Burning Oil?

I recently bought a 93 Grand Cherokee Laredo with 65k miles and so far as i can tell everything seems to be in pretty awesome shape.

First thing i did was change the basics, plugs, distributor, filters and oil

i have driven it about 2500 miles so far and yesterday the oil light came on, i checked the oil and it was about a quart low.

I have been checking for leaks since i got it, i have no spots in my drive way, i have never noticed any oil burning off when driving, my oil pressure is good.


Also it was very cold yesterday and i parked in an unusual spot on a steep hill, could this affect it that much?

should i just expect to lose this much oil?

is this normal?

A quart in 2,500 miles is not bad consumption. If it were mine, I'd just plan on adding a quart when it needed a full quart and changing oil the next time it showed a quart low.

Have your plenum plate gasket checked. Mine was burning 1 quar of oil every 2000 miles or so, and occasionally pinging and I took it to the dealer who diagnosed it with a bad plenum gasket. They replaced it to the tune of $500.00 and it's not yet been 2000 miles so I dont know if it cured the oil consumption or not.

The plenum gasket is a common problem near 100k bt has shown up in fewer miles, the thing just wears out. What you can do is pull the #8 (or 7) spark plug and pull the #1 (or 2). The way that the engine is designed if the plenum gasket is bad it will leak will show more towards the rear of the engine. Compare the 2 spark plugs, if there is a significant difference the plenum gasket is bad. Its not a hard project will take about 3-4 hours if you have little expirence with engines.

Or just take a flashlight and look into the throttleody, if the plenum plate is oil soaked, or oil contaminated, then it's a good indication that the plenum gasket has gone bad.

Theres also a proper test with vacumn in some service bulletin, but I dont have the bulletin number anymore.

If thats not it, then perhaps premature wear of the motor, none of us really know how the last owners treated their vehicle, despite what they might tell us when we buy them second hand.