My car is burning oil is there a way to tell if its valve seals or the rings?

Check your smoke from your tail pipe....Black is burning oil and white smoke busted head gasket burning up water.My car is burning oil is there a way to tell if its valve seals or the rings?
Valve seals--Smoke when first started


Rings--Smoke all the time.


check your pcv system.My car is burning oil is there a way to tell if its valve seals or the rings?
Valve stem seals will leak oil when the engine is off...., a minute or so after the engine is started..... that oil will be burned off and won't leak until its shut down again.
The real test is to take out a plug, screw a compression Gage into the hole, crank the engine and check the compression, remove Gage, squirt some heavy motor oil into the hole, replace the Gage and recheck the compression, IF the compression reading is higher then the 1st reading then it means the oil you squirted into the cylinder has temporarily sealed the rings and you have bad rings, if there is no change in compression pressure then the valve seals or guides are leaking, generally speaking if you are burning oil you need a new motor or car.
Valve seals will smoke some when first starting the vehicle and then clear up in a few minutes of operation. If tyhe rings are bad the car will smoke almost continuously and with hard acceleration. The oil smoke from both of these should be a light blue colored smoke. Overload of fuel is usually black sooty smoke and head gasket smoke is white steamy smoke.
Sure, start it up and drive it. If it only smokes when it's cold, then your valve seals are bad. If it smokes all of the time it's most likely your rings. Do a compression check. If compression is low, you know for sure. Oil burning in excess will eventually burn exhaust valves. Usually just one but it needs to be fixed to prevent further damage. Good luck.
My 93 GMC Safari van blows smoke when it starts sometimes. Its called Chevy smoke reffering to the type of smoke thats prone when valve stem seals go bad in the Chevy engines.
hmmm well a compression tester might help if its got low compression most likely its the rings