Switch to 0w30 from 0w20? Oil burn
 

Hi All,

I have a 08 base and I have been experiencing oil burn with the 0w20 oils ive used in the past 14 months of ownership. Car had 100k miles when purchased and all the oil changes were done at lexus every 5k miles. The car now has 130k and I've replaced the oil every 5k with Mobil 1 AP, Pennzoil Plat, Valvoline Maxlife and now Idemitsu, all synthetic and all 0w20. Mobil 1 and Valvoline had the highest rate of burn at over 1 qt every 1000 miles. Interestingly I experienced less burn in the summer months at possibly 3 qt for 5k miles running the pennzoil. My mechanic checked and states that the engine is dry and there is no leak. Right now im at 1 quart every 1k miles and I dont really mind just topping off every few weeks as its just an extra $10-15 a month but is anyone running a thicker weight oil on their 460 like 0w30 or 5w30?

I've bumper up to 5 W 30 year 'round in San Diego.

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Several CL members (e.g., RoadFrog/Chris) reported that changing the viscosity of engine oil didn't help reduce the oil consumption. Some CL members suggested that the use of regular 5w-20 oil instead synthetic oil helped. My own experience is that (surprisingly) Walmart's SuperTech full synthetic 0w-20 burned the least amount of oil, followed by Castrol GTX MAGNATEC 0W-20 Full Synthetic oil as the second least burning oil. With Walmart SuperTech full synthetic 0w-20, my car (also a 2008) burns about a qt every 5000 miles. My current mileage is 104K miles.

One quart every 1000 miles is a lot. I have to think something is wrong, but if your mechanic checked everything, I have no clue.

You may as well go to a heavier weight oil and see what happens.

1 qt every 1k miles on a BMW M5 is normal but not on a LS. There got to be something that burns oil like that. Do you see blue smoke from the exhaust pipe either when starting the motor, or accelerating from a stop? It might be the seals around the pistons that might have gone dry and cracked.

My old V10 M5 burnt burn 1 qt every 1k on Castrol oil, but once I switched to Liqui Moly, it didn't burn oil. My new V8 TT M5 just burnt 1 qt after 1k miles on Mobil.

Engine oil consumption on the LS is commonplace. I burned about a qt every 500-600 miles, yet never had any issues with performance. Lexus says that it's normal consumption. My car NEVER blew blue smoke and had no leaks. Switching to a much heavier oil (5W30 conventional and synthetic), made zero difference.

Consumer Reports did an article a few years ago about this phenomenon and some have attributed it to an unfortunate attribute of DI engines. CR reported that Subaru, BMW, Audi and and a few others, consume up to a liter of oil between changes right from the showroom floor. Here's a glimpse at the paper:
https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/...tion/index.htm

Oil use is something I'm watching with my 2013. I just turned 150k with it tonight. I've only changed the oil once in it since I bought it at 138k. The service history indicated a dealer oil change at 135.9k and I changed it at 143k when I found it two quarts low. Changed with Mobil 1 High Mileage synthetic 0W-20. I added 1 quart yesterday of the same thing. So it does use some oil, although at 150k I suppose 1 quart every 4k miles or so is certainly acceptable. Interestingly enough, my 2007 Camry XLE V6 is at 228k and has only run on dino oil...and it never uses a drop at 7500 OCI's. The oil on the dipstick is still golden just like it came out of the bottle so I'll just fill when needed and go at least 10k on the change. If it isn't black at 10k, I'll see what happens at 12.5k.

Last time Toyota had an issue with oil burning motors, their official test required that a motor be designated "excessive" when the motor burns 1 qt every 1200 miles. Dont know the exact normal values that Toyota/Lexus use now, but just something to throw out there.

That's correct ....1200 miles.

I should add that my consumption increased approx 2000 miles into the OCI. For the first 2- 3k miles....nada. THEN it started to consume...at the rate I mentioned above (about 1 qt per 1k-1.5k miles).

I'm another one who has been testing this. My oil consumption is about 3-4k after a oil change, I would see the low oil light message. I would dump in another 2 quarts and it would be fine for a few more thousand or my next oil change. I went as high as 10w30 to see if it helped but, still after the 3-4K, it was still asking for oil. I also did a lot of reading on this and some suggested a higher weight helps but, under my tests, I don't think it made a difference.

Interesting on my this LS460L that it does that but, on my old LS430, or even LS400, I never had these oil consumption issues, in fact, this is the first car I have ever owned with this much of an issue... And this is normal ?

Anyway about it, 0w20 or 10w30, didn't make a difference. It's just appearing this is an expected thing for owning this car. For the recorded, MY 2007 LS460L has about 207K on it... (I put a TON of miles on my cars)

Do the 2013+ deal with this too ?

That burn rate will definitely compromise the life of the catalytic converters!

Agreed....yet with 140k miles on the odo when I traded it in, the cats were still fine. AFAIK