Excessive loss of oil ...shooting it out the tailpipe

250,000 miles on my 05 Tacoma. It has a 2.7l engine that I can rev to about 4500rpm and shoot oil on a car 4 feet away from the tailpipe. Driving a little over 100 miles I think it will use about 1/2 of a quart. Checked Compression and all four were pretty close to 160psi. Searched forums because I don't know what to check or do next. So ya any help for the junior member here would be great. Thanks for any reply. BTW just got the truck 3 days ago

 

OK so I've had the truck about 6 days now. Gonna be a minute till this one smogs for sure. I'm leaning towards it being the valve seals. I've seen something about the PCV valve being to blame. Any comment rude or otherwise taken with appreciation.

 

THanks for the reply and I'll check PCV. Making sure it's not plugged. BTW how do I get my wife to stop staring at your Star Wars pissing contest?

 

Not that anyone is listening.. I can't wrap my head around this being a PCV valve. Maybe it could be from bad rings or leaking valve seals. Either way need to get a beater to get by with b4 tearing this down. Gotta do clutch and better do timing and water pump too. Still worth it!

 

Shooting oil out the tailpipe WOW

How much did you pay for this truck?
I imagine the exhaust is smoky too, right?
Is the engine oil level overfilled? Not sure what else to say.

Spitting oil out the exhaust would clog/junk your catalytic converter too, so there should at least be a "check engine" light on the dash.

 

For sure check the PCV as previously mentioned. If all else fails, your piston oil control rings may be to blame, regardless of the good compression or not in all cylinders.

 

Thanks guys for some input. I'm pretty good with finding a remedy for automotive repair and this issue, as I have it, isn't out there. At least for a Tacoma. I intend to follow through and post the answer as to what the problem was no matter how long it takes me to find it. Well 1st how much I paid. I hesitate to tell, you might think I don't care about the truck....$500 . Co-worker that bought it new was going to donate it as it needs a lot. Still running tho and I just finished using it on my newspaper route since I got truck. That's how the mileage got so high BTW doing 100+ miles of hard driving every night. Other issues it has is the clutch is original and it had a run in with a deer that cracked the bumper. Various small scratches and this truck is the base model and yes I can't believe the deal I got either. I just got another disposable Honda for the route so the truck might get used twice a year for delivering newspapers. ANyway yes I get the typical blue ish grey smoke expected with burning oil. Lot of peeps that have this problem with the smoke it ends up being a head gasket. That's why I tested compression following instructions in the manual. I did it twice. If I went fast enough I got over 160psi on all four. The 1st time I did this it started out being well over 160 psi and ended up barely over 150 psi. The battery being the difference. I'm convinced I have pretty good compression. If it were a head gasket I would not. I tried another way to find an answer by looking for repair parts. Assuming I'm getting oil blowing by a seal. There are valve seals for the Tacoma, 8 lil gaskets. Now that I don't need to drive it every night I'll prepare to tackle the mountain of tearing down the motor. My to do list:
1) Oil loss issue
2) Clutch
3) Don't know when if ever timing belt and water pump
4) May as well but a head gasket
Wondering if there is something else, since I'm likely to have it apart, that I should replace?
Regarding overfill of oil. IDK b4 I had it. Noticed a dipstick issue with these trucks and agree dumb and hard to read but since I've had it no. Should mention that I had to wonder if the guy had changed oil in forever. Black, just looked like it was old. I get it if You have an oil issue like mine your not going to change filter. Rather your putting in so much that you figure it's clean. I changed the filter and have put about 2K on it. Oil looks like I would've expected. Don't recognive the PCV valve when under the hood put going to replace/clean 1st thing.
Thanks for any kind words of encouragement, even not so kind words.

 

BTW never heard of piston oil control rings but will check that out thanks

 

The statement above of the problem with smoking being the head gasket is not true.

Clear white smoke (which if you have a good nose, also smells sweet) is indicative of a leaking head gasket. Blueish smoke which smells burnt is indicative of an oil burning issue.

Compression test is always a good idea on a high mileage vehicle if you are already in there and have the tools to do the necessary check. Remember, a static compression test only tells half the story, as it only cracks the valve open a little bit and is a standstill test. The test you are really getting more of an idea on running condition is a dynamic compression test. I believe the proper PSI variance per cylinder should be no more then 20PSI across the board.

Cylinder leakage is another important test to conduct on a high mileage engine. Anything under 25% is acceptable and considered normal, as the piston and oil control rings are not perfectly sealing under any circumstance. (Which is also a further reason as to why you should change your oil at 3-5,000 miles, wasted fuel in the combustion chamber is capable of escaping past those imperfectly sealing rings, then finding it's way into the oil pan. As some people may know, fuel is an excellent oil cutting agent no matter if it is synthetic or not.)

Ruling out worn valve seals, the next oil controlling devices in your engine is the piston control rings. About 18 years ago(I don't know what year this truck is), Toyota had an issue with prematurely wearing piston rings on their Camry's, the issue was inherently pronounced when cold. If this truck was built around that time frame, and is a 4 banger, the possibility is much higher that your problem could lie there.

If you have a V6, and it is higher mileage, a replacement PCV is not a bad idea, ensure there isn't an obstruction in the path of the breather crossover, which ties one bank to the other.

Another good test to perform is a simple crankcase vacuum test. A low vacuum at idle and during driving could be indicative of worn piston rings (Oil control rings as well), allowing too much blowby, which will ultimately allow excessive oil past the crankcase. You can find the proper spec for vacuum on your engine off any sop reference manual or even here online.

If you do end up pulling the cylinder head off examine your water jackets carefully and make sure there isn't any oil contamination into the jackets. Thoroughly examine your head for any cracking. A machine shop should be able to conduct a proper head pressure test for you to make sure there aren't any small cracks not immediately observable by the naked eye.

Good luck.

 

Such a great reply, thanks for that. FYI the Tacoma is the 4 banger and it's a 2005. I was always driving it at night and couldn't tell the color of the smoke. Since I would say grey smoke. Putting the truck on the back burner a little bit so I can gather info test things etc. I did find that the oil shooting out is burnt and more like soot than oil. I like the simple crankcase vacuum test.

 

The 2.7L has a timing chain, probably doesn't need changing. Good thing too because it is a massive pain in the ass to do. I would bet valve seals are your issue, it doesn't make sense that you could burn that much oil from slipping past the rings.

 

He has 250,000 miles. Bad rings are a feasible possibility due to the fact that it sounds like the previous didn't a damn about the vehicle from how he describes it. You shouldn't assume its one or the other because at this point anything and everything is a factor, Toyota or not.

 

Bumping and updating as I'm going to tear into this in one week. Since original post I only Used this truck for a couple of weeks solid and then only once in a while. Adding oil as needed. Other than clutch slipping most of the time it ran fine. Starts on the 1st try every time. Runs smooth so you wouldn't know there was a problem at idle. I changed the spark plugs and the oil not long after getting the truck. Check engine light indicates fouled plugs every time cleared. My wife drove it for a couple of months when she totaled hers. She stopped driving it complaining it wouldn't accelerate and she couldn't get home. I drove it home no problem. Couple of months ago it did it to me where I couldn't get out of the driveway. I let it warm up too long. If you keep the rpm up over 2k but under 3.5k(clutch) you can still drive it. If you don't it starts to run rough as soon as you give it gas. It's almost like you can't baby it because the plugs will get oil on them and foul. You can't race it or the clutch will slip. I think if I changed the plugs it would drive mostly ok like it did when 1st got it. I've had it act up on me and revved the motor until it was smooth and then it drove ok. It doesn't blow oil out of the tailpipe as much as I first thought. It did turn black almost immediately and not what you would expect for smoke. Have help with the clutch next week and help with diagnosing this issue. Will report back as soon as I do.

 

Sounds like business as usual in the 4cyl haha. I would say take the head off and have a peak, it's not a massive job and you might find your issue. While a compression check isn't going to tell you the condition of the oil control rings, at least with a good compression check at least you know the sealing rings are still there doing their job and even with a bad control ring, I can't imagine you'd go through 2 quarts of oil every tank of gas. Good luck on your mission.

 

You'd be amazed at how bad oil consumption can get when the rings aren't doing their job properly. My father had an 89 jeep yj, bought new. After a couple of years, the bugger would blow a quart of oil for every 50 km. This was improved to 2 quarts per tank of fuel by replacing the PCV valve by a straight tube. This was improved to 1 quart per thousand km by replacing the rings. It *always* had good compression and ran strong.

 

OK thanks fellas for the suggestions. Finally got my ace driveway mechanic to take a look. He was somewhat perplexed. Update condition: What I've taken for oil out of the tailpipe is probably soot and has subsided a great deal since I first got the truck even though I didn't do anything for that. It's Been sitting a while. It usually starts fine and idles good. It got to the point where it wouldn't go or even rev. If I give it gas let off gas off gas etc. sometimes it's fine but mostly the rpms will not get up over about 3k and not drivable. Eventually it will rev up and it will drive again keeping it between 2.5k and 3.5k. Changed the spark plugs. They didn't look too bad other than some oil leaking in there prolly the valve cover gasket. My guy seems to be leaning toward a fuel mixture issue. Either an ignition pak or fuel injector. I'll suggest rings and I'm about to pull codes which have always pointed to fouling plugs, I'll post codes soon

 

Only code was 0354

 

Code refers to #4 Ignition coil. Replaced and it runs pretty well again. Now I'm back to shooting (what I thought was oil) soot out of the tailpipe again. Cleared codes and drove around the block. Waiting to see if I get more codes. Somehow I don't think it's ready to smog but we'll see.

 

It is likely soot from burned oil, mixed with water. Water, of course, being a product of octane combustion (C8H18 + O2 = CO2 + H2O, given *ideal* combustion).

I wonder if it is possible that non-combustion could allow more oil to be drawn up past the rings on that cylinder than it might otherwise? Combustion forces the rings outward, which causes them to seal. The engine also is pretty high mileage, so oil consumption could be something really simple/cheap/easy_to_fix, like valve stem seals.

 

I'd drive it a while now that it has a new coil and see if the soot clears up.