How much oil burning is too much?
 

I have a 2003 disco II with about 99,000, miles. The car runs really great, I have noticed over the last two oil changes, that she is burning about 1 qt of oil over 3,000 miles - is this symptomatic of something super serious that I should Address forthwith, or just keep my eye on the oil, and keep full. Btw - no smoke out of the tail pipe, no performance issues. Gas mileage is about 12mpg.

a dealership with tell you a quart per oil change is acceptable to them.

are you sure that its burning and not just leaking?

A dealer will tell you that a quart per 1000 MILES is acceptable to them.

Just keep it topped up until you have reason to look deeper.

Agreed. Oil consumption is just how much you can stand. Just stay on top of it and make sure it doesn't suddenly pick up. Check early, check often. :) I had a friend in highschool who drove his car 30 mins and had to stop 3x to add oil to it... yeah, it smoked a bit, but he was in a pinch at the time and had to do it. Mine uses about that same amount, a quart between changes @ 171k miles.

More concerning is the coolant per mile ratio... That's the other scary one with these trucks.

Dave

I was loosing about 1 quart per change at 3k intervals until i did my head gaskets . No more dissapearing oil.

I haven't added any in the past 3 oil changes after the HGs were done.

Some simple low cost options are - snug up the valve cover gaskets (8mm 12 point skinny socket); use 15W40 oil; add White Shepherd oil treatment (it swells seals slightly). It is unlikely that you are burning the oil, we don't get a lot of posts about rings worn out, etc. Not that it can't happen, just that there are so many places to leak.

^^this^^ what i'm thinking. i've never had to add.

IIRC Mercedes manual allows for 1 quart per 1000 kilometers, and mine can beat that benchmark most weeks. It is cheaper to top off oil than pay for professional repairs on small leaks. But sometimes SWMBO won't tolerate drips on the garage floor; or people figure they can skip changing oil since it drips out so fast. Still need to change oil and filter.