Vauxhall Zafira A (1999 - 2005) - 01 1.8 high oil usage

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Sun 11 Jan 2009 18:37
01 1.8 high oil usage - aeroeng
high folks,hope someone can shed some light on a problem of oil usage,using around a litre of oil every thousand miles or so,no leaks or blue smoke and nothing showing on plugs which would point to rings being worn. Vauxhall (bless them)reckon oil scrapper rings may be worn and want the best part of a grand to replace said rings. has anyone else got or had this problem, if so what was your remedy
cheers aeroeng
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Sun 11 Jan 2009 19:38
01 1.8 high oil usage - piston power
Check breathers are clear & do a compression test to confirm top or bottom end.
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Sun 11 Jan 2009 20:30
01 1.8 high oil usage - topbloke
i am fairly sure that a litre per thosand miles is about what vauxhall expect, have you read the manual , it dont smoke or leak so i would leave it, maybe the rings are a bit gummed up, may be worth an engine oil flush (wynes etc) are you using a decent oil
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Sun 11 Jan 2009 20:46
01 1.8 high oil usage - injection doc
I suspect that the valve stem seals are the main cause, but masked by the cat you don't get loads of smoke. Eventually with high oil burners the cats do fail.
have a look for a faint blue haze when you first start up.
With 16 valve stem seals if they have gone hard you don't get any smoke but it will consume oil, if its worse on a motorway run & you drive on light throttle that may be be an indication as light driving equals higher manifold vacum equalling more oil being sucked passed the valve stems.
I doc

A little complicated but I have used thinners as an oil flush & this can revive rubber seals that have gone hard short term, so if you carried this out & it reduced the oil consumption for the first thousand miles its a good indication its oil seals that have hardened!
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Tue 13 Jan 2009 15:59
01 1.8 high oil usage - aeroeng
thanks for your insigh on this, do 56 miles a day back and forth to Lands End airfield on A30, don't tend to hang around, if it was getting past valve seals would it show up during emissions test?
cheers aeroeng
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Wed 8 Oct 2014 22:19
01 1.8 high oil usage - dastardly2014

hi injection doc .You have hit the nail on the head there . I drive economy style light throttle everywhere and as you say maximum manifold suck. also believing that light synthetic oil is best .. I did an oil and filter change and the engine had a previous cam cover oil leak .. so this was sorted and the oil consumption was recognised immediately.I am going to do what the guy with the turbo zx did . change back to 10-40 mineral oil and see if that helps with the oil consumption .

Failing that I will have a play and use my compressor to pressurise the valves closed and replace the valve seals .

I suppose the relevant piston should be at TDC then if a valve drops for some reason it will not fall far .

Wish me luck.

Edited by dastardly2014 on 08/10/2014 at 22:21

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Tue 13 Jan 2009 16:05
01 1.8 high oil usage - aeroeng
thanks topbloke, found the consumption page (stuck to another page) seems odd that vauxhall develope engines that are known for drinking oil over relative short periods, nice little earner for someone there
cheers aeroeng
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Tue 13 Jan 2009 16:06
01 1.8 high oil usage - aeroeng
thanks for your assistance bigtree
cheers aeroeng
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Tue 13 Jan 2009 19:41
01 1.8 high oil usage - topbloke
thinkyourself lucky the latest cars are using about the same amount of oil and use fully synthetic at about £60 quid for 5 litres ouch
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Tue 13 Jan 2009 21:10
01 1.8 high oil usage - Andrew Moorey (Tune-Up)
First thing I'd try is using a semi synthetic or mineral oil. The Ecotec engines originally used a 15w/40 mineral or semi when they first came out so if you are using 0w/30 maiden's water it could simply be too thin. I had a Nissan ZX Turbo in the 80's, never ever used a drop between changes until I was persuaded by the Valvoline rep to change to a full synthetic. After a few weeks of having a little blue haze following me round I returned to the straight mineral 10w/40 and the problem stopped.
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Tue 13 Jan 2009 21:35
01 1.8 high oil usage - Dynamic Dave
10w/40 semi synth is recommended for this age of Zafira.

tinyurl.com/7pxlul Links to Vauxhall's website oil lists

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