The Student Room Group

Does my car have a ridiculously high oil consumption??

I was in my friend's car last night, and I asked him how often he did his, and he said he's never done it? :zomg: He drives a VW Golf MK5. He said he just gets it serviced every 6K miles or so.

I drive a Peugot 307 right, I've driven it for lets say a month, I think I topped it at least three times?

- First time was a few days after buying it was completely empty, it ran fine but had a loud revving noise.

- About two weeks later, my car started playing immmediately when I got in, stalling, hardly accelerating, thought it was messed up, but my mum told me put in oil and it was perfectly fine again.

- And I topped it about two weeks after that before a long journey just to be on the safe side..

Am I just over-cautious or does it sound like something I may need to get checked out?

Also, the engine light never came on when the oil was low thinking back... Which is a little alarming.

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Check where you park it overnight to check it's not leaking; the car shouldn't need an oil change more than once a year.. So a leak is more likely.
Engine lights are for engine faults, you might have an oil pressure gauge, or oil warning light (might be temperature) which you can use to determine if your running low.

As for your car, I'd suspect it has a leak. Modern cars shouldn't need that much oil (unless they're rx-8s or defenders).
Reply 3
My car is 12 years old, I've owned it almost three years and I don't think I've ever put oil in it.
Reply 4
Yep, definitely sounds like a leak to me. I've owned my Peugeot 207 for two years and haven't yet used even half a bottle of oil on it.
Reply 5
Original post by TheBritishBloke
Check where you park it overnight to check it's not leaking; the car shouldn't need an oil change more than once a year.. So a leak is more likely.

Original post by Fuzzed_Out
Engine lights are for engine faults, you might have an oil pressure gauge, or oil warning light (might be temperature) which you can use to determine if your running low.

As for your car, I'd suspect it has a leak. Modern cars shouldn't need that much oil (unless they're rx-8s or defenders).

Hmm, I don't think I've ever noticed a leak, my mum also suggested this, but I haven't seen any patches...

I'll give it a closer look I suppose.
Also when the car has warmed up, check the colour of the exhaust smoke, if it's blueish then you might be burning oil. Which is bad.
Reply 7
Are you putting the right grade of oil into it?

Check the exhaust, is it full of black soot? Then chances are you're burning engine oil due to worn piston rings or too much carbon build-up.
Reply 8
Some cars do consume a fair bit of oil.
The manual for my car states that normal operation will consume 1L of oil per 620 miles! So that's every two times I fill the tank up, I need to top the oil up from min to max. Check your manual to see what is normal.
Reply 9
Original post by The_Goose
My car is 12 years old, I've owned it almost three years and I don't think I've ever put oil in it.


I would change your oil and filters ASAP or be drinking Coke out of the block in 6 months time if you get my drift...
Original post by Landie_Man
I would change your oil and filters ASAP or be drinking Coke out of the block in 6 months time if you get my drift...


It got serviced once, would that have happened then? I never have to top up extra oil or anything,
Reply 11
Original post by Fuzzed_Out
Engine lights are for engine faults, you might have an oil pressure gauge, or oil warning light (might be temperature) which you can use to determine if your running low.

As for your car, I'd suspect it has a leak. Modern cars shouldn't need that much oil (unless they're rx-8s or defenders).


Hey hey hey! What's up with all the Defender hatin' :tongue: My Defender never leaked oil, although admittedly it had an Iveco lump in it rather than the original 200Tdi.

My Morris Minor used to go through about 4L/1000 miles roughly, it loved the stuff. My current mk3 Golf never uses oil at all though, although it does drop coolant slightly over long runs sometimes.

OP, every time you let the oil go below min on the stick then you'll be pushing your luck in terms of letting the oil drop below the pickup pipe that goes to the oil pump. Once that happens, the engine stops being fed with oil and starts to wear excessively, causing more oil loss, and the cycle continues.
Original post by Nuffles
Hey hey hey! What's up with all the Defender hatin' :tongue: My Defender never leaked oil, although admittedly it had an Iveco lump in it rather than the original 200Tdi.

My Morris Minor used to go through about 4L/1000 miles roughly, it loved the stuff. My current mk3 Golf never uses oil at all though, although it does drop coolant slightly over long runs sometimes.

OP, every time you let the oil go below min on the stick then you'll be pushing your luck in terms of letting the oil drop below the pickup pipe that goes to the oil pump. Once that happens, the engine stops being fed with oil and starts to wear excessively, causing more oil loss, and the cycle continues.


One of my best mates, an avid defender lover says you should worry when it stops leaking because there isn't any left!
Reply 13
So it's either leaking it or burning it.

All engines use oil to some degree. Check it once a week and keep a note of how much you have to put in.
Reply 14
Yeh my S2k engine burns a litre every thousand miles. Keep track of it and then you will know what is normal. If it goes above the trend then you know its either time to change the oil or you have bigger problems.

Although, I would suggest it is unusual for a lazy French engine to be burning that amount of oil...
Reply 15
If you run an engine low enough on oil that it won't rev properly, that's because it's beginning to seize. This causes irreversible engine damage.

If it was leaking that much oil you'd have noticed it, I had a range rover for a while, the puddles **** you off before the oil level drops to any noticeable degree. Land rovers leak, they kind of mark their territory.

Anyway, I'm guessing that since it appears to be consuming alot of oil it's probably breathing quite heavily, take it for a drive until warm and remove the oil filler cap while it's running, some cars splash a bit of oil out which is normal, there if there's alot of oil mist then that's not good. You shouldn't be seeing mist / steam / smoke out of the oil filler cap on a healthy engine (Well not a visible amount)

Why didn't you check the oil and water when you bought it? Low oil level and especially old oil bottles in the boot is a very bad sign.

A modern car engine shouldn't use any oil between services, you should keep a regular check but only really expect to have to top up when you're reaching very high miles (150k or more) and even then, a well serviced engine will last in excess of 200k miles without noticeable oil consumption.

Realistically speaking a litre of oil between services is on the heavy side.. topping up most weeks to keep it running means you've either got a serious leak or you need an engine rebuild.
Reply 16
If it is not leaking it, then it is burning it. Is there any loss at all in performance?

My Astra used to burn a litre every week due to either worn valve seals / piston rings. The oil clogged the spark plugs and it ran like crap unless I cleaned them every couple of days.

Got shot of it very quickly!
Reply 17
Just because an engine burns a bit of oil doesn't mean it's goosed. :rolleyes:
Yeah I get through a gallon of the stuff in a few weeks, but as me and JC discussed, it runs beautifully so keep topping it up with cheap Wilkinsons ****e and when it comes to doing a full change, use top quality stuff, with ****e to hand for top ups!
Reply 19
^ Use cheap mineral oil as a subsitute for the usual high detergent flushing oils on dirty flat tappet engines.
You do more harm than good otherwise. :wink:

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