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Tue 29 Jun 2021 18:48

Honda CR-V Hybrid 2020 - High Oil Consumption - Chris Souden

Hi, I have a six month old Honda CR-V Hybrid (2020) with 10k on the clock. At 8.5k the oil warning light came on when going round a motorway junction loop and checked the oil level which was on the minimum mark, so topped up to the correct level. I thought oil was thrown out with centrifugal force while going around the loop and thought it a bit strange for a Japanese engine to leak or consume oil.

Today while driving at 70 on a straight piece of motorway the oil light came on again so thought it very strange to have low oil level again after only 1500 miles. I stopped and found the oil level below minimum.

I took the car to the main dealer who supplied the car and voiced my concern to be told that the engine uses 1 ltr of oil per 1000 miles. So going from full mark to minimum in 1500 miles is OK. I knew ther were no leaks as the driveway where I park the car is clear of any marks.

I must say I find this very strange and I can’t believe that this is acceptable. Buying a hybrid to help do my bit saving on petrol usage to find I’m pouring burnt oil out the exhaust into the atmosphere is not a good trade off.

Prior to this car I’ve had Land Cruisers and I didn’t put a drop of oil in the engines between their annual service and approx 10-12k mileage. It looks like we’re going back to the old leyland engined cehicles that burnt oil faster than petrol - yes I had one that took 1/2 ltr of oil in the engine every time I put £5 of petrol in the tank. Any thoughts or has anyone else been told this by Honda?

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Tue 29 Jun 2021 23:06

Honda CR-V Hybrid 2020 - High Oil Consumption - sammy1

Not very good to say the least. Have you tried ringing other dealers to see what they might say? I would ring customer services at Honda UK and complain

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Tue 29 Jun 2021 23:43

Honda CR-V Hybrid 2020 - High Oil Consumption - focussed

I used to work for an engine manufacturer and oil usage was calculated as a percentage of fuel used.

I note from various forums, not just HJ, that this model is not particularly economical on fuel. Around 35 - 38 mpg seems to be the consensus.

A quick and dirty calc comes up as oil consumption of about 0.76% of fuel used taking mpg as 35 on Honda's 1 liter per 1000 miles.

That would have been a case of an "acceptable but keep your eye on it" advice to a customer, if it got up to around or over 1% then we would have investigated on a petrol unit.

I'm thinking that maybe the hybrid system doesn't put enough load on the engine to properly bed the oil control rings in the initial stages of running in. Modern oils have so much anti-wear additives in them that it's difficult to bed the rings in if an engine is constantly run on light load during the running in period.

My running in regime is to drive an engine hard from day one but no high revs for the first 500 miles, my current Honda 180 hp diesel in the Accord uses next to no oil between services, maybe half a litre in 6000 miles.

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Wed 30 Jun 2021 17:12

Honda CR-V Hybrid 2020 - High Oil Consumption - Andrew-T

My running in regime is to drive an engine hard from day one but no high revs for the first 500 miles, my current Honda 180 hp diesel in the Accord uses next to no oil between services, maybe half a litre in 6000 miles.

I can't believe that consuming oil at that rate serves any useful purpose, nor that oil-tight engines cannot be built. My 2008 Pug diesel needs hardly any topping up between 7500-mile changes, despite the regular advice of an 'oil leak' at the annual MoT (now at 81K miles).

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Thu 1 Jul 2021 09:11

Honda CR-V Hybrid 2020 - High Oil Consumption - Bolt

My running in regime is to drive an engine hard from day one but no high revs for the first 500 miles, my current Honda 180 hp diesel in the Accord uses next to no oil between services, maybe half a litre in 6000 miles.

I can't believe that consuming oil at that rate serves any useful purpose, nor that oil-tight engines cannot be built. My 2008 Pug diesel needs hardly any topping up between 7500-mile changes, despite the regular advice of an 'oil leak' at the annual MoT (now at 81K miles).

I wonder if the reason is piston rings are not as tight to bore now to reduce friction than they used to be so need better running in time

Toyota say apparently their new engines run with reduced friction, like Honda engines, and rings are friction reduced due to emissions targets and if engine not run in the oil control rings can get stuck in the piston so not sealing the bores propely, Honda had said years ago rings were a problem but thought they fixed it?

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Wed 30 Jun 2021 00:06

Honda CR-V Hybrid 2020 - High Oil Consumption - edlithgow

I dunno for sure how the oil light works on these, but if its a conventional pressure sensor you shouldn;t be relying on it to monitor your oil level. Its intended as last-ditch engine defence.

Earlier iterations of the CRV had a fairly serious generic fuel dilution problem which would mask oil consumption, so at least they've fixed that

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Wed 30 Jun 2021 08:00

Honda CR-V Hybrid 2020 - High Oil Consumption - catsdad

It’s a bugbear of mine that manufacturers set arbitrary limits on what is acceptable oil consumption that are well in excess of what a normal owner would find acceptable.
It’s not just Honda, as far as I am aware they all do it.

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Wed 30 Jun 2021 10:57

Honda CR-V Hybrid 2020 - High Oil Consumption - focussed

It’s a bugbear of mine that manufacturers set arbitrary limits on what is acceptable oil consumption that are well in excess of what a normal owner would find acceptable.
It’s not just Honda, as far as I am aware they all do it.

It's not a case of arbitrary limits, it's just that modern manufacturing techniques produce engines with predictable characteristics such as power, fuel and oil consumption etc within a tolerance limit.

What is not predicable is how it gets used.

The average owner thinks that his engine shouldn't use any oil at all if even if he ever bothers to check the level!

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Wed 30 Jun 2021 11:11

Honda CR-V Hybrid 2020 - High Oil Consumption - Bolt

I know a couple of new prius owners whom one is a rapid taxi driver he complains of high oil consumption.

Yet the non taxi driver in the same time and 8k never uses a drop

Taxi driver was told by toyota if you thrash the car it wont run in properly causing oil burning, they say normal driving the engine runs in without issue, if thrashed they don't and will always burn oil

Afaia the prius engine when thrashed runs at high revs to charge where normal running it has no need to I think same applies to Honda ?

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Wed 30 Jun 2021 14:06

Honda CR-V Hybrid 2020 - High Oil Consumption - Theophilus

I also have a CR-V Hybrid, mine is 10 months old and reading this thread sent me straight out to pull the dip-stick and check my oil level!

I haven't covered quite so many miles (or kilometres) as you Chris - due to lockdown I've only driven 8k - but my oil level is still only a smidgen below the maximum marker on the dipstick, so I would suggest that rather than high oil consumption being the norm your CR-V is using a lot more than one might expect.

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Wed 30 Jun 2021 18:20

Honda CR-V Hybrid 2020 - High Oil Consumption - John F

Burning a litre every 1000 miles might be 'acceptable' after 100,000 miles of wear and tear (even our old Focus was doing 3-4000 miles per litre at this mileage), but certainly not for a new engine. As said, there should be hardly any noticeable use between 10,000 mile services at this age. If it is a hybrid, I would think it would be impossible to abuse the engine, and also for the garage to use that as an excuse, so I would reject it as being a lemon.

Oh, and you can't 'spill out' oil going fast round a corner. Where are these engines built?

Edited by John F on 30/06/2021 at 18:23

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Thu 1 Jul 2021 19:09

Honda CR-V Hybrid 2020 - High Oil Consumption - focussed

I've just checked the owner's handbook for my 2015 2.2 180 hp diesel Accord and regarding oil consumption it states.

"The amount of oil consumed depends on how vehicle is driven and the climatic and road conditions encountered.

The rate of oil consumption can be up to 1 Litre per 1000 km / 625 miles.

Consumption is likely to be higher when the engine is new"

Just as well I ran it in properly as per my previous post!

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Thu 1 Jul 2021 20:54

Honda CR-V Hybrid 2020 - High Oil Consumption - Dorset123

When you say the oil warning light came on do you mean the oil pressure light ? or does your car have a level light.

What you need to do is make sure the car is on a flat surface and fill up the oil to the max then drive the car for 1000 miles then check the oil and see how much it has used you will then know what the consumption is. Have you been checking the oil or did you just wait until a light came on then checked it because if you are waiting until an oil pressure light to come then the engine will be damaged. If you read the handbook it say check the levels oil and water etc every few weeks. So many people drive cars but never check the levels or tyre pressures and then seem surprised when problems start.

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