Burning oil? Eeeeeek! FL1 1.8K

Hey all just a quickie...

Not sure if you saw my other post on spluttering and misfiring?
Well that problem has been sorted now, theres a new one afoot!

1.8K FL1 1999 (Cap N Rotor type).

Its burning oil, quite a lot of oil too!

Wouldn't have known other than the engine started ticking, checked the oil and it was near gone, dry dipstick even after an engine run!
So i topped it back up to level, ran it for a few days and its down again now, you can smell it when its running, especially when you get your foot down.

So.... where to start people??

Thanks in advance...

A colleague at works car had exactly the same problem! The piston rings on one cylinder had started to disintegrate and after taking the head off he found it had ruined the piston and liner as well! He ended up changing the engine as he reckoned it was cheaper than repairing the existing one! On the other hand, there is always the chance that it is head gasket failure though! Have you done yours recently?

Had a similar problem, turned out to be an oil leak from the oil filter. Quite common I'm led to believe. Had the smell from oil collecting on the sump guard. When it got hot from the down pipe it started to smell. Changed the filter, oil and steam clean. Problem sorted thankfully. Hope yours is as straight forward.

Check oil filter as per c716. Have you done a compression test? Let us know what you find out.

is there blue smoke and oil spots around the back end?

How long is a few days? How much oil have you lost? I have never known any car lose a significant amount of oil over a "few Days".(exepting leakage) Did your oil pressure light not come on when you had v/low oil? Park the car over something clean overnight then you can look at the clean spot to see if you have a drip somewhere

did you replace the sump washer with a new one or as previous tightend the filtter up properly it has probably done a lot of damage by now if not you are damed luck and should buy a loto ticket

Just waiting till Monday now to get it on to the lift ramp at work, its been parked on a dry spot and there's no oil leaking onto the floor, it would seem its literally just burning it somewhere within the engine, the oil level seems to be staying put since the first time i posted this now which is strange, the oil light didn't come on when it was low which is also strange as it works on the ignition. Just noticed recently that there is no engine management light on the ignition, should there be one? might sound like a silly question but some cars don't specifically have one do they? been looking through the service history paperwork that came with this car and i'm beginning to think there's some lies and fake history within! going to trawl through it and check everything off as i go, will update you all when i have done that and had it on the lift ramp. Cheers

Have you checked the colour of the spark plugs? Are they black and sooty? That may give a quick indication if you are burning oil! If the level was going down so rapidly as per first post, you would have left a visible smoke trail as you drove along! Did that happen?