Showing my novicity in this matter.

But is it generally true that you would use more oil as the oil gets older? When its golden and translucent I dont use much but as it gets darker I use more.

Is this common?

 

To an extent. As the clearances open up in the engine then you will use more, but id not expect it til quite high mileage.

With a high revving engine with big piston speeds, its always more likely that oil is going to get past the seals.

Not sure on the colouration vs usage - but dark oil generally means its doing its job.

 

As a general comment based on everything i've read on here over 2 years.

Most fully synthetics are consumed faster than semi synthetics.
There are apparent brand to brand differences in consumption rate.
The more sporting a driver you are the higher the oil consumption
pre 04 cars have higher general consumption than the later models.

I've not seen anything related to age of oil v's rate of consumption.

FWIW I use Castrol RS or whatever it's called this week and have almost 0 oil consumption between services.

 

It seems to be following the same pattern as it did last year.

Almost none following a change and a service then decides to start using some.
Oil changes colour to a darker complexion on both occasions.

Using Mobil 1 Fully Syn 0w 40.

Hmmm...

 

Darker is because there are more contaminants in the oil. The oil is entraining deposits rather than letting them form in the engines. This is a good sign.

Oil consumption can increase as the oil gets older as the Polymers used to thicken the oil shear down and the higher temperature viscosity is lower, more gets past the rings.