You’ve probably heard this before but motor oil is the engine’s lifeblood. Without oil, an engine will die a quick yet painful death. Willoughby Hills Auto Repair can keep the oil in your car’s engine fresh with regular oil and filter changes. We can also find the reason why your engine keeps losing oil. If you have to add motor oil to the engine between oil changes, it’s losing oil. Here are four things that could be going wrong underneath the hood.
1. Leaks
Motor oil can leak from several places in your engine. The most common places are from the oil pan, the pan seals, engine gaskets, or the oil filter. You’ll see a large oil leak on your garage floor and will also be warned about it on your dashboard. Smaller leaks can be missed easily, and your only clue to the leak is what we said above; you’re checking your oil and adding to it between the scheduled oil changes.
2. PCV Valve
The Positive Crankcase Ventilation (PCV) valve releases combustion pressure in the crankcase via the intake manifold. Motor oil flows through the crankcase to lubricate its moving parts. If the PCV valve gets clogged, motor oil will remain in the crankcase where it will burn up. If the intake manifold clogs, the combustion pressure in the crankcase will force the oil into the engine via the gaskets and seals.
3. Piston Rings
If everything is working properly, your engine won’t be leaking any oil and the PCV valve will be releasing combustion pressure. Your piston rings will also be moving up and down in the crankshaft, keeping oil in the cylinder walls to lubricate them. If the piston rings have gone bad, oil will escape from the cylinders into the combustion chamber and burn up. Blue exhaust smoke is a sign of this.
4. Head Gasket
As you can imagine, a bad PCV valve or worn piston rings is serious. So is a blown head gasket. The head gasket is a critical seal found between the cylinder head and engine block. This part takes a lot of abuse from combustion heat and pressure. If the gasket blows, your motor oil will flow freely out of the cylinder head all over the engine block and burn away. This can cause catastrophic engine damage.
Adding oil to your automobile between oil changes is not normal. Call Willoughby Hills Auto Repair in Willoughby Hills, OH, to schedule an appointment so we can find out why your engine is losing motor oil and fix it.