This one has plagued me for awhile now. It has always burned a little oil sine I owned it as the second owner. Nothing really ever that concerning. Not enough to get too much into it. Maybe about a quarter of quart every month or so. Over time, I started noticing burning a little more than a little bit of smoke on cold starts, especially in the AM. Only about 2 minutes or so worth, and it was quite light in volume.

I started having some odd issues that seemed to be related to a very small and specific vacuum leak. Won't get into all the details with that, but it took me about a year to realize I must have had a micro crack or something in the OEM plastic valve cover. Long story short there, I replaced the valve cover with an aluminum one. Of course, this also meant I changed the PCV valve as well. While I was at it, I changed the oil filter cap as well.

That was in February of this year. I was hopeful everything would have been resolved at this point. However, now I have the annoying problem of burning about a quarter quart every 500 miles and quite a bit of soot at the tailpipe, BUT...no smoke at all. Not on startup, not on idle, not cold or hot. So I am at a loss. I also have no catalyst codes or anything so kind of at a loss as to how this is even possible and what it could be. Anybody seen this?

Mike

 

you might want to read through page 4 of kerwooddr's post. He has a justa and had serious issues with the aluminum cover.
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ml#post4688315

 

Great tip. This could certainly be the problem. I have the exact red aluminum cover and now that he mentioned it, I believe I do recall having a weird issue in that the hose connecting to the cover for the PCV didn't seem to sit properly and I didn't even think to check the diaphragm because you know, new and all. I will check this out. Unfortunately, I don't have my OEM cover, but they are cheap enough used on Ebay. No way I am paying $400 for a brand new OEM one, that is for sure! Thanks for the tip.