If this car NEEDS an OCC...
 

ok so I just joined the forum today, but rest assured I have done some significant lurking and searching. If this specific topic has already been covered, I'll kindly shut up and go back to lurking...

anyway I'm approaching 30K miles on my '09 MS3 and becoming totally paranoid about everything. so far the car continues to run strong with no smoking or any other issues that I know of. but I want to keep this thing for a while, so I want to take all the logical precautionary measures available. this naturally lead me to the prospect of installing an OCC.

so here's my question. If this car so desparately needs an OCC, wouldn't I be seeing some oil loss between changes? I check my dipstick a few times a week and my oil levels are not going down. I understand that an OCC catches other crap in the crankcase besides oil, but oil blow-by is our main concern, correct? so if I'm not losing oil do I really need it?

I'll probably end up installing one regardless out of paranoia, but I hadn't seen this question asked, so I thought I'd give it a shot. thx for looking

It's not like the OCC catches a quart or more. It's just a little bit, but that little bit will F up the manifold, intake, etc. Check the catch can threads, after installing people always post pictures of how much stuff is collected.

http://www.mazdaspeedforums.org/foru...-thread-36097/

Everything you need to know is in this thread^^

I've seen a bunch of those pictures with the cup full of oil, gas, gunk, and whatever else... I've also read a few posts where guys aren't catching much of anything in their OCC.

I dunno, I think a cup full of oil would be noticeable on the dispstick. per the owners manual, the operating range on the dipstick represents something like 75% of a quart. so even like a 5th of a quart would be noticeable on the stick

EDIT: I've read a bunch of OCC threads but not the one you linked to above. thanks for the link

Unless you drive your car extraordinarily hard, you shouldnt use much oil.

My car in normal hard street driving uses zero oil, zero.
When I go to the track however, I can use almost a quart in a day!.....
I kid you not.

I really need a CC, but I operate on the easy and quick back to stock principle.

If you get a CC get one with a baffle or its not very good at catching all the oil. Some would say useless. Mine doesn't have one and I wish it did...still gets a fair amount of oil but mostly gas and water. In winter it fills up each week in summer not so much...less condensation.

thanks for the info guys.

I understand that oil going through the PCV system into the intake and through the turbo has been associated with smoking turbos and possibly worse. but I don't track my car, I haven't notice any oil loss whatsoever... I also would like to be able to swap back to stock pretty readily. but at the same time I want to take every preventive measure and see how many miles I can get out of this car.

learning about this car is kinda stressful. I wish I found this forum earlier. I had just given up and assumed there were no really good MS3 forums

I just finished changing my oil after being lazy and running my 10w30 pennzoil platinum over 5,400 miles and I didn't burn any oil at all. Pretty damn good!

The most noticable place to see where your blow by oil goes would be the intercooler and for me thats the easiest to get to. That being said I dont burn oil in my 07 MS6. My last run was to 6K miles or so and I went through about 8oz, so likely not much if any burned and I was just being paranoid when reading the dip. If I didnt have an extended warranty and was more comfortable working on my car Id have added a CC though.

ok I'm almost convinced. does anybody know how Mazda feels about us tampering with the PCV system? do I even need to ask?

I never collected much in mine. I mean very very little. But it caused my car to start smoking and I believe led to some other issues. I've since taken mine off and it's back to no smoking and the car running correctly.

btw... when I took mine off, I broke the PCV trying to get the hose off. I just took it in to the dealer and they replaced and fixed it no problem. No cost at all. So don't worry on that front.

Well each dealer is gonna be different from what i understand. But an OCC is a good call in my opinion if nothing else for peace of mind. Mine doesnt always have stuff in it, but there are times when that thing is super full. I think it also depends on the OCC that you get saikou michi is probably the best OCC for this car talk to matt he makes full kit too. Hard driving and long trips seem to be when you have to change it more often. If you want i can post up a pic of my 3/4 full soda bottle that i have in the garage after my vacation to six flags it was like a 1800mile trip or so. I use to get that burning smell in my car sometimes now i dont which is nice. Oh and by the way i have never had to put more oil in the car its always full. It seems like more gunk and gas actually.

I had a catch can for about 10000 miles. It caught very little oil and last winter it froze up solid and luckily I caught it before it caused major problems. I now have had no catch can for about 8000 miles with no issues accept a little oil in the intake which I don't really care about.