I was wondering this same thing. My 2004 with 86,000 miles takes a quart every 900-1000 miles. It runs great, no smoke, gets about 12 miles per gallon in mostly city driving (about 14 on the highway). I get about one nickel size drip per week on cardboard under the Disco. I am not sure what "acceptable oil consumption" is: I had a VW Passat Wagon I had bought new in 2002 and by the time I sold it 8 year later with 117,000 miles I was also adding 1 quart per 1000 miles - there was never a sign of any drip in that engine.

I am trying to figure out at what point do you "live with" a certain level of consumption versus digging in and exploring and taking on larger repair bills with no guarantees of finding anything significant? The external valve cover screws are easy enough to torque down, but if I want to dig deeper I am not doing it myself and I was quoted $700-$800 to remove the upper intake, check the inboard screws and replace the lower intake manifold gasket. That's a decent amount of money to just explore a potential source of oil consumption.....

I have been adding 2 12-oz bottles of Techron every 1,000 miles. Is that enough to help if I am burning up the oil or am I in a losing battle at this level of oil consumption??

 

I have heard the quality control on these engines was terrible and a great many cylinders were a bit out of round from the factory. I would think a certain level of oil consumption would be considered normal, a quart every 1000mile doesnt seem too bad but every 200miles is excessive. The sparks plugs should look black and oily at that rate. Also, cheap oil burns fast, what is techron? Might play with different weights and brands to see if one suits your vehicle better.

 

My Mercedes shop manual say "normal" is one liter every 1000 kilometers. That's about 1 quart every 625 miles! While I do a little better than that, a wise car salesman once told me you buy several cases of whatever is leaking for what the mechanic wants to put in his pocket... so by the math you could put another 200K on it before you would break even on the drip... at $4 a quart.

IMHO your funds could be spent on a pressure test for the oil pump from time to time, it can crack and reduce pressure, just not always enough to turn on the light. And the weight of your oil may impact consumption.

Your oil separator could be gunked up and not allowing normal burn off of oil vapors from crankcase. Extra pressure can make the engine vent oil in various spots. Separator is in the top of passenger side valve cover, clean with solvent.

 

Here's a pic of the flow of the system:

 

This^^^ would be my first bet. Switching to an oil with a high detergent package like the Rotella will clean the engine up causing some oil to burn off. It is common in both gasoline and diesel engines. If by the second oil change it continues to do this, you have bigger problems.

 

Not to be captain obvious here but did you check inside of or remove the plastic drip pan beneath the engine before looking on the driveway for leakage?