And yet, they are still highly complex machines that have many working parts.

There is absolutely no reason a brand new engine (or even one with some miles on it) should drink up that much oil within one change interval unless something is seriously wrong with it.

While he might have avoided the need for a tow truck, that engine must have been fvcked from the day it was built.

I just hit 1800 miles. I've added two quarts and am down half as we speak. If the OP had a similar problem as I, waiting until 3200+ miles would put close to out of oil.

Originally I only thought to check my oil at 500 miles because of high oil temps (245* during break in under 4000 revs). I was down 3/4 qt. Down another 1/2 at 1000 miles, now 2 1/2 qts at 1800.

Any new car that loses more than a half quart between oil changes is defective.

The temp gauge didn't show any overheating? :ugh:

A tip for everyone, if the car starts overheating, crank up the heat on full blast -- that will draw heat off the motor to the heater core and should cool things down enough to find a safe place to pull over. Then call a tow truck.

(Disclaimer: At least this trick used to work -- not sure if more modern cars have the core set up differently... if you don't see temps coming down, get off the road ASAP.)

An overheating engine will potentially warp the head and can murder an auto trans pretty quickly.

it was the take it easy break in period. You have to drive em like you stole em so they wont fail on you.

That is not true. 1.5 qt per 3K miles is within spec for some manufactures. Subaru being one.

Ouch. I think I'd return a car that was burning that much oil. Do they burn at the same rate for the entire life of the engine?

Yes sir. A running joke in the Subaru world is to buy 8 qts of oil per oil change because you will need the extra 3 before the next oil change.

usually they dont. ive owned subies for a long time and ive never even had anything close to that type of consumption even though it might be "in spec". and yea i heard a lot of Z owner's consumption go down after time

BS...Most manufacturers have a 1 Qt per 1000 mile reference before they'll even talk to you about a potential defect..

It has to be more than a 1qt

I had to use the heater trick before on an old Dodge Colt - it couldn't handle going down the highway in Florida (shuttle launch) so opened the windows, turned on the heater to cool the engine :D

That may be technically true, but no properly built and properly broken-in engine should ever consume nearly that much oil. Even engines I've built consumed at most a quart every 3500 miles, under very loose piston-to-cylinder wall and ring gap clearances and high specific output conditions (i.e. 23-25 psi of boost on a 3.0 L V6).

A modern OEM engine ought to never consume any noticeable amount of oil on a single OCI unless you're racing with it. If it does consume, there is most likely something "off" - probably poor break-in. It still gets me that manufacturers suggest an "easy" break-in when they know it's worse for the engine.

Not true. Even on a broken-in engine he could have lost 3.5 quarts of oil over the 5700km that the OP drove and still be considered within spec (see Modshack's note above). On a new engine, he could have lost even more. That's why I said "So much for 'bad luck'."