by NowForThe5th on Tue Aug 18, 2009 1:05 pm
It all depends on what you'd done before the trip to Townsville.
It's true that oil can (generally) only leak out or be burnt off and a degree of burnoff is normal, otherwise the pistons/rings wouldn't be lubricated against the cylinder wall and some is lost through the valves as well. What most people forget about is that the crankcase oil can become quite diluted with fuel which is also quite normal but is particularly so in short runs/city traffic. Thus, if your oil was diluted with fuel, the long run, working hard towing and constantly hot would burn off the diluted fuel that was in your oil and the apparent level would drop as you noticed.
If you continue to use oil you may have grounds for concern but it's more likely that this was a one off. Monitor usage and if it evens off to about a litre between changes then there should be no problem. If you don't appear to use any oil at all between changes then dilution is the cause because some is always burnt off. Take it for good long run again just after an oil change and you're less likely to see usage. If you really want to, you can have your oil laboratory tested to see how it is performing but this ain't cheap.
Chris
If work is so terrific, why do they have to pay us to do it?