6G Celicas Forums

hi, have a 94 st, its my DD. Recently I have noticed between oil changes the car burns oil. There is no black smoke coming from the engine or the tail pipe. When it comes time to change oil, there is barely a quart in the car. Anyone have any idea whats the cause of this? Car runs good no problems, also no leaks. Odometer reads 190XXX. Any ideas?

Your motor is junk. St's are known for eating oil when higher milage. My buddy works at a yota dealership, they Dont even recommend re-ringing it, just total motor job. You could try if you or you know someone with awesome mechanical skills, but that's a lot of work for a short life unfortunately.

I dought valve seals would leak this fast but also possible. St's are almost always rings...

They make a specialty chemical you can add to your oil to de-gloss your cylinders. Takes a while to work (500 miles?) And then it can slow it, but not stop it (experience, also never heard anyone say it completely fixed their problem.) But you must be having some type of smoke problem. Might be hard ro see it in winter, but that's quite a bit to loose.

Pull off your air intake from your throttle body. See if there is any oil in there as well.

This post has been edited by eMrock32: Feb 26, 2014 - 10:22 PM

All Bad. throttle body looks ok , just carbon. not oil. like i said i don't smell/see smoke. Coolants dirty but highly doubt that's the cause. If its the seals are bad what would be a good indicator of this? Live in California and my smog is good for another year. Within that year planing on getting a GT and swapping all the goodies out, then selling. But this is my work car so trying to fix the problem before it gets worse. Are higher mileage GT's the same as well?

GTs like to Oil leak when high mileage. mines at 208k miles atm and its starting to leak again. Still.need to find why its leaking.

I think you jumped at that whole "you're engine is ****ed" thing a little too fast bucko. I've got 180k miles on my 5SFE and the rings are fine. The valve seals leak a tiny bit and it puffs a little smoke when you first start it after it sits in the summer. That's it. It's enough of a leak to burn a quart every 3k miles so I haven't worried about replacing the seals yet. I wouldn't doubt he has the same issue. If there is no constant black smoke, I doubt the piston rings are shot. You lose a lot more oil and will notice a lot more noise if that's the case.

A seal job isn't that hard. You put compressed air into the cylinder to keep the valve from dropping (if it does you're going to have to take the head off), take the spring off and just replace the damn seals.

I think they are referring to a 1.8L 7afe engine, and these engines are notorious for oil consumption issues at higher mileage. I just replaced one in a friends celica that was around 199,xxx miles. I got a used engine from the salvage yard with 70,000 miles on it for $400. It's a lot cheaper to replace the engine than it is to rebuild the current one that is in it.

Side note: Just to be sure do a compression check. If the compression is low then put a cap full of oil into each cylinder and test again. If you get a bump in compression after adding the oil then you have a ring problem. If it remains the same then you have a valve problem.

In my particular case the valves were burned up and killing my compression, and the rings were shot, so all in all it was just plain worn out.

The 2.2 is not in the st. Its in the gt. Gt's Dont really have problems besides leaking which can be fixed with factory parts. So the motor is pretty much boned. They were boned when it had 0 miles on it. It will last a little while and then eat oil. Motor replacement or buying another car is usually the best option for the owner.

He also said there is only a quart left, not a quart low. Which leads me to believe it would be rings. Especially since I've seen and worked on quite a few.

Oops. Yep read that wrong this morning.

Here's some areas I've replaced leaky seals: Oil pump, cam seal, crank seal, rear main seal, valve cover seal, and valve seals. Thing is, most of those you can trace to the leaky source so if you can't I would imagine it's burning oil internally...but you said no blue smoke so that's kind of weird.

Valve seals will blow blue smoke too but usually just at start up.

Also when you say barely a quart of oil in the engine when ready for an oil change, do you mean there's barely any on the dipstick? If that's the case, that's only about a quart worth of loss. If your engine didn't have any oil in it, it would surely die in minutes while running.

This post has been edited by 6G96GT: Feb 27, 2014 - 4:25 PM

OMG there is such bad information here.


there is NOTHING wrong with re-ringing the engine. hone the walls good and slap it together. or if you are worried about it, get a set of oversized pistons and bore the cylinders. that will be hundreds cheaper than a new engine.

I have rebuilt a few 7A-FE engines. not a single one burns oil!!!!

^^^ This. I don't understand how leaky rings would make a motor FUBAR.

My '95 GT ate 3/4 a Quart every 3k miles and it was far from being "junk".

I will also go with Ben though, that compared to doing a full rebuild it is way cheaper to get a low mileage one. But if it was just for a lil oil consumption either fix that, or let it live.

Toyota tells their techs to sell a motor rather than re-ring it. That's where the information is coming from. Evans Toyota Fort Wayne Indiana. You can call and ask if you would like. Its just the way the engines are. Might as well get a 2.2 or new car instead of going through the pain of a bad motor to begin with.

I had my engine 2.2 5sfe rebuilt in 2010 and it wasn't cheap. It ended up costing me nearly $3,800 and I had it done at a well know local garage. You might as well buy a long block reman on ebay for $800 and use that.

Isn't that because they rather make money on a motor then lose it on rebuild labor? It's different life outside the dealership...

dang dude, how did that raping feel. that wasnt a reputable shop, it was a con shop. its about 1000 in labor, 700 in parts, and thats about it. maybe another 100 for machine shop work if you bore the cylinders.

I would have saved you 2000 bucks!

They will sell rings on a 2.2. That's more money and more profit since its more work.

To do it right you should yank the engine, have it checked and decked and honed and re-ringed with properly sized stuff.
To git r done you can pull the head in car, pull the rods in car, and hone it with the crank in, slap in new std rings, and cross your fingers. It would probably be fine as long as nothing is grossly out of round or damaged. That being said... http://www.toyotanation.com/forum/130-7th-...k-teardown.html
He had some abnormalities in his cylinders for some reason, so watch out for that. Also, use the correct hone like he did.

This post has been edited by Bitter: Feb 28, 2014 - 7:22 PM

dude, how much do you love your car?

you want to keep it? forever?

If yes then invest in it, if no then sell it.

whatever you are looking at, you need to find the least expensive option. call around

sometimes some members after swapping they have engines for sale. You can get one used for cheap

your best option is to look for a low mileage engine, and before putting it in check it. Less time down, but if you cant do any mechanic work, then get a second part time job or break that piggy bank.

if you are not in a rush, read, explore research, and in the mean time, keep topping the oil until the solution is found.

do a compression test, leakdown test and if you want do the methylene blue test.

Also, did you do the last oil change or did you check it, to make sure they left a good level? some shops will skin you out of oil.

refill the oil, and check it weekly, see how long it takes to drop, if it takes 3 months, vs 1 week that makes a lot of difference...


when i joined the site, my first big job was a clutch change, was painful, but cost was 300 vs the 1200 from the dealer. A dealer will sell you any story good. their purpose is to make money. Our purpose is to save. run away from dealers

Have you thought about pston soaking it with mmo?( marvel mystery oil)
I have a 97 st with 227,777 miles on it and i piston soaked it at 220,000 miles. Since then, no more oil problems. I use to lose so much oil... I didnt need an oil change ever lol. Just kept having to add. The mmo is around 5 bucks and it takes a couple days to do. Its easy. It worked nice for me. Doesnt hurt to try

Disclaimer: i am not responsible for any of your doings. Lol