Engine Oil - topping up a lot!

[inca]

Hi

Surprised in how much I need to top up my engine oil. I've done 2800 miles in the last 6 months and have had to top up with 5ltrs of engine oil in that time. Is that typical or is my engine burning too much oil? I've not noticed any smoke well accelerating hard.

Any advice on this would be very much appreciated.

Regards

Mark

[christopher storey]

That is entirely typical for an engine in good condition . You are getting about 300 miles per imperial pint which is better than many XK engines deliver .

[andy303]

Inca: How OCD are you about keeping the oil level on the dipstick at or near MAX? Some, myself included, have noticed that oil consumptions drops off if the oil level is kept near the bottom of the cross hatching, which is somewhere between 7 and 8 quarts (US) in the sump, i.e. between 6 and 7 quarts imperial, or 7 litres, i.e. about 20% less than the specified capacity. Be advised that not everyone agrees.

See this thread on jag-lovers, amongst many others: http://forums.jag-lovers.org/av.php?1492304m76

[inca]

Hi

Thanks Christopher. That does surprise me but it is a big engine after-all and highlights the need to always be checking oil levels. I can now understand why the manual says daily before use! When would that ever be the case in a modern car

Thanks Andy - I wish I was more OCD to be honest as I clearly had not been checking my oil often enough! When I checked yesterday it was reading well below the min level. I hope running it recently on low oil hasn't caused excessive wear on the engine? I did a trip to Bristol recently taking my daughter back to Uni and the car was fully laden so maybe the heavy load increased average oil consumption?

Interesting on reduced consumption on lower oil levels. When it comes to topping up levels I typically just go for the upper quartile of the cross hatching to reduce the chance of overfilling.

Regards

Mark