Rep Power: 0

Greetings,

I'm Ryan and I have a 2003 Civic EX Sedan with the D17A2 motor with 142k miles. I've been chasing a problem of burning oil for a while now; It's been burning oil for over a year and I've just continuously been feeding it oil and the occasional oil and filter change. Never been a fan of doing an oil change on this vehicle because it'll just burn the oil all anyways.

Today, I decided to get a compression tester and test the compression for each cylinder. I first took off the coils, took out the fuel pump relay behind the glove box, then go and take out the spark plugs... and I found this (WARNING: LARGE IMAGES):

Hopefully, you can tell that these plugs are not in good shape. I'm not an expert on reading plugs, but what I do know is that cylinder 2 looks like it has "ash deposits" which are from burning oil/oil additives. And I do infact burn oil. Not only in cylinder 2, but cylinder 2 seems to be the worst.

So I went ahead and compression tested each cylinder and came out with around 210 psi on cylinders 4,3, and 1. I came out with around 180 on cylinder 2. This number seems to agree with my findings on the spark plug.

My question is, what could be causing me to burn oil? I have good compression as far as I can tell, and 180 is only ~14% change from 210. All of these should be in spec though. I don't ever notice smoke coming from my exhaust, and I don't leak a bit of oil. WTF!

Other details and symptoms...

Mods done to the car...

I understand that it more than likely can be piston rings or valve stem seals. I'd rather it be the valve stem seals because I can fix that in my garage quite easy.
I'm a poor college student and cant quite afford to take my car to a shop, and I am fully capable of replacing any parts if I put the time to it. Plus, this car ain't worth a dime so Id rather not have to sell it.

Has anyone had a similar problem or could provide some helpful feedback that may help? If you have any questions that may help you determine what my issue is, please let me know.
Thank you for reading!

Sincerely,
-Ryan

 
Rep Power: 244

How much is it burning? Oil is cheap.

Not changing the oil often enough can lead to oil burning. Not using the proper oil (what kind are you using?) It’s probably a combination of many things, rings, valve stem seals, small leaks. Cheaper to just add oil.

 
Rep Power: 0

Thank you for your response, GolNat.
Yeah, I just found it kinda pointless to change the oil if it continuously burns. I’ll change the oil and filter every once in a blue moon but new oil gets added very frequently. Roughly, it’ll burn a quart to two quarts every 400 miles. Haven’t counted exactly how much oil or how far I drive, but that’s a rough estimate.

As for the oil I use, I use 5W-20 Mobil 1 synthetic high mileage.

As for the issue maybe being small leaks, I’d highly doubt it. I don’t think it would leak as much as it’s losing and not notice it in my garage or in a parking lot.

Ill just keep adding oil until I can figure this out. Running it low on oil is only gonna make things worse. Also checking the oil as much as I do is making me crazy!

 
Rep Power: 367

one common problem is the oil rings collapsing and not holding oil anymore, accordingly to ezone

 
Rep Power: 222

It will mostly be the rings, and maybe a little from the valve stems.
The pistons can be pulled with the engine still in the car