I'll see if anyone knows the answer to this?
I've identified the problem - I'm using around 3/4 of litre of oil a week (which is at least 300 miles). When the engine was running and hot yesterday there was smoke coming from the dipstick (which is not damaged in anyway).
There's no puddle under the car wherever it's been parked, and it recently passed the MoT so I can't see that the oil is being burned else the emissions test would have been affected.
I reckon the head gasket's OK as the coolant and oil are separate, and clean.
I'm going to test the crankcase breathing plumbing - there's a valve that may have been damaged and the Haynes manual shows me how to deal with that.
Other problems may be the valve stems or piston rings. I hope its not the latter as I don't really want to hoik the engine out and take the big end apart.
I wondered if anyone had suffered (and rectified!) the same symptoms I'm suffering with:
High engine oil comsumption;
smoke from the dipstick when engine is hot;
but; no more smoke from the exhaust than usual;
head gasket is ok.
I'll update this thread with the results of me checking the crankcase breather plumbing after the weekend.
I've identified the problem - I'm using around 3/4 of litre of oil a week (which is at least 300 miles). When the engine was running and hot yesterday there was smoke coming from the dipstick (which is not damaged in anyway).
There's no puddle under the car wherever it's been parked, and it recently passed the MoT so I can't see that the oil is being burned else the emissions test would have been affected.
I reckon the head gasket's OK as the coolant and oil are separate, and clean.
I'm going to test the crankcase breathing plumbing - there's a valve that may have been damaged and the Haynes manual shows me how to deal with that.
Other problems may be the valve stems or piston rings. I hope its not the latter as I don't really want to hoik the engine out and take the big end apart.
I wondered if anyone had suffered (and rectified!) the same symptoms I'm suffering with:
High engine oil comsumption;
smoke from the dipstick when engine is hot;
but; no more smoke from the exhaust than usual;
head gasket is ok.
I'll update this thread with the results of me checking the crankcase breather plumbing after the weekend.