hey everyone,

I've been having a problem with my celi lately that really has me stumped. This think is losing oil like crazy and i cant figure out where. This is a 99 5s with 92k, and I've always done proper maintenance to it.

I just had to add 2 quarts after a 600 mile trip of pure 80mph highway driving. There are no leaks other than slight weeping from the distributor seal. I get an occasional puff of blue on startup so I'm thinking that it might be the valve seals...but I cant imagine how they would let THAT much oil past.

I did a compression test and got factory numbers across the board so I know its not my rings. The only thing I can think of is that my #4 valve seal got damaged when a spark plug shattered into the cylinder a year ago... But if I was losing so much oil from just one cylinder, wouldn't i see a lot of blue smoke? Is it possible for the catalytic converter to clean up the exhaust so well?

could be all the valve guide seals. and just cause compression is good, dont mean the oil ring is not expanding and keeping oil out. sounds like you need a rebuild soon

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92k man. 92k

i seen engines with less than 50K become oil drinkers.

anything can happen to any engine, some last longer than others. 4-eyed-freak is up to almost 350k and he's pretty lucky. I'm up to 225k, my friend had an engine go at 80k. it doesn't matter the mileage, anything can happen

well, if anyone is having a similar issue heres what I think happened. When the spark plug shattered into my cylinder, a chunk of porclain got caught between the cylinder head and the valve as it was trying to close. This caused damage to valve stem and has thrown off the tolerance between the cam lobe and the valve and is the source of the valvetrane click on startup. The damaged valve has then proceeded to destroy its valveguide which brings me to where I am today. The reason I know that my piston rings are fine is because this car was in mint condition when I purchased it, I take very good care of it, it only has 92k, and compression checks out on all cylinders. Furthermore, I do not get blue smoke on hard acceleration, only on decceleration; which means that the resultant vacuum on the intake manifold is sucking oil past the old valve seals and damaged guide(s). Since the spark plug in the damaged cylinder is the only one with ash deposits leads me to believe that my valve seals aren't that bad and that it is indeed one or more valve guides in the #4 cylinder that are letting so much oil past. I have to fix this quickly or I'll gum up my catalytic converter/o2's/egr system.

so expect a partial rebuild thread later this summer. Unless, I get my brand new 3s that is