Oil Consumption

A neighbor of mine just bought a used 09 Carrerra S Cabriolet. He bottomed out on oil and when he took it in, the tech told him that the new DFI engines use about a quart every 600 miles. I own a 07 Cayman that is intensively tracked and have never used a drop. Anyone know how valid the techs prediction is?

'09 C4S 6-speed coupe with 3900 miles. 1/2 quart added thus far.

if your car does not use oil, you don't push it hard enough. I've added a liter of oil in 10000 km. Porsche manual says a liter per 1000 km should be considered normal consumption. I notice oil burns at excessive rates when car's pushed. Once on a 1000 km trip I used 600 ml of oil and I was doing 70% of the shifts near redline. Also, when you push, you can smell the oil once you stop and get off the car. I noticed the same thing on a MB G55 AMG, which is ~470 hp and by the way is a mean machine, which goes faster than my cayman

My Cayman S has 24,000 miles on it. It's spent 7 days on the track (not enough for me - time poverty) and I visit 7,000 RPM almost every time I drive it. The way I rev my motor would probably make some of you sick. Yet the dang car won't use any oil at all. I overfilled it a little and hoped that the extra would burn off. Nope. The car uses no oil at all. I'd like to note that I have been pretty hard on this car since the day I picked it up in Germany. I broke it in, but I did so faster than the recommendation so I could haul butt down the autobahn and drive the Nurburgring before ending my tourist delivery. I adhered to a progressively increasing redline of 4,600 + odometer in km. 0km = 4,600 RPM 100km = 4,700 RPM 250km = 4,850 RPM 500km = 5,100 RPM 1,000km = 5,600 RPM 1,500km = 6,100 RPM 2,700km = 7,300 RPM That means I was going full blast at 1,600 miles. Still, my engine doesn't use a drop of oil and it runs like a champ.

I have a DFI Cayman with 13,500 miles. No measurable oil consumption so far.

I have a 2009 Carrera, delivered new in Jan of this year. I added 1 quart total the first 4200 miles, had the oil changed, and added 1/2 quart the next 5600 miles. Other individuals on other forums have reported considerably higher oil consumption in the DFI engines, near what your neighbor is experiencing. Most of the consumption seems to taper off as the miles on the car increase.

Keep track of oil consumption. If top offs are needed, have the dealership write a RO and document it. That oil consumption is excessive. In cases like this, having a paper trail makes engine replacement later very easy. Got this straight from a tech's mouth.

5000 miles on my '09' CS at oil change and zero oil added or needed prior to the change. Here's a pdf of the oil analysis if any one's interested

Have 3 P-cars in the garage, two don't use any additional oil. One I filled so far about 1 and 1/4 quart in about 8,000 miles of driving. Some do, some don't. Having had twin engines in every boat I ever owned i can tell you that there can be big variations in terms of preassures, temperatures and oil and fuel consumptions between identical engines, and in the case of marine engines driven identically with electronic engine synchronizers. Had one pair of 6 cylinder volvos of which one used and additonal quart per about 50 hours of operations. No drop of oil in the bilge and no soot on the transom.

I hit 4K miles today (4/09 delivery) and the electronic gauge still reads full. I plan to change the oil at 5K miles which I did w/ my 06 CS and the wife's 08 Boxster S. As far a driving hard enough, well probably not by forum standards but my wife has a different take!

I bought my 2009 911 C4S in February. Definitely went through a lot of oil at first. I have nearly 8000 miles now and it is settling in and not going through oil as it first was. It is very common to go through oil in these cars when new. I also have a 2008 Cayman S and have not had to add oil. Only for oil changes. Different engines though. Someone noted these Porsches are meant to be driven hard... This is exactly what the dealer told me also. Drive them hard and enjoy.

My new '09 has 3000 miles on it. Just yesterday, I got that red "!" on my dash, and it said "check oil level" (or something like that). So I parked the car and pushed that lever in to measure the oil remaining on that vertical bar indicator. It showed nearly empty. So, I went to the dealer. He said the dash indicater thing only shows if you are down about a quart and a half. If does NOT mean you are nearly out of oil. He said every time that indicater lights, just add about a quart and a half of the recommended oil, then have the oil changed once a year. He opened my manual, and sure enough under specs, it shows an average consumption of 1.5 quarts of oil used for every 662 miles. Regarding that vertical indicator, the manual also says the measureble difference between full and empty (on just that vertical indicator) is about a quart and a half. It doesn't mean you're about out of oil altogether. The math doesn't make sense; but that's what he showed me in the manual and that's what the manual says about that onboard indicator.

1 need about a litre for 5k Km to keep it in the middle, but never drops below the last block of low margin. I am due for service at 65k Km.

Whether the indicator on the dash or the two marks on the actual dip stick always means about a quart of oil and that you should keep it in between those too marks. As long as it doesn't drop belwo the bottom mark you are fine.

Are you sure that's an "average" consumption of 1.5 quarts/662 miles? I thought that was the maximum before Porsche considers it a real problem. My .02 is that "most" water cooled p-cars don't use very much oil at all. Some might have to add a quart every 3 or 4,000 miles. There might even be a very few that consume a bit more than that. But until you reach the 1.5 quarts/662 miles rate, Porsche will just tell you to add oil. Of course, these numbers are after engine break-in. At 3,000 miles, you've barely reached that. You might just have one of those engines whose rings take a long time to seat.

Does the lack of oil consumption mean anything, and are you implying your break-in schedule affected any of this? No, this is not a flame, I'm quite interested in your thoughts on this.:cheers: