2002 Protege5 oil burn
 

First off, I already know that this has been talked about on here but this is slightly different.

I have a 2002 Protege5 2.0 5speed. It runs great, no hesitation whatsoever, never sputters, never does anything out of the ordinary. But, it burns oil. You can smell it after the engine warms up if you lift the hood or the wind blows the right way but there is no smoke on start-up or while driving. There is also no leak that I have found. Never any on the ground after being parked. I currently have 10W-30 oil in it.

With no smoke it makes me think that it isn't the oil rings because that would burn the oil and push the smoke into the exhaust where I could see it. I've also checked the PCV and it seems to be in working order. My only thought is that it is dripping on the exhaust manifold and burning off because I can only smell it in the engine bay and not at the exhaust. At the same time this doesn't seem right because I think I would see smoke coming from the hood while driving or after stopping with the hood up.

I plan to pull the plugs this weekend for inspection, I just don't have the time right now.

Any insight to this would be great, thanks.

Change your PCV valve as I am sure no one has ever changed it, especially MAZDA (it's not on there list to check or change). Maybe your PCV valve hose ahas a crack in it as well. Maybe you are leaking oil on to the exhaust somewhere and it is burning off.

how much oil does it consume?
Are you sure it is oil and not coolant?

Since I first posted on here about a month ago, I haven't had to add any. I've changed the spark plugs and the pcv valve about 2 weeks ago and I checked the plugs recently and they still look nee.

So, its not consuming very much at all but the odor is still there. I plan on pulling the exhaust manifold and cleaning everything up and then if that doesn't take care of it I'll go from there.

And yes, I'm sure it's oil and not coolant.

consider power washing the engine:

Most common cause is the valve cover leaking onto the exhaust manifold. It's enough to smell it burning but not quite enough that your going to see smoke coming from under the hood.

After cleaning the engine it is easier to detect the leak.