08 XB with 105K miles.
Has been burning oil since at least 60K miles.

I've been running 15W-40 Rotella in it for the past 20K which has cut down the oil consumption considerably - I can now make it a full 5K oil change interval only a quart down, but the fuel mileage sucks. I'm getting ready to bring it in for the ZE7 oil consumption test at the next oil change.

I doubt it would pass with the Rotella and would not want them to measure the viscosity and blame me for the issue, so I was thinking of switching to a full synthetic 5w-20 - i'm thinking Mobil 1 since every car i've put it in has consumed oil. Supertech 5w-20 (aka pennzoil) also gave me a lot of oil consumption but I don't think as much as the Mobil 1. I last ran that oil around 80K and it wasn't quite burning 1 quart per 1000 miles.

So my question is, what is the WORST oil you have found as far as oil consumption? If I go to the hassle of doing the test I want it to fail, and 1 quart per 1000 is a totally crazy threshold for oil burn, so I need to do whatever I can (within the guidelines Toyota has set) to make it fail. Getting tired of the terrible compromise between bad MPG from thick oil vs blowing up the engine by running out of oil.

 

The dealer is going to do an oil change with factory oil as part of the test. The drain and fill it then seal the system.

 

Got it, didn't know that. Nothing to do then.

 

Got a 08 XB with 104k miles and has been burning oil like crazy for about 30k miles, dealer said i pass the test with just under a quart at 1100 miles, that was six months ago but i would be completely dry by 3000 miles, started new test month ago and forgot to take it back, last week engine stopped in the freeway check oil bellow low and then a crazy nocking noise coming from the engine, had it towed and dealer says that I'll need a new engine and of course toyota doesn't want to pay for I have to and then if it was because the oil they would reimburse me, my problem is I'm not sure I want to spend $4500 on a car thats 7 years old. really frustrated, any advice?

 

You need to get an exact reason why Toyota is denying your claim in writing for 3 reasons:
1) to make sure the dealer wrote it up correctly
2) to find out WHY it was denied
3) as documentation for your lawyer.

Once you know the WHY, you can figure out how to get them to pay. You have a recall for the issue saying that they will pay for oil related damages, and you have a documented low oil issue, so they really have no way out of this.

How many miles did you drive on that oil? They should be able to calculate your consumption based on that.

How long was the low oil pressure light on after you ran out of oil? Ours made noise like that when it ran low, sounded like the cam got starved of oil, sewing machine type noise. Refilled it and it has run "normal" ever since, it has 50K miles on it since then. If the engine still runs at all I'd try adding 3 quarts of oil to see if the knocking stops before committing to a $4500 repair. It may buy you enough time to fail your oil test...

 

Less than 2k since last oil change so we didn't go over that much but it was on low and adding oil didn't do anything about the knocking, oil pressure light didn't came on at all, the dealer told me that it would be 1300 in labor to take it apart then go from there, I think I might do it cause from what I've been reading this is probably cause by driving with low oil

 

How much oil did you add, and what was the level on the dipstick before and after you added oil?

 

Below the low line when it die. Dealer by my house got toyota to agree to fix it as a "courtesy". Hopefully thats the end of the cars problems.