This document describes methodologies to determine the causes of high oil consumption caused by primarily the power cylinder system.

The oil consumption of an internal combustion engine is a significant performance attribute. The loss of engine oil through the combustion chamber is critical because it impacts the emissions signature of the engine and potentially poisons any exhaust gas after treatment devices. To the operator of the engine, the consumption of oil is an unnecessary and excessive cost of engine operation. While solving oil consumption problems, it is important to have a systematic way of determining the cause of the high oil consumption. Not all of the oil consumption problems are due to the power cylinder system. Other engine subsystems can contribute to the oil consumption of an engine which means that isolation of contributing systems is essential for diagnosing and eliminating the source of oil consumption. The purpose of this document is to review the various possible systematic methods for solving oil consumption problems.