Autozone lying about burning oil?

GSR360

New Member
Autozone giving me bad info about burning oil?

So my car has burning oil for a long time now. I thought it may have been the valve cover seal and/or grommets so I bought brand new ones and replaced them. Topped the oil off and drove away. A couple of days later the oil was just under the low point of the dipstick. So the replacing of the valve cover gasket and grommets didn't do anything. Been topping it off every couple days since.

Today I went to autozone to get some more 5W-30 when I asked one of the guys there if a bad oil filter would cause a car to burn oil. He said no. He said, "Your rings are shot". He then showed me this product that was supposed to help or something but I didn't buy it.

When I asked him if he knew how much it would cost to get my rings "fixed", he said I would be looking at a complete engine rebuild. Is there any truth to this? Please let me know guys, buying oil every week is costing me alot of money lol. Thanks!
 
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White95SE

New Member
GSR360 said:
So my car has burning oil for a long time now. I thought it may have been the valve cover seal and/or grommets so I bought brand new ones and replaced them. Topped the oil off and drove away. A couple of days later the oil was just under the low point of the dipstick. So the replacing of the valve cover gasket and grommets didn't do anything. Been topping it off every couple days since.

Today I went to autozone to get some more 5W-30 when I asked one of the guys there if a bad oil filter would cause a car to burn oil. He said no. He said, "Your rings are shot". He then showed me this product that was supposed to help or something but I didn't buy it.

When I asked him if he knew how much it would cost to get my rings "fixed", he said I would be looking at a complete engine rebuild. Is there any truth to this? Please let me know guys, buying oil every week is costing me alot of money lol. Thanks!
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I'm sort of in a similar boat. He didn't really lie to you, just misinformed you. Bad valve cover seals and grommets can cause an oil leak, which could explain why your oil is disappearing. On the subject of crap that "fixes" it, you were right not to buy it. It's terrible shit. If it is your rings, then yes they have to open the motor which costs a lot of money if a shop is doing it. The standard advice is while you're in there you may as well rebuild it or it'll just cost you more money down the road. You can just have new piston rings put in, but it's a temporary fix as all your other components will begin to fail eventually and you'll have to have your engine opened up again. The advice I always get from people on here and local shops is: Just buy another low mileage replacement motor. I hate hearing it too, but it's probably the best option we have.

Take it to a good shop and explain this to them. Pay them to diagnose it for you. You can't really know until you have that done.
 

94RS

No fucks given.
Take anything you hear from the "experts" at autozone with a huge grain of salt. They tried telling me that they don't carry the part I needed for the Saturn, when I went on their website and made sure that they had it. Then I made them look stupid in front of other customers by telling them they had it, and I made sure on their site, and gave them the part number.

They also tried selling me Bosch Platinum 4's (along with the whole "it saves gas and better performance" crap) for the same car when I asked for the ones I was told to get by Saturn owners, because Platinum plugs make them run s***ty.
 


GSR360

New Member
White95SE said:
I'm sort of in a similar boat. He didn't really lie to you, just misinformed you. Bad valve cover seals and grommets can cause an oil leak, which could explain why your oil is disappearing. On the subject of crap that "fixes" it, you were right not to buy it. It's terrible s***. If it is your rings, then yes they have to open the motor which costs a lot of money if a shop is doing it. The standard advice is while you're in there you may as well rebuild it or it'll just cost you more money down the road. You can just have new piston rings put in, but it's a temporary fix as all your other components will begin to fail eventually and you'll have to have your engine opened up again. The advice I always get from people on here and local shops is: Just buy another low mileage replacement motor. I hate hearing it too, but it's probably the best option we have.

Take it to a good shop and explain this to them. Pay them to diagnose it for you. You can't really know until you have that done.
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Thanks for the answer man. I would LOVE to rebuild my engine myself but I have zero knowledge in that area, gonna do a lot of research in the next couple months to see what it involves. And I would most likely buy another low mileage motor, but I have a b18c1 so Im not trying to get rid of that just yet. Again, thanks for your answer bro!
 

GSR360

New Member
94RS said:
Take anything you hear from the "experts" at autozone with a huge grain of salt. They tried telling me that they don't carry the part I needed for the Saturn, when I went on their website and made sure that they had it. Then I made them look stupid in front of other customers by telling them they had it, and I made sure on their site, and gave them the part number.

They also tried selling me Bosch Platinum 4's (along with the whole "it saves gas and better performance" crap) for the same car when I asked for the ones I was told to get by Saturn owners, because Platinum plugs make them run s***ty.
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Haha damn good job embarrassing them. I've always heard about them not giving the best advice, good thing I withheld from buying that stuff. Thanks
 

NemesisCBR

Boredest Member
There are ways to get it checked out. Dont take guesses from people based on assumptions who are not even diagnosing the car. Figure out why its burning oil and leave the speculation to autozone.
 


TheCrimsonStar

New Member
I had an oil burning problem. Thought something was seriously wrong. Turns out it was because the gasket from my old oil filter never came off. Lol. New one wasn't making a seal and was dripping onto the exhaust. Could be what's happening here but could be something else.

Sent from my GameBoy Color using Tapatalk.
 

mjones73

New Member
Have a compression test done on the motor.

Do you see blue smoke out of the exhaust at any time? Getting oil puddles under the car?
 

GSR360

New Member
Guys I am burning oil, not leaking it. No puddles under the car ever. And no blue smoke, I could check again tomorrow though just to make sure. What if there is blue smoke ?
 

TheIVJackal

Freedom through Jesus
If your not leaking the oil out of the engine, then it has to be going somewhere and that somewhere is most likely the cylinders. Blue smoke is indicative of burning oil. My guess would be that if it were the valve stems, you would have more blue smoke at start but when your losing that much oil, it's more likely fried rings. Did you rev the crap outta the engine often? Run it low on oil for an extended period of time? What are your plans for fixing this as you shouldn't just keep driving it in the condition it's in.
- Aaron
 

OLDSKOOLACURA

New Member
If you see blue smoke then you need new valve seals. If you do it yourself it will be dirt cheap, getting some to do it not so much, but not horrible.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
 

Samurai_Blue

Yolo Whippin'
Usually a good indicator of the valve stem seals being bad is starting the car and if blueish smoke comes out its bad, because your car will burn off oil thats been sitting in the chamber.
 
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