mystery Options

[enderswift]

hey everyone,

my oil pressure light flashed on every time I hit the brakes on my way home today so I knew something was very wrong. Sure enough the dipstick was bone dry. I added roughly two quarts and it still doesn't register oil. So I'm pretty sure my engine has been running on next to nothing for at least a week. I'm pissed

but i dont understand how this could happen. I ALWAYS warm up my car until at least the cold mark, I don't leak oil anywhere, and I dont think i could lose 3 quarts through the valve stem seals... the car does not smoke at all!

anyone ever have something like this happen?

[enderswift]

good to hear some of you are experiencing a similar issue.... thing is, my car only has 88k on it O.O

weirder still is that this has never happened before. Oil consumption has been non-existent for all the 30k that the car has been in my possession. It remained constant even after my spark plug shattered into the cylinder last May (compression test shows perfect pressures btw). So this is really sudden .... I also don't think its due to cold weather because I ALWAYS warm up my car and never start it more than 3 times a day ... so there is no way I would lose 3 quarts in 2000 miles from cold-starts w/o seeing crazy amounts of smoke. In fact that much oil in the exhaust would have ruined my catalytic converters by now and would have tripped a CEL.

now, my car has the common valve seal leak, but I just don't see how that would spontaneously deteriorate from an occasional puff of blue on startup (on a hot day) to consuming 3 quarts in 2k. It just doesn't add up. Furthermore I can't say that its escaping through the spark plug tubes because there is only a tiny amount of oil in there...

I thought that it might be leaking past the rear main seal and filling my tranny bellhousing but a check quickly dismissed that idea. Guys I'm stumped, and I'm afraid to drive my car until I figure out where this oil went. I don't want to have to suffer a siezed engine to discover that my oil only leaks on the highway or something.

Sigh, can someone confirm if the following reasoning is sound? :

since my oil pressure light only came one for a split second, I can assume that the oil pump has been properly fed with oil up until that point. Therefore all of the most critical engine surfaces have had oil forced between just like normal. Its not until the oil pickup loses pressure that actual wear takes place. correct? Thus the only major lubrication loss was from the lack of 'splashing' inside the engine and so the final conclusion would be that the wear resulting from this would be minimal. correct?

Because if thats the case then I would feel a lot better. I've gone to great lengths to meticulously take car of this car and the thought that a few hundred miles of low oil would offset 3 years of careful maintenance pisses me off.

This post has been edited by enderswift: Dec 16, 2010 - 12:31 AM