A few thousand miles ago I noticed oil consumption had gone up significantly on my '05 SSM. It had about 75K on it at the time, and hadn't burned a drop. After a trip back from NC, I checked the oil and it was down to the bottom of the normal region. I re-filled it, and kept an eye on it. It lost about 1.5 quarts in 2500 miles or so. I run Amsoil 0W-30, with the Amsoil Ea filter.

I'd noticed a few drips in the driveway from time to time, but couldn't find anything on the usual suspect spots - filter, VTEC solenoid gasket, etc.

Today, while changing the oil, I noticed there was a drop near the bottom of the filter, and also a lot of accumulated dried oil/dirt around the hoses. The filter tightness was fine.

So, I'm going to continue to keep an eye on it, obviously. Is it possible I just had a poor seat on the filter? Maybe a slightly defective O-ring?

 

Only use OEM filter. Ever. Search for engine fires with others. You'll find some info

 

Could be the VTEC solenoid or timing chain tensioner gasket leaking and dripping over the oil filter. If you torque the oil filter to 15-17 ft/lbs, you shouldn't have any leaks.

 

The VTEC solenoid looks perfectly clean. I didn't specifically check the TCT. I got it replaced by Billman at WtD this year. I'll take a look.

As to the filters coming loose and such... I read about it. It seems like a lot of the cases were OEM filters that weren't tightened. It looks like OEM filters don't rely on a rubber gasket to seal, is this correct? I tighten mine to around 3/4 past hand-tight. Should probably be more scientific than that, I know. I do carry a fire extinguisher, FWIW.

 

On a different car, RSX, I would have oil leaking using a K&N oil filters. After doing that with 2 filters I switched to HAMP and never had a leak again. I have only used HAMP on the AP2 and no leaks yet. That has a gasket.

 

Remove the filter and look for dirt. A tiny piece will cause a leak.

 

Thanks for the note on dirt, Billman. I had actually posted this after doing the oil change; more of a "this happened, I might have fixed it, any ideas?" type of thing.

I was very careful to get a nice amount of clean oil (and nothign else) on the new gasket; also checked that the original gasket came off cleanly.

 

Also you wont be tightening it enough by hand. the oil filter i mean. you see the marking on the OEM filter? you should be up to 7. go buy an oil filter wrench, i believe the one with 15 notches is the one for our cars. and make sure that the oil filter block is clean before putting on the new filter. take the extra minute to clean it.

 

To close this out, after about 1500 miles, I've noticed zero oil consumption. I'm chalking this one up to Billman's grit suggestion, as the old filter was plenty tight.

Lesson learned - wipe everything down really well, and inspect it before you pop the new filter on!

 

I was going to suggest that your oil filter may have been overly-tight, deforming the rubber gasket and causing it to leak. I am going by your statement that you tightened it 3/4 of a turn past hand-tight. The proper spec is 7/8 of a turn past the point where the gasket first touches the mounting base. 3/4 of a turn past hand-tight sounds too-tight to me. Going by torque is good too, but I use the Honda filters and the tightening markings on the filter housing make it real easy to use.