The oil consumption problems related to the Ecotec engine have been well documented. In this video I experiment with a quick fix that doesn't require taking off the intake manifold.
Have you checked if the PCV return orifice in in intake manifold is not blocked ? It's a common problem for oil consumption. Run the engine and remove the oil filler cap and if it's blowing out instead of a slight vacuum the hole is blocked and you will need to pull the intake away to clear it.
I added a catch can without all the extra length of hose in mine. Added wire mesh inside the can because the baffle wasn't working well enough. Then modified oil fill cap with a hose and another catchcan outputting it to a hole in the air filter box to make sure the extra air still gets metered by MAF sensor. So far my mileage has went way up and oil loss is minimal. My equinox does have the oil consumption issue and has clogged PCV hole in air intake. Wasn't about to disassemble all that crap to fix it. My way has worked well. Cheers! I tried the oil cap and hose without catchcan straight into air box and not as good results.
The blow by going in the crankcase should be mostly oxygen free, so it shouldn't affect the air fuel ratios. By keeping it after the MAF I shouldn't have any contaminates getting on the MAF wires.
I have a 2010 Malibu without direct injection. I just cleaned the throttle body and changed MAP sensor. Oil cap is sucked down by vacuum which is good. 100k miles. Doesn't use any oil. Cleaning throttle body added 4 mpg and new MAP sensor added 3 mpg. Now gets the 37 mpg like when new. AC on, 70 mph.
my solution was two parts lacquer thinner 1 part trany fluid to keep it on the rings, 1 pint in each plug hole, set 24 hours, roll over to prevent hydro lock, drain, fill with new, stopped the oil consumption none in 2000 miles
It might be due to poor maintenance because I bought my 2017 brand new and I always do my oil changes with full synthetic and mine doesn’t burn any at all. It stays full and I don’t ever top off. The only thing that happened once was a VVT solenoid but I always fix an issue asap so the cel was only on for an hour because I changed it out and that was 2 years ago. I also put a catch can on mine to help prevent the over pressure in the crankcase.
I think I read somewhere that GM might have improved the rings in later model years. The lawsuit that they had didn't include those years. They definitely need to be routinely maintained though for sure as many people seldom even check their oil. I have a '16 and it doesn't burn oil either but I've always stayed on top of maintenance usually doing oil changes every 3 to 4 k.
@@AdrianHernandez-vh7wr im currently at 98k miles but this failure happened at 75k or so. I change the oil every 5k for this car but now that im over the 90k I do it every 2-3k miles. On my STI I change it every 2,000 miles or less with motul oil only. I use synthetic on the equinox and my other daily driver.
My family has a 2008 Acadia 3.6 vvt 191k miles, bought used 2 months ago. Gave it an oil change, new Air filter and cleaned the throttle body. Found lots of oil in intake tube 3 inches from throttle body. Ordered a new pcv valve and thinking about adding a catch can too. Will try pcv valve first. It used 1 qt of oil in 8000 miles in 8 weeks. Forgot to test for oil cap suction. Nice mpg increase already from cleaning throttle body and new air filter. Old air filter was really bad.
I’m currently doing this. With one modification. Im going to put the new PCV valve tube lower than the clean air intake tube, closer to the throttlebody. So there is less chance of blow by being drawn back in through the clean air tube.
me and my wife have a 2014 equinox and have had no issues, ive blown the tube out a few times there is no pvc valve to clog just the tube, the solution is don't let the tube clog blow or clean it out!
Don't know what I was thinking buying an equinox, this is my first and last American car. The thing has had one problem after another since I got it. And this is in comparison to my last car (Mitsubishi Galant) the only problems it needed to replace in 12 years were the O2 sensors and the timing belt. Would still be driving that Galant around if it didn't get totaled by a relative.
I own a 2015 equinox with 95k. I’ve also noticed it is burning some oil the last 2 oil changes. I’ve been changing them every 5k and at the 3k mark have to add close to 1 qt of oil to get me through to 5k. I’ve been using Kirkland fully synthetic 5-30 ( like the oil cap suggests). When I remove the oil cap and check the blow by , the paper I put over it is being sucked in ( is this good?) Ran a scanner, no codes show up. Replaced the actuators at 90k. After watching multiple videos my game plan is to add a fuel treatment every other gas fill up ( 500 mi) maybe Chevron Techron or Marvel mystery. I’ll also be replacing the oil cap with a vented one, part FC 219. Changing the oil at 3k intervals and using higher quality oil like Mobil 1 or Castrol GTX fully synthetic. Any other recommendations are welcome. Hope this info helps somebody. 🙏🏽
It's better to have a vacuum in the crankcase than pressure. I'm not sure I've ever had a car that actually pulled a vacuum, so you're doing better than I am lol
I've been thinking about rigging up an old school pcv system with an actual pcv . Vacuum hose from intake vacuum to pcv valve mounted in modified oil fill cap, Ford had this setup back in 70,80's. Some feed back would be great. Kind of worried about affects on fuel trims.
When you connect to vacuum, find a port below the throttle body. Preferably one that feeds equally to ALL the intake runners. You don't want that oil vapor dumping into only one cylinder.
I've pulled the air box and the amount of oil trapped on it is less than it was with the single valve cover vent. I've been curious if that OE vent has awful baffling and can be improved from just part. The Equinox has added around 15k since I posted this video. Each oil change is showing less loss than the one before it. How much of that is the better vent path, and how much of that is the seafoam and better oil loosening the rings back up? I won't know unless I get to take the engine apart and see what things look like.
@@medievalmotors do you have an endoscope; I use an endoscope to look into the cyliders through the spark-plug hole and it has the ability to turn the camera up and see the valves.I find that the cylinders in my 2001 dodge ram are very dirty with sludge caused by blow-by from the worn rings, so I installed a catch-can and now I'm cleaning the cylinders with brake cleaner and then I put some transmission fluid additive. I first apply the brake cleaner then swish it around with an airline so it would go up to the valves an then vacuum it out and then apply the transmission fluid addittive and some trans fluid and swish that around with the airline or disable the engine and crank it WITH THE SPARK-PLUGS REMOVED SO AS NOT TO HYDRO-LOCK IT. Then I vacuum out the excess so as NOT TO HYDRO-LOCK it before I replace the plugs and start it. I adapt a small clear hose to the vacuum cleaner and I can see the sludge coming out with the trans fluid, and inspecting the cyl again with the endo scope I can see that the cyl is cleaner. If I do all 8cyls and the catch can works hopefully they will remain clean; these dodge v-engines have aproblem with the plenum plate leaking but after installing the HUGHES KIT oil was still coming into the plenum, so it was only recently that I learned that BLOW-BY can also cause oil in the plenum and sometimes aircleaner box. That's a good reading so I'll leave it there for now.
I have a cheap borescope. I can't turn it backwards to look at the valves though. This version of the Ecotec is direct injected, so the valves are probably coated in carbon because they aren't getting cooled and cleaned by the fuel. I've run the seafoam intake cleaner, but without pulling the intake manifold off, I won't ever be sure. And at that point, I would be able to enlarge the internal PCV port. As far as running a catch can, it might make an interesting test to see what is coming out of the valve cover, but I'm not seeing a lot of oil getting pulled into the airbox.
As soon as this guy makes a quick turn, all the pooled oil in the long hose is going to dump into the intake at once. Hopefully, a small psunami of oil doesn't hit an intake valve at one time - I smell burned valve in his future!
Wouldn't this put a lot of oil droplets back into the intake, since this is the "dirty" side of an essentially "new" PCV system? At the very least, you may want to install an oil catch can in the line, and see just how much oil it is collecting in a normal drive....if minimal, no big deal, but if the can fills up quickly, you may just want to install the vented GM FC219 oil cap (without modifications) and call it a day. (search terms Equinox FC219 oil cap and you will see a lot of comment/info on this) Smart to use synthetic from now on, good call. Seems higher than average oil changes with synthetic is necessary for a long running equinox, moreso than other cars.
Its down to about 1 qt every 3500 miles or so. Theres a baffle at the oil cap that prevents a lot of oil splash, so that seemed a prime location for an extra PCV line. I didnt see the need at this point to add a catch can. Putting in a vented cap should be messing up the MAF. If you're only adding blow by to the intake, it should be fairly inert, bit a vent makes the pcv system a permanent vacuum leak.
@@medievalmotors Good points, and thank you for the info on oil consumption...that kind of stuff after a mod is always useful info. The FC219 cap only releases overpressure in excess of a couple of PSI, so it should not be allowing airflow bypassing the MAF...it just moves the "weak point" from the main rear seal to the cap. Might blow oil over the plastic covers if the PCV port in the intake gets clogged, but that's a lot easier to deal with than a rear main seal (if it happens...I hope it does not!)
That was the point of putting a hose from the cap to the intake tube. Having it connect to low pressure moving air will keep the pressure from building up at all. Plus piston rings like to have a touch of negative pressure to keep a seal.
How is the oil consumption doing after the modification? I’m thinking it might be better because of the way the PCV system works drawing vacuum from the cylinders.
Hi, a friend of mine told me that since i have high mileage, I should use mineral oil (20w50) better than originsl, syntetic 5w30. (Has 150,000 Miles) Any toughs? Thanks
Mineral oil? Plain? NO NO NO NO NOOOOOOO. 20W-50 was OK fifty years ago when engines had much larger clearances for oil. Newer engines are built so tight that running oil that heavy could blow out your oil pump. It could also oil starve a lot of critical parts - like the entire top end. My engine is a 2011 with about 207K miles. Still using Mobil 1 full synthetic at the factory 0W-20 spec. Does not leak anywhere and does not burn ANY oil between 7K changes. . . . . . High mileage oil is mostly a sales gimmick. If you are properly servicing your motor, you don't need it.
i just got a 2016, AWD with the 2.4L, has 222k miles on it rn. i assumed seeing the high mileage that these must be pretty reliable. am i in for a rude awakening?
That seems excessive, your engine must be a little more worn out. With a tap in the cap, there is a good baffle and there's hardly any water vapor condensation under the cap now.
I had a Honda accord great great car I I sell it to buy GMC terrain similar the other stupid car equinox because I was dumb these cars always break and nobody really knows what's the problem there is no spare parts too
Other than standard maintenance items and the pcv issues, there hasn't been anything broken on ours. I've never had issues finding parts for it either. Besides engine issues with both the 2.4 and 3.6, they aren't bad little crossovers.
The whole point of the line was to only grab the gasses and not any droplets of oil. I have since inspected the intake tube and have found very little moisture from oil. Oil consumption has decreased considerably, but without changing the piston rings to solve the problem at the source, all that can be done is try to minimize the symptoms.
My wifes gmc terrain rear main seal blew last year. It cost her over 1700, she should have bought the 6 cylinder model... My trans in my piece of shit buick also went about the same time, These cars SUCK these days, They are all rip offs and crooks. If i had money i would buy a complete rebuild vintage car and drive it, No computer crap and no new cars!!!!!! I hated that car when she bought, Its sounds like shit and no power....GM should give money back to the people or install new engines the greedy bastards. They know its a defect.....
