Coyote engines hard on oil?

[Balr14]

Be glad it isn't a horizontally opposed engine. They are very hard on oil.

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[josaycuervo]

10k, 3 oil changes... no oil burning issues to speak of.

 

[KingKona]

Be glad it isn't a horizontally opposed engine. They are very hard on oil.

Why are they very hard on oil? 911s go 10k miles between changes.

When I think of an ICE that is hard on oil, I think rotary. THOSE are hard on oil. Burn it as part of the combustion process, and it has to be changed very often.

 

[DrZed]

Maybe 200 mL every 5000 kms for me.

 

[Balr14]

Why are they very hard on oil? 911s go 10k miles between changes.

When I think of an ICE that is hard on oil, I think rotary. THOSE are hard on oil. Burn it as part of the combustion process, and it has to be changed very often.

The Porsche owners manual states burning a quart in 800 miles is normal wear. The horizontal configuration is more likely to suffer bore scoring and it is much more severe than with a conventional engine. Bore scoring in a Porsche engine means a rebuild... now! Bore scoring in a Chevy small block (for example) means you will burn oil for 100k miles. Subaru engines that are turbocharged will require a short block replacement at some point in time... much sooner than with a conventional engine.

 

[analogman]

This is my third coyote engine. None have used any oil.

I think the oil burners were broke in easy.

Ironically, this was exactly my personal experience. I was very careful to vary engine speeds during break in, but was 'easy' on it. The result was that over the first 8,000 miles, the engine burned about a quart every 500 miles. Repeated trips to the Ford dealer and they called it 'acceptable', 'within normal operating parameters.' It wasn't acceptable to me.

A friend of mine who's a retired Ford senior executive put me in touch with someone in Ford engineering. I spoke with him and he suggested the rings hadn't seated, and told me to 'beat on the car for a while', to 'drive it like I'm a 16 year old.'

I did. I channelled my inner high schooler (not hard to do), and drove like Speed Racer for about 1,000 miles. Since then it's used about half a quart in 2,500 miles. That I can live with.

BUT... in my experiences this has been a unique experience with the Coyote engine. Between my wife and myself, we've owned over 40 new cars (or with newly rebuilt engines) in our lives (yes, I'm old)(ugly too). I've never experienced any other new engine that's behaved this way. Many have burned a half quart or full quart in the first couple of thousand miles, and some haven't used any oil from new. But I've never had a new engine that used so much oil for so long, unless it was beat on to seat the rings.

What is it about the Coyote that does this? Why does this engine (and seemingly not others) need harsh treatment to seat the rings?

Sidebar: some people are critical of horizontally opposed engines for oil usage. I've had many air-cooled VW's that burned almost as much oil as gas, but that's because they were old. FWIW, In our family we've also owned 4 Subarus, including a WRX. None of them have ever used a drop of oil. Ever. Not during break in, and not at high miles (my sister has over 150k miles on her Crosstrek).

 

[Mustang Tony]

I burn a half quart every 2,500 miles.

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