Sudden Dramatic Increase in Oil Consumption. Which things to check?

moogaloo

moogaloo

Member
Hi All,

I do about 400 miles a week so over 20K a year. My car is a 1.4TDI from 2001 and the current milage is 135K

I use longlife oil and am on variable servicing. (so far all from Audi)

Since buying the car second hand 3 years ago (it was on about 65K) I have had to top up with oil once every 3 months or so between services.

About 2 months ago I had the oil low warning light come on and topped it up as usual. Since then I have had to top it up once every 2 to 3 weeks.

The tip at the end of my dip stick is snapped of but I think the oil is genuinly low. I normally park in the same place at work every day and their is no black pool marking that space.

Another strange bit of info is that the warning light normally takes about 3 days to go away after topping up with oil.

I am no mechanic, but is there anything in particular I should tell the garage or is there anything else I can do to help diagnose this problem?

Thanks

Chris
 
Do you see blue smoke upon accelerating?

If your losing oil and there's no leak anywhere, then the only thing I can think of at the moment is that the rings etc are worn and it's burning it, hence asking about blue smoke.


Cheers

Sarge
 
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I have not noticed any blue smoke. I will try and pay more attention in case it is something I could possibly miss?

I have ordered a new dipstick so hopefully will soon be able to confim / deny the low oil for sure.
 
Hi Chris
Remove the bonnet and have a look round the engine bay for leaks. It may be something like a faulty rocker cover gasket or even a loose oil filler cap. The engine bay undertray may stop any oil drpping onto the road so masking the problem. I suspect the underside of the car would eventually get covered as oil collecting on the undertray would get blown around in the slipstream.

Cheers Spike
 
hmm.. could be a dodgy oil level sender(another member on here is having same problem). i would be carefull adding more oil untill you get a new dipstick,as you may be over filling it!
seems strange that the light takes a while to go out as it should go out as soon as oil level is up to the min.
hope you get it sorted soon mike
 
Definately No Blue Smoke when accelerating. I will take a look around under the bonnet and see if I can spot anything and also confirm the oil problem with a new dipstick and report back.
 
OK picked up a new dipstick at lunchtime. Checked the oil and it was belowed the hashed bit, so I have topped it up.

This was the last of the oil in my bottle. This means that since the oil light came on in late August I have used 5 Litres of oil! That's about 1/2 litre a week. Of course I can't be sure of my starting position in late August, so will monitor closely from now on.

I will also get the bonnet of over the weekend and have a look around

Cheers

Chris
 
I have the same problem, my 03 1.4 TDI drinks oil (70K miles), no leaks in engine bay, no obvious blue smoke. I do get a cloud of grey smoke if I thrash it away from a start, but have always assumed that this was just soot in the system...

Also don't get to wash the car as frequently but can't say the back of the car has a greater than normal build up of soot on it either...

Fortunately I've drastically reduced my milage in the last 2 years so the cost of oil isn't as high now!

But still confused as to where it's all going, if I had a cloud of smoke I'd at least have a hint!

Andrew
 
A top-up now and then is normal in PD engines, as they tend to "eat" their share of oil in the period between oil changes. By now and then i mean a maximum of 0.5L/10.000 miles. 5 liters in 3 months is normal only if you've traveled roughly 50.000 miles in this period, but i think that's not the case and you have either a turbo seal related problem, or something with your engine's segments.
It's worth to check the engine's undertray as it has a weird bubblewrap type of pattern on it and it could store the dripping oil when parked, and let it escape when in motion.
 
I'd say I'm doing 0.5ltr every 500 to 1000 miles... No oil on the under tray other than the grease from the CV joint that didn't have a clip on the outer edge of the boot... had the tray out yesterday to put a tie on the boot and it was clean & oil free, trust a dealer to have rebuilt the joint correctly...
 
Just had a look under the hood. I tried to peer through the engine to the tray underneath. I couldn't see any oil there. It looked grubby and I am sure if I ran my finger along it, it would come back black, but no actual liquid and it had been sitting still for about 3 hours.

I also re-checked my oil level it had dropped to half way down the chequered part of the dipstick. It was full to the max level when I topped up on Friday. Since then I have driven about 300 miles.

I don't get the hood of much but I did notice that there is an open topped round compartment with a pipe coming and going from it. Is this ok? Is there some kind of vented system here?

It was to the left of the coolant tank and about the same distance towards the front.

Time to take it to a garage or is there any more preinvestigation I should do first?
 
That could be the drain pipe, that collects the rain water from the went holes on the bonnet.
Your best bet is to take it to a garage and let them have a look at it, because you're experiencing quite an alarming oil loss.
 
Eerm :eek: I think I may have mad an error yesterday. Checked the oil today and it is still on maximum after about 370 miles. I can only imagine I didn't push the dip stick in far enough yesterday! Either that or I have a very strange problem.

I will keep an eye on the oil level for the next few days

Thanks

Chris
 
Try rotating the dipstick a couple of turns when fully inserted before you pull it up to check the level.
 
The coolant started disappearing at an alarming rate too. I took it to a garage to investigate all of this and it is the head gasket that has gone.

I think It may be the end of my relationship with my A2 and I may go for a lease car. However I need to know what is best to do now. I have post edelsewhere in the forum and here is the link to that discussion for the best course of action :-(
 
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Some other turbo charged charged cars I have seen on in the past have a 1-way breather pipe connecting the crank case to the inlet manifold. This I believe, draws burnt oil vapour back in to the engine to be burnt. If the valve sticks open the turbo boost pressure will draw oil in to the turbo, causing excess oil consumption.

So if the A2 has one of these I'd check it. It's usually a cheap part.

Failing that, have a compression test. That will identify whether the valves or piston rings are worn or not.

BTW Mercedes say that a Smart car can burn up to 1 L of oil in 10000km.
 
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