how much oil can I expect to use

[Rob P]

Guys,

Recently I have noticed that the car seems to be using more oil. I have over the past few months managed to eliminate all the little oil leaks that were in the car but now it seems to be going through oil at a fair rate under normal running, well as normal as you can get my 23 year old lad to drive it.
what oil can one expect to use in these engines under general day to day usage.
Took both Lotus's out today and I followed the young lad who was driving the M100 and I did notice that whenever he downshifted and the Turbo kicked in there was a puff of blue smoke emitted from the exhaust.

Any ideas guys?

Thanks
Rob P

[Rambo]

How much are you using Rob ?

Mine's usually have a top up of approx. half a litre over 3000 miles and between yearly services. I'm currently running on Petronas 5/40 fully synthetic, as recommended by Lotus these days

[JMP]

It is more than probably a problem with the turbo. There is too much play in the bearing and the oil goes to the exhaust.

Once the engine and turbo cold, you may see if the inside of the air duct that links the turbo to the air filter is dry or oily, just with a finger (on the side of the duct that is close to the turbo). If oily, it will confirm the problem.

There are IHI repairing kits available on eBay.

Some companies are specializing in repairing turbos as well. And SJ Sportscars used to sell refurbished units.

Do not wait too long...

Does your turbo make a wwhhhhhoooooooouuuuuush sound?

[John_W]

Mine doesn't use oil between 3000 mile oil changes. At least not enough to bother topping up.

[Rambo]

I do a lot of high speed motorway miles John. Approx 2000 for each car. I don't know if this might account for a slightly higher oil consumption than pootling about rural Aiberdeenshire ??

Mind you approx. half a litre isn't much in the scheme of things and at least there's some fresh stuff going in there from time to time

[Artaban]

Have you changed your brand of oil recently?

[Simon_P]

Sorry to disagree JMP. The turbo bearings are floating so they are designed with play, the seals are separate. A leaking turbo seal would cause smoke all the time.

Smoke at gear change is likely to be valve stem oil seals. The high vacuum created when you take your foot off the accelerator sucks the oil in. Stuck oil control (piston) rings may show the same symptoms.

As an outside chance check and clean the PCV valve as well.

Oil in the turbo inlet pipe is from the crank case breather and is normal unless there is lots of it.

Just re read your post - are you sure it is only when the turbo kicks in? Check by driving normally then booting it ie isolate the turbo actuation from the gear change.

[JMP]

Sorry to disagree JMP...

No need to be sorry. I'm happy to learn things...

[Rambo]

Mine doesn't use oil between 3000 mile oil changes. At least not enough to bother topping up.

Aaaah, I see John. So yours does use a bit of oil, obviously, but you never top up. I always keep my oil topped up to the max. level on the dipstick. Don't ask me why, but I do. One of my odd foibles On the odd occasion where I've never topped up I find that the oil mark is halfway between the min. and max. levels on the dipstick, hence 1/2 a litre approx. per year, per 3k miles of hard driving .

Interestingly enough, I remember you saying that the yellow peril gave out the occasional puff and you got a whiff of oil when we had that fast drive cross country to the Jim Clark do at Duns last summer

[lotuska]

When I bought my car many years ago (it was only 18 months old) it was using massive amounts of oil (around a 1 litre every 100 miles), no visible blue smoke on startup, gear changes or under load - no leaks either.

So much oil in fact that Matty's wired the dip stick and oil cap together and told me to drive 100 miles and bring it back for them to check.

As I recall there was an issue with the piston rings that required a full strip down and rebuild - although not something that is mentioned much these days but running in engines was always something you had to do on newly built engines and using high quality oil on a brand new engine isn't always a good idea because it can cause problems with rings bedding in.

Could be something similar, possible glazed bores or even stuck/gummed up rings, whats the compression figures like dry and wet ?

[Artaban]

The reason why I asked if you'd changed oil brand/spec recently is that on reading this forum, as a new member, I changed to one of the recommended oils (can't remember which one) and I was topping it up all the time (circa 1ltr per 200 miles), no visible signs of a leak, no puff of blue smoke that I could see, and a new turbo on the car. On the recommendation of Steve at SJ's I changed to Castrol Edge 10w60 and haven't had any problems since. The oil problem disappeared straight away.

No doubt those much wiser than I will get to the root of the problem for you I'm just merely pointing out something that solved a similar problem I had. The most help I got at the time from a Cornish mechanic was that "there be dark forces at work". Hope you solve it, if not I'll send a priest.
Andy

[Rob P]

Thanks to all for the feedback which I will digest over the weekend, as for the amount of oil used we have recently completed a 650 mile round trip to Goodwood with lots of motorway driving and topped up before setting off and needed to put in another 1/2 litre yesterday.
Will have the bonnet up this weekend if this rain ever stops long enough for me to get the cover off and do a bit of poking around.

Engine was rebuild around 15k miles ago by the previous owner and at the same time a different turbo was added so the car is very none standard.
Lots of useful info to follow up on and we will check the oil again after having done another 30 miles or so since topping up.
I checked under the car this morning before heading out to play golf and there isn't any oil under the car so there doesn't appear to be any leaks to speak off so I assume we are burning it in some manner.
Rob P

[Rambo]

Hmmm, something sounds slightly amiss Rob

To give you a relatively similar comparison, I drove down from the Scottish Borders to Hereford (A7/M6/M5), up to Sy's funeral in Redditch, back down to Hereford then home to south of Edinburgh the other week in my red one. A total of 808 fast motorway miles. The oil was at the max. level on the dipstick when I set off and when I checked on return it had gone down by about 1.5 mm on the dipstick. For info, that engine has now done 112500 miles and never had any rebuilds, head gasket problems etc...

[Rob P]

Andy,
not sure if the oil brand has been changed as the car was in at Oakmere recently for a gearbox issue and whilst they had it I got them to do a full service so they will have changed the oil, I will see if I can find out in the paperwork what oil they used. All good info.

Looks like the rain may stay away today so the overalls will be on and I'll have a little mooch around and see what I can find

Rob P

[Rambo]

Rob - maybe Oakmere have changed to the Petronas oil (5/40) that's in mine Apparently now recommended for all Hethels finest according to my Lotus specialist ex Murray Motors, Edinburgh

http://www.mymesra.com.my/Passenger_Car ... 5W-40.aspx

[Rob P]

Oil in the car appears to be 5/40 synthetic so I suppose a change of oil to the 10/60 is on the cards. Have had the car in the air and have also noticed oil on the Oil return pipe from the Turbo which I have had issue with before and thought we had solved but now wondering if this might also be causing an issue with oil dripping onto the exhaust downpipe causing some of the blue smoke coming from the rear of the car.

The oil return pipe is a Samco Blue silicon hose, is that going to be able to cope with the hot oil returning from the Turbo and what is standard on the car. Was now starting to think about getting a special pipe made up to elimiate this in the future. I have had this pipe leak dramatically in the past which is a tad scary when you lose the car behind you in a cloud of blue smoke as you hit the turbo on the motorway

[Artaban]

From memory I'm pretty sure it was the 5w40 that caused me the problems. Seems to work well on some cars and not others, it just didn't work with mine. Maybe someone on here knows why?

If you need the Castrol Edge 10/60 don't forget the special offer 20% off at Euro Car Parts. 4 litre £27.99 delivered free with their discount code Easter20. Incidentally when I put in my car reg into the Euro site it came up with 10w60 as the recommended oil.

Andy

[Rob P]

Cheers Andy,

Checked a few oil manufacturers (Mobil, Shell etc) and all recommend 10W60 for the Elan so an Oil change is definitely on the cards for this week. Also need to sort that oil return pipe though as it appears to be a bit of a weak point on my car, I wonder if having the uprated Turbo on is a factor for it getting too warm and allowing the oil to release under high load?

[Rob P]

What is going on with the weather, just had lightning storm and hail now the whole area is bathed in bright sunshine

Took the change in between the hail and rain to take plugs out and check for any sooty deposits. Pictures below suggest the car could be running lean? what do people think, certainly doesn't look like any oil being burnt does it?

IMG_2215.JPG

IMG_2217.JPG

Also checked all connections on the return pipe and tightened up a joint a little, then took the car out for a blast on the top setting for the Turbo and no blue smoke and no leaking oil to speak of when we got home.

Now very confused as to what happened yesterday but then this car does have a habit of playing tricks on me.

[Rambo]

The oil return pipe is a Samco Blue silicon hose, is that going to be able to cope with the hot oil returning from the Turbo and what is standard on the car

I always thought the oil return pipe was metal ?? I thought the Samco blue silicon hoses were for the coolant system