Burning Oil

2003 MAZDA PROTEGE
120,084 MILES • 4 CYL • FWD • AUTOMATIC
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On my Mazda protégé it has 120,084 miles on it all highway recently it started using oil a lot the more its driven at one time the more it uses just normal to town and back it will use a quart in about a week but on one trip we drove about 4 hours constantly it used all but 1/2 quart of the oil it holds 4 so it used 3 1/2 quarts also it smokes black smoke only on startup and then it smokes gray only when on throttle check the tailpipe this morning their was cool water with what looked like brown mud time coming out of the exhaust and the last thing is that about every 6 months the engine gets so hot the number 4 plug wire goes out but the temp gage never shows hot any help would be appreciated thanks.
Jan 14, 2009 at 10:49 AM
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KASEKENNY
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Dark smoke is normally excess fuel, but the gray smoke may be oil because gray and blue smoke look similar. However, it sounds a little off that you are burning this much oil and not have thick blue/gray smoke. If this smoke that you are seeing is constant and gets worse when you accelerate then that may make more sense. Here is a guide that talks about this:

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/blue-smoke-from-engines-exhaust

However, I would suggest we do a little more checking first.

Let's start with removing the oil fill cap and see if there is any smoke or pressure coming out while the engine is running. This is a clear sign of excessive blow by. That means the rings are failing and the engine will need to be replaced or rebuilt.

Next, we need to check the head gasket and make sure we don't have a greater engine issue.

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/head-gasket-blown-test

Clearly if we have any of these signs then we are going to have to most likely replace the engine. Let's start with this and go from there. Thanks
Nov 11, 2021 at 6:51 PM