i am sure my manual says its normal for the car to use upto a litre of oil every 1k miles... so by that logic if you do 12k miles a year you could be topping up every month! I've never had to top up my oil outside of its service interval... although it has now lost 1 bar on the oil guage since my service... which still due in 10k/ 1 years time.
Cutting out could be a lots of different reasons.... does the power cut out... from the battery to a dodgy fuel filter.