How much oil?

I've had to put a couple of quarts of oil in my motor this summer. Its in my LSV, a monsoon 340. Its only got 160 hours on it and well maintained. We added 3 big fat sacs this year and that adds about 1400 pounds to the boat plus we usually have 5 to 8 peeps along. Should I expect the motor to be going thru oil like that??

your profile says your boat is an 05. Burning that much oil is not normal. I own an 04 SSV I never have to add a drop of oil.

Over how many hours did it consume 2 Quarts?

A new motor may comsume a little oil during break in, but after that you shouldn't have to add 2 quarts of oil regardless of how many hours it as over IMO.

Yeah, I wouldn't be too scared. My boat was using a quart every 10 hours during break in. That's slowed to a quart every 25-30 hours now that it has 150+ hours. New motors always burn some. Monitor it, make sure it's getting better, not worse and make sure you never run it low.

Check your bilge for oil. You could have a leak. Take a rag and wipe the bottom of the engine and see what's down there. Also inspect the bilge under the motor and take a long look around the engine.

I have some oil spotting under my motor in the bilge, I am not all that worried about it as I have had numerous cars and trucks that leaked a bit of oil and ran for a long long time. We are not really consuming oil though and we weight the crap out of the boat.

Evan is correct though. When motors break in they basically set the piston rings to the walls. When they are new they gulp a bit of oil, but it should slow. Ideally, it should consume very little oil between changes.

Check for leaks, if you find em get it repaired. Talk to your dealer about it. Warranty stuff.

Thanks, yeah first thing I did was check the bilge and around the compartment. No sign of oil leaks. I little tiny bit of gas in my bilge which I don't like, esp. when it gets up in the ski locker and turns into grease, but I can't see where that comes from either. I'll definitely have the dealer look at it. Good idea about tracking the use/hour ratio.

Les, if you're really at only a couple quarts I definitely wouldn't worry. My Sanger was kinda like that when it was new. Maybe used 2 in the first summer. My MC on the other hand used about 2 quarts in the first week. I was starting to get worried, but then the usage slowed drastically. Now I may add 1 quart between 50 hour oil changes, but probably more like 1/2 to 3/4.

The MC was also weighted pretty heavily from about the 5 hour mark, for what that's worth. The Sanger wasn't weighted until late in the season.

Do you run at high RPMs a lot? A gentle cruise shouldn't consume any oil, but if you are running WOT it can create enough blow-by to cause some oil to be burned,.

Could be that it didn't quite get filled up at last oil change (remote filter hose capacity not calculated, etc.). If this is so, you may not have burned as much as you think.

All good questions. I've used it heavily for 2 seasons. It didn't use much in the beginning, but only after adding all this ballast. Maybe unrelated, but it sounds like I need to get this checked out. I'm a little worried about getting a "don't worry about it" from the dealer, not because they are bad guys, but they are real busy and since I'm not a gear head I'm not going to have much evidence other than the oil usage. What should I ask them to check to be sure there isn't something that needs addressing? To answer the other question, we all fall quite a bit so there is a fair amount of heavy acceleration with all the starts (but no power turns)