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I have an older car, 2004 Mazda 3, that is maybe starting to burn oil and leaking (250k+ Miles). Should I just keep putting oil in it until I have to replace the engine or can I use some of these stop leak products, and do they really work? Thanks in advance to replies.
It all depends on why you are buring oil. If it's worn piston rings , no amount of stop leak will fix that.
Just keep oil in your trunk and topping it off...or replace/rebuild the engine. With 250K miles, how much longer do you want to keep this car? If not that much longer...cheaper to just add oil.
Stop leak swells seals. Most of the time it doesn't do anything. It's burning oil because the rings and valves are worn, stop leak won't fix that. Just keep changing the oil and ensure it stays above the min quantity mark. In all seriousness the engine will probably run for many, many more miles. We ran a Jetta for around 60k miles and it burned oil at a rate a 1 qt/800 miles which was quite a bit... in the end we sold the car, still ran fine...
You know, if the oil burning is due to bad valve stem seals, it's *possible* that a seal swell product will help some. How much oil does the car use?
Many kids who have grown up with Japanese cars panic at oil consumption rates that owners of older Detroit iron consider quite normal.
If the car is burning even a quart in 1000 miles, you are probably better off just adding oil as needed and drive on. A car like this can still have a lot of life left in it.
My experience on my 306K mile Mustang that burned oil, I used a bottle of the stop smoke additive with every oil change and would occasionally add some between changes. My car went from consuming a quart every 400-500 miles back up to about one quart every 900-1000 miles. The car had no external oil leaks. Mine was valve seals for sure since it would visibly burn oil when you first start it up, and the exhaust smelled like oil the rest of the time. My clothes would smell if I rolled the windows down while driving. After using the oil treatment, I didn't have the oil smell problem and it used less oil. So for me, it gave me a good 80K more miles out of the car.
IMO on a car that worn, it is worth a try. STP, Bar's and Wynns all sell a no smoke or stop smoke and stop leak product that is not much more than a quart of oil. For a long term solution, it would need the seals/gaskets replaced and possibly a rebuild or newer motor. I'm replacing the oil pan seal myself on my current car this weekend since it has been leaking for the past several months and my car has a lot of life left in it.
Many many decades ago working at a gas station.
The station used to sell "filtered" used engine oil. @ $0.20 cents per quart.
Guy in an older Cadillac used to come in almost every day and put in 2 quarts of filtered engine oil.
Bottom line on such an older car - just keep adding engine oil.
OP, if you are reasonably handy, it's possible to replace the valve guide seals with the head still on the engine and in the car. If you have good compression all round but still use a good bit of oil, this is sometimes the easiest and cheapest fix.
But, get back to us with some numbers on how much oil you are burning/using.
You say it leaks oil, how bad are the oil leaks? Do it mark it's territory where you park? Maybe fixing the leaks might help, if it's not that difficult. Sometimes just tightening the oil pan bolts helps, and a new valve cover gasket if it's not that hard to change. A quart every 1000 miles is not that excessive. If your running 10W-30 or even worse, 0w-30, try switching to 10W-40. I had a Chrysler product, (1971) that used to use a quart every 800miles that I had run 10W-30 in, one time my brother owed me some oil and all he had was 10W-40 so I used that and my consumption went to a quart every 1500 miles or so.
No products on the shelf will fix an engine or even a slipping transmission
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