2001 Celica - engine swap? Oil burners unlimited

[mgmrw]

Afternoon ya'll. Last summer, against the advice of others, my wife spent £850 on a 2001 Celica 1.8vvti, with 110k on the clock and bit part history.

The underneath resembled the Titanic, and it had 6 weeks MOT.

I did general tidying, undersealed it, serviced it,and stuck it in for test.flew through. That was September 15.

FFWD to now and it's munching oil at an alarming rate, something like 2-3L per 500 miles of mixed use driving.

So, I guess this presents options, and I'm wondering what the Retro massive would do!

Options:

1) keep chucking oil in it, re-test in September/October, see what happens.
2) Tart it up, sell it ASAP (my mechanic mates advice)
3) engine swap for a non-burning one (budget £600-1000 job done)
4) Engine swap for something different.

Now 4) was appealing, but the Celica forums are a bit..... Geeky. Everyone talks in codes, with lots of EE and ZZ and GE stuff. Anyone know simple terms? Like corolla or avenis

So, what'd you do?

N.b.she does fancy a sub-£2k BMW z3

[jifflemon]

I'd go with 2; you can buy a 2zz-ge car (the 190bhp screamer engine) for about a grand, so why bother swapping?

[chrissyb]

late 2002 140 (or any 190) don't suffer this prob - I ran around in one for a few years and a fair few miles it was fine. Thats of course before they fell into cheap banger territory.

[mgmrw]

Cheers, not seen any 190s for less than £2-3k. Where are you seeing them at £1k

I'd happily take on a bodywork rough 190, and make the best of the 2 cars.

Annoyingly, barring oil munching her Celica is bang on. Drives nicely, goes well, and is rot/dent free.


Other option is PX it against a z3.

I should add, any repairs/upgrades/PX will be out of my pockets, as fair maiden works pt, and is cash limited.

Hence, me planning early.

[peewee]

i would personally curse word it off good car let down by wibblepoo engine

[dodgerover]

Has it actually got the correct grade of oil in it? It might be worth trying some different stuff in it

[sherv]

I'm a Staff member over on Celicaclub.co.uk,never heard of the club referred to as geeky before though 
I'm one of the early gen owners but i have picked up a lot of info in my time on there.The prefacelift VVTi 140 engines (before about 2002) can be prone to oil burning issues as you've found out.Its to do with sticky rings (ooer).It was rectified with the facelifted 2002 cars.The 190 bhp model with the 2zzge engine ,oops,sorry, didnt seem to suffer from it like the 1zzfe engine did.If the cars alright then its worth looking at an engine swap,depending on if you want to spend the money.I can recommend a good mechanic who's a gen7 Celica guru who does these in his sleep.Depends where youre based,and if you want to go with the 140 engine or upgrade to the revvy 190 unit.There have been plenty of guys who have owned the car of your age that have been absolutely fine,the problem starts to occur when they arent serviced regularly and get run low,as well as running them with old oil instead of nice clean stuff(like you should with any car).You can pick up a nice car very cheap,a lot of car for the money really,but the slightly unloved ones are best avoided.

Basically the 140bhp cars run the 1zz-fe.Always try and buy the post 2002 cars if possible.   (But if she'd popped over onto the club and said hello and asked,I'd have told her that LOL.)
190 bhp cars,whether T-sport,GT,or whatever trim,have the 2zzge engine which hits 'Lift' and full power between 6200rpm-8200rpm.
The 190bhp cars have VVTL-i on the engine cover,the 140's just have VVT-i.
Most owners upgrade the brakes because the stock ones are a bit pants,to be honest.Best conversion is to fit Avensis calipers and large 295mm discs.Oh and if the car is burning that much oil already,itll only get worse.Sorry.Its a shame about the early ones,because generally speaking the cars run for a lot of miles,like a Toyota should do.

Just to add,the gen6 Celica,the one with the round headlights at the front,had an option of the 1.8 engine instead of the 2.0 3sge unit that was used in different revisions in the gen4,5,and 6 right through till about 1999.(which is a proper quality engine).The 1.8s though,can develop oil problems too.Just so you know.So the ST and SR versions arent the ones to buy,its the GT version with the 3sge that you want,not one with 7-AFE written on the side of the cambelt cover.Geek mode over.

Anyway,if the body is sweet and the interior nice,AND you've sorted it underneath then id bung another engine in.probably the 190,unless you can source a 140 engine thats DEFINITELY from a later car.The bloke i mentioned earlier would sort that.If the car isnt really all that,I'd punt it on.

[composimmonite]

Do a compression test. That should determine if rings / bore wear or valve guides / seals.

[mgmrw]

Thanks for the help, I'm too thick to multi-quote on a phone so answers/thoughts below:

- the car - yes it's tidy enough. Silver, cloth interior, but some of the goodies such as; OEM 17" wheels, leather and chrome door cards/handles, and barring stone chips its unmarked.

- buying - it was impulse. She knows it was, I know it was.

- experts for engine swaps - do we have ballpark figure? Seen couple of eBay add for full swaps between £700 and £900

- DIY - that's a no go. But I do have a tame mechanic who charges £200 a day on mates rates.

QUESTION:

Can you rebuild a worn one? Only ask as locally there's a machine shop, who's done 3 of my rover engines, and he's bloody good, and reasonable priced.

Or once they've gone, are you scrapping the block?


ETA: its got the skirts, chin splitter, and small whale tail on it too.

Only fault barring oil consumption, is the AC controls don't illuminate.

[hitman]

a tame mechanic on £200 a day on mates rates? who needs enemies!
tart up an sell would be my option bud!

[mgmrw]

Apr 3, 2016 18:21:33 GMT dodgerover said:

Has it actually got the correct grade of oil in it? It might be worth trying some different stuff in it

Yes, its lunched 15L in 3700 miles.

3 different brands, all as per specs. 10w40.


However, are they picky on brand?

My e36 and ZR were both picky about quality/brand, Celica the same?

[dodgerover]

Not sure specifically, but its happened to me in the past, bought a cheapy, discovered its using a couple of litres of oil in 500 miles so bung in the cheapest stuff from super cheap auto thats in the right grade and it continues to use a similar amount. Later on I changed the oil and filter using decent stuff as that was all I had and suddenly it using more like a pint of oil in 500 miles...

[The Doctor]

These engines are prone to oil consumption, it's nothing to do with which oil is in it, it's an construction fault from Toyota. In the Netherlands they changed a LOT of engines under warranty, if this one hasn't had the modification/new engine yet, you might be able to arrange something with the main stealer? A new longblock from Toyota is in the region of €1500 if i'm not mistaken.

In the Netherlands they put a coloured dot on the dipstick if the dealer changed the engine, dunno about the UK dealers though?

[mgmrw]

Apr 3, 2016 22:46:40 GMT The Doctor said:

These engines are prone to oil consumption, it's nothing to do with which oil is in it, it's an construction fault from Toyota. In the Netherlands they changed a LOT of engines under warranty, if this one hasn't had the modification/new engine yet, you might be able to arrange something with the main stealer? A new longblock from Toyota is in the region of €1500 if i'm not mistaken.

In the Netherlands they put a coloured dot on the dipstick if the dealer changed the engine, dunno about the UK dealers though?

Useful info, I'll look tonight. Suspect by the way it's piddling it out, it ain't been swapped.

[rodbuilder]

My sons BMW 325 105k miles liked a drop too much oil so we swapped it for 20/50 cured the oil consumption, ran without any problems for the 2 more years he kept it, worth a try.

[mgmrw]

Apr 5, 2016 7:53:22 GMT rodbuilder said:

My sons BMW 325 105k miles liked a drop too much oil so we swapped it for 20/50 cured the oil consumption, ran without any problems for the 2 more years he kept it, worth a try.

Had similar with my e36.

May wait for the Celica to burn through this batch of Halfrauds 10w40 and then launch some 20w50 in.

[jimjimthehumanbin]

I would sell it on. Check gumtree (nationwide distance) and you'll see plenty of corolla/celica tsports (190) pop up and at under 1k from time to time.