Are you old enough to drive on the road?

Another forum has a particularly annoying troll who's choice of names has certain similarities.

Oil consumption wise, i'm not bothered about a little use, a pint every couple of thousand miles wouldn't worry me one bit, though neither of our three petrol cars use anything measurable despite aged between 14 and 20 years and none less than 100k miles but all well serviced from new.

The family Aygo has been sounding rather rattly over the last year or so, uses a little oil but always has used a bit, probably that single pint in 2k miles, its now out of warranty but the rattling has been reported several times to the dealer whilst still in warranty who say there's nothing wrong so if it goes bang they'll be getting a visit.

Owner came up to see us last week so as well as slipping a set of new front pads in i treated it to an oil change with my own oil, Morris Full Synthetic, and genuine filter, sounded a little better to me in start up which is fpften the case but i went to the factors in it to pick up a new air filter cos the other was filthy (not impressed, full Toyota history), convenient intial bed in of the new pads too, hardly needed as it happens.

Anyway by the time i got back the engine sounded very different, rattles have virtually vanished, the owner is shocked how much quieter it is, and speaking to her yesterday that's still the same.

This isn't the first time, coincidentally with another Toyota, Landcruiser, where putting a known very high quality oil in has made some extremely dubious sounds disappear permanently, i'd put the previous oil only 1000 miles before when i serviced it, that was a household name too.

My records show that up to 80,000m our Focus needed 500mls between changes at approx 12k/2yrly intervals. From 80k to 92k it needed 1.5l. From 92k to 103k it needed only 1l. So far at 112k it has needed 1.5l and I am waiting for it to go to the minimum and warmer weather before I renew the bog standard cheap 5-30 semisynthetic I usually use and which is perfectly adequate for a not particularly stressed engine.

So more than 5k per litre for a 100k plus engine which has had to work reasonably hard is about what one would expect, I think.

I think the air filter might have been changed just before we bought it 12 yrs ago - it is easily serviced with a stiff small paintbrush and a vacuum cleaner.