanically attached to the gearbox which is bolted to the engine, personally I'm surprised it's as smooth as it is given how little isolation is in the rest of the car.

You want a vibrating engine? Nissan's 2.4L that they threw into a bunch of their cars including the 240sx, got one in my truck that rocks back and forth like a lopsided cradle in the engine bay but at >200k miles shows no sign of stopping.

Not so much the gear lever. I think it's been a long time since I've driven such a light vehicle so I'm a little more keyed in to how the shaking forces are transmitted into my butt when it's on the pipe.

It's good to hear your perspective. Thx.

Oh man was the KA24 a vibrating mofo. Everyday I drove my altima the steering wheel would visibly vibrate at idle. But like you said its a tough engine.