Burning oil heavily

[Jsizzy]

Hey guys, I'm a new lexus owner (lexus is250) so please go easy on me. 

My car has been burning oil heavily. Its also got white smoke coming out the back. I've been told it may be the pistom rings and that it's gonna be a costly repair. Can anyone recommend someone and tell me how much it'll cost exactly. 

The symptoms that my car has are as follows:

White smoke out the rear (none of it blue) 

Burning oil 

It pulls fine

No misfire 

Engine runs smooth

Just worried that it may be a catastrophic faliure

[J Henderson]

How much oil are we talking here? I'd guess a little oil being consumed might be deemed acceptable on a high mileage car (how many miles)?

And is the white smoke, definitely smoke, not condensation/steam being burned off after a cold start?

What about coolant levels? Are they OK?

In the event that it is the piston rings, it might be more economically-viable to just source another complete engine and swap like-for-like.

[The-Acre]

I would expect the smoke from burning oil to be blue rather than white.  Until recently I've owned a Lexus for about 12 years and none have ever needed the oil topped up. Maybe get a compression test?

[NemesisUK]

First off, burnt oil tends to be dark blue or black, not white. That to me indicates water vapour

How long have you owned the car and was it a dealer private sale?

How long are the trips you are making, does smoke remain constant?

Have checked the oil level, does it drop significantly, how much have you added?

[H3XME]

3 hours ago, NemesisUK said:

First off, burnt oil tends to be dark blue or black, not white. That to me indicates water vapour

How long have you owned the car and was it a dealer private sale?

How long are the trips you are making, does smoke remain constant?

Have checked the oil level, does it drop significantly, how much have you added?

+1 ^

@Jsizzy

Burnt oil is blue/dark smoke and white smoke is water. Head Gasket is the common cause, but if it was the head gasket you'd notice water temp to be high.. Brochure says up to 1L per 1000km is normal apparently.. My car is on 163k miles now and when I did the oil changes a couple of months ago, I was maybe 1,5l short (that being I said I neglected it and didn't change the oil in 14k miles) so I wouldn't worry too much unless you lose a lot of oil every week... or spend ~£150 and get a health check at Lexus, at least you'll know for sure, hopefully.

[Linas.P]

Kind of just repeating what others said - white smoke is water, not oil. I had one of my IS250s near 200k miles and it was burning little bit of oil, ~0.6L for 10k miles... so that is nothing, I could go without top-up between the services, but I used to change oil every 6k miles anyway, so it was never an issue. On one occasion I used 0W40 instead of 5W30 and it didn't burn any of it.

In short - if you have to add say 1L once in 3000 miles that is more than acceptable. To advise any further it is important to know - mileage of the car, what is the service history, when it was services and how much oil it is actually burning. Could it be that wrong grade was filled, could it be the case that oil was underfilled during last service, maybe it wasn't serviced for a long time? 

[true blue]

Hi I can only agree with the previous comments ,as your post was headed 'burning oil heavily' it would be helpful we had some accurate amounts of oil used ,because if it is excessive and you continue to run the car normally ,you are risking damage to the catalytic converters with expensive results

Dave. 

[Texas]

Hope Jsizzy isn’t a one post wonder!

FYI this engine does tend to plume a lot of condensation from the rear end for quite a while sometimes ( even when fully warmed up) so don’t confuse this with ‘smoke’ which is generated from the products of oil being burned, you haven’t got a physical oil leak at all have you? To account for the oil loss!

[Linas.P]

10 minutes ago, Texas said:

Hope Jsizzy isn’t a one post wonder!

FYI this engine does tend to plume a lot of condensation from the rear end for quite a while sometimes ( even when fully warmed up) so don’t confuse this with ‘smoke’ which is generated from the products of oil being burned, you haven’t got a physical oil leak at all have you? To account for the oil loss!

Dual exhaust rather than engine... Simply said there is loads of pipes which takes long time to warm-up and then it is doubled by making exhaust twin piped for no reason. 

[NemesisUK]

Could a stuck open injector be causing over fuelling, that can appear as white smoke from the exhaust?