My 2011 Chevy Equinox LTZ received it's scheduled maintenance as well as an oil change every 3,000 miles. Out of the blue, in February 2015, the engine struggled to start. Once it started there was a ticking sound from under the hood. I turned the car off and checked everything I could under the hood. What did I discover? The oil wasn't registering on the dip stick. There was no sign of a leak anywhere. I filled the oil 3 quarts and took it in for an oil change and an oil leak inspection. No leaks were found.

Since then, I have had to add a quart per month to maintain the oil level. There still is no sign of a leak. I've read through the numerous complaints with identical problems. I too now worry about what is going to happen when I don't catch the oil level dropping at the right time and permanent, or at least expensive, damage will occur to the engine. At no time did the oil light come on to warn me of a low level. Nor did the Change Oil meter change. I never received any indication from the thousands of dollars worth of sensors that are designed to protect the vehicle from damage. This raises the flag in my book.

GM owes the customer a safe and reliable vehicle. We pay for it. I now keep an extra quart in my vehicle just in case and I find myself constantly opening the hood and checking the oil. I basically change my own oil before ever going in for the 3,000 mile change. GM, FIX THIS. You owe it to the customer. I love this vehicle and hate that I now have a $25,000 liability.

We discovered the excessive oil consumption only by accident. We've had every oil change on time, every recommended maintenance, etc. We were going on a mini-vacation and my husband just decided to check the oil while filing up window washing fluid and the thing was 2 quarts low. 2 QUARTS!!. We called the dealer and was told to begin the oil consumption test...which we are now doing.

I decided to get online and look this up as the "normal to use 1 quart" sounded like BS to me. We have a 1967 Chevelle and it doesn't use anywhere around that much oil. REALLY...a 4 year old car using that much oil is normal??? I don't think so. I've seen where they overfill the oil when they do the test and yes...they did. We have taken pictures to document that it's being overfilled and will tell them next time..do not overfill the oil. We just want this problem fixed so we can continue to love the car and Chevy.

We bought this Equinox new with 218 miles on it in 2011. I've always put in Mobil 1 or Valvoline synthetic oil from day one. This is my wife's work vehicle and she'll put almost 3000 miles on it a month.

When I've done the oil changes in the latter part of 2014, I've noticed only about 3 quarts coming out of it. We took it to our Chevy dealership and they wanted us to monitor the oil levels over a period of time. We have and it's documented that at least 1 1/2 quarts are going somewhere. Today we took it in for a check engine light and had them check the oil level as well because of excessive ticking. Again, when the engine says time for an oil change, we do it. Today I am told that the piston rings need replacing and that a valve does too. This car has 107000 miles on it and no way should this be happening already.

If GM doesn't take care of this, this will be the last Chevy we buy. We bought a new Chevy Cobal in 2006 and the infamous engine shutdown occurred way before it hit the news. I complained about that one and everyone thought I was stupid. I just called my wife who is very upset because the piston ring replacement to rectify the oil consumption is going to cost $2500. Ridiculous.

Update from Sep 2, 2015: update!. I've been bring in our 2011 equinox with the 2.4 engine since 99,000 on the OD. I've brought it in and had it checked 3 times at least. I was told the issue was the piston rings and it would cost me $3000.00 to fix at the dealership. I squawked and the offered to pay for half. still i said no way on a manufacturers defect. flash forward to Sept 1st 2015, the other day I received a letter from GM that there are issues with the piston rings on the 2011 equinox and they will pay fully to replace them if the vehicle has no more than 120,000 miles. We now have 125,000. Now the fight begins. I contacted my dealership and they are going to look into fixing mine since I have been complaining for awhile now and there are records. If GM does not step up and take care of this completely since I've complained about this prior, my wife says she's going to put a brick on the gas pedal and drive that sucker thru their showroom window. Now i doubt that but she is pissed. That is her work vehicle and she puts up to 2500 miles a month on her car. we bought it because of the advertised gas mileage of 34 mpg (HA!). her miles are 90 % freeway and she's lucky if she gets 27 combined. This should be very interesting...

Update from Sep 17, 2015: Ok, this is what has happened with this car. We contacted GM 3 times. we have complaint numbers. The issue is the piston rings are faulty. It called for piston ring, pistons, and everything else that goes with replacing them. As i have mentioned before, we started having problems at 29000 miles (documented), at 86000 miles (documented), at 109000 miles (documented), and at 125000 miles (documented). They wanted to do a oil consumption test at every 500 miles. My wife puts that on her car every 2 or 3 days and she worked out of town most times. The GM service center never told us that we could bring it into ANY GM service center for check on this monitoring. We did not go in as they requested due to the frequency we'd have going to the dealership every couple days, we have jobs!. I have one repair document that said my oil was 3 quarts low! We do our oil changes when the computer tells us it's time to do one. So now there is a letter that GM states they are aware of faulty piston rings and that they would extend the manufactures warranty to 7 years and 120000 miles. Ours has 126000, but we've had an ongoing problem that is documented. GM will not pay for the complete repair on our vehicle solely because we did not upkeep the oil consumption test as directed, even though I have documentation from GM that there has been an issue with our car since 2012. They will do a goodwill warranty where I had to pay for 1200 dollars of the repair. While they were fixing the car I had them replace the timing chain and water pump, i understand that would be my responsibility. So the final bill was 1880.00. I do not think i should be penalized for a defective part on the car at any mile. The defect doesn't go away at 120001 miles, it's still there. I think GM should pay for the piston issue. I can't get anyone from GM to listen. I was told by a GM rep that once the car is purchased by the dealership, it no longer is GM's responsibility, really? GM sucks, buy something else.

Equinox 2011 uses about 3 quarts of oil between oil changes. If you aren't careful checking oil the engine will die on you, sometimes in traffic. Have taken to the dealer, and they have done oil consumption test ( twice), according to GM a quart of oil every 2000 miles is standard operating procedure. That is the most absurd thing I have ever heard, and told them so.

I am 62 years old, and never owned a car that used a quart of oil every 2000 miles. You have to carry a few quarts of oil everywhere you go. The pistons are bad in all these cars, and they know it, but won't do anything about it. I took car to an independent mechanic and he said they are well aware of it, but don't want to do anything. He agreed a quart every 2000 miles is not average.

When I called GM they said they had never heard anything about it!

My past two oil changes starting in January 2014, I noticed that less than two quarts of oil was draining out of the engine. Same thing happened again in April during an oil change. So I went to Midway Chevrolet in Pocomoke, MD where the vehicle was purchased and explained to the head of service dept. that the vehicle was burning 3 qts of oil between oil changes. The dealer looked at the engine and oil level, telling me to bring it back every 1000 miles or so to be looked at.

After 2000 miles and two trips to the dealer, he hands me a document titled TSB #01-06-01-011H:

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Information on Engine Oil Consumption Guidelines-(Oct 29, 2013)

Models: 2014 and Prior GM Cars and Gasoline-Powered Light Duty Trucks Under 8500LB GVW.

Oil Consumption: The accepted rate of oil consumption for engines used in vehicles referenced is 0.946 liters (1 quart) in 2000 miles. General Motor vehicle engines are suppose to burn oil, that is how they're designed.

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Environmental Protection Agency, if you're really concerned about the air quality of the U.S., then start asking General Motors about all the vehicles on the road that are burning a quart of oil every 2000 miles (green house gases?!) Apparently this is normal according to my Chevrolet dealer.

The final statement from Midway Chevrolet was on the last page under Measurement of Oil Consumption, response #8:

"If the final evaluation shows that the engine uses more than 0.946 liter (1 qt) in 3200 Km (2000mi), follow the published symptom diagnostics as described in the appropriate Service Manual. If the oil consumption test shows that the engine uses less than 0.946 liter (1 qt) in 3200 Km (2000mi), explain to the customer that their engine meets the guidelines for oil consumption."

I never thought I would see the day when a car burns that much oil and it is considered normal. I put 5 quarts of Quakerstate Dexos (required) oil into the Chevrolet Equinox and by the time of my next oil change I will have added 8 quarts.

My advice is stay away from Chevrolet, especially the Equinox. Even the service department of Chevrolet was deceitful. If you go online and look up complaints about the Chevrolet Equinox, there are pages of customers complaining about the oil consumption problem with this vehicle.

My father in law has a FORD truck with 180K miles and it doesn't burn oil. I have a 1972 CJ5 and a 2002 Sebring (I know more problems) and neither of them burn oil. My father has a 1995 Chevrolet pickup with 200K miles and it doesn't burn oil. My 2011 Chevrolet Equinox with 68K miles burns 3 quarts of oil between oil changes, but there's no problem.

Don't buy Chevrolet, GM doesn't care about the customer anymore. Just give us your money and go away. I'm done.

I drive a lot - I was living in FL and working in GA, so I put about 50K miles per year on the car. I bought it in September 2010 with 8 miles on it. There were several issues with the car and replacements that had to be made that were all under the warranty. However, in October of 2013, with about 100,000 miles - the car started sounding like a diesel engine during acceleration and was acting like it was going to stall during idle. Finally, the next day it did die, but I was able to restart the car.

The dealership said that the oil was a couple quarts low and that I needed to remember to get regular oil changes. I always get my oil changes at the dealership, so when they pulled up the info, they saw that i get the oil changed about every 7500 miles - when the sensor says it's about 20%, which is what is recommended in the manual. I typically drive highway miles.

The dealership talked me into an oil flush and oil change which was about $350. Afterwards the car was running fine. Until my next oil change. It seems like a month after each oil change, I have this same issue - then we add a quart or 2 of oil to the engine and it runs fine until the next oil change. The dealership told me that I needed to check my oil every time I filled up for gas. I've never heard of such. It is certainly extremely annoying and I will never make the mistake of buying a Chevy again.

We purchased this car new for our college age daughter. We are finding that every 2000 miles, a quart of oil has to be added. The first time this happened we had virtually no oil in the car. We are religious about taking our vehicles in for servicing so we thought that the dealership had failed to put the correct amount of oil in the car. So we took it to Whitten Brother Chevrolet and had a really smart alec service manager - he told us that they did not make a mistake and that GM vehicles are designed to consume oil. Who is he kidding? We were told to come back in 2000 miles and see what the situation was. Today we returned to the service center after driving 2000 miles and sure enough the car is down a quart in oil. They have not idea what is the reason. They added a quart and will "consult" with GM. Now, we cannot take this car to our daughter at college as it is not reliable and needs to have the oil checked and refilled frequently. This is crazy for a new vehicle and the dealership has no idea here in Richmond, VA what to do. Any suggestions?

We purchased this car on 08/26/2010 new, on the 12/13/2010, the car had a strong ticking sound so I checked the engine oil and we discovered that the dip stick was completely dry, we added a quart of oil and still not registered on the deep stick.

We had service at the Lannan Chevrolet in Woburn ma on 12/14/2010, the service personal were rude and not helpful when we show concern. They checked the oil level and found that it was 2 quarts low with the quart that I added before service.

On January 9, 2011 less then a month late from the last service the dip stick is now half way down, using more gas and the ticking is louder.