burning oil at idle

[cn90]

Thanks for the heads up.. I'll swap the oil when I get the chance.

Jblackburn: thanks for the write-up link. It was exactly what I needed ordered the valve stem seals this morning. Wish me luck!

-Cyman

How many miles on your engine?
The notion that one cannot use 20 or 50 weight is unfounded.
I am running Mobil1 15W50, zero problem.
Oil consumption is down to negligible now.

PS: Before that oil consumption was 1qt/1000 miles for 5W30.

[Cyman]

The car has 174k miles. Sorry, I forgot to mention it in my original post.

I'm certainly not opposed to thicker oil to help solve the problem short term, but I'm also not a huge fan of band-aids. I had 10-30 in it prior to this last oil change and it was still burning oil. If the seals are bad enough that manufacturers recommended oil is dumping that much oil into my cylinder the seals need to be replaced regardless.

that being said.. the car is currently in las vegas. 110 degree weather and thin oil is definitly extrapolating the problem.

[jblackburn]

The seals are just shot. It's not the oil. This is a very common problem with these white block motors as they age.

High winter weight or high viscosity is only creating high oil pressure and unneeded startup wear from NO oil pressure. Stick with volvos recommendations for their motor. 10w-40 is the highest that I would go, very common on turbo motors.

[cn90]

The car has 174k miles. Sorry, I forgot to mention it in my original post.

I'm certainly not opposed to thicker oil to help solve the problem short term, but I'm also not a huge fan of band-aids...

I agree with you that I don't like to use "brand-aid" approach either.
"jblackburn" is correct that the Valve Seals are going south, which is a common issue when you reach 150K+.
- Having said that, replacing Valve Seal is no small job! This is why it is fine to use a "band-aid" approach in this case.
- FYI, I do not any blue smoke in exhaust but my oil consumption was 1qt/1000 miles for 5W30. Since I switched to 15W50, the oil consumption is down to negligible.
- If you open the Haynes Repair Manual, on the first few pages, it clearly stated any of the following oil can be used (5W30, 10W30, 15W50).
- I have used 15W50 for some 20 years in many many vehicles, but only in the summer months, so I am not worried about start-up issues.

So yes:
- Brand-new vehicle, use 5W30 or 10W30.
- For a car this old, 15W50 cannot hurt, it can only help. You have nothing to lose by going thicker as a "band-aid" until you have time to tackle the Valve Seal (cyl head does not have to come off using the ghetto trick mentioned in forum).

[Cyman]

Hey, I just thought I would conclude this thread so anyone who stumbles upon it in the future searching out their own problem will get some closure.

I ended up pulling the head to replace the valve stem seals for 2 reasons:

1) Usually the seals go bad because the valve guides themselves start to wear causing more play. If you replace the seals but not the guides there's a good chance you'll be needing to do the job again in 10-20k miles.

2) The cost of the tool required in the write-up was around $150, which was almost half of the cost of taking the head to a machine shop and having them do a valve job and replace the guides.

Either way, the job is complete and I'm happy to report that I am no longer burning oil when using 10w-30! Hope this helps.

[jblackburn]

Congrats and thanks for following up. That's no small job!