Is there any lasting damage? I drove car today but it was completely empty of oil

My car 15 years old, burns slight oil and I add more oil about once a month with engine oil.
Checked oil a few days back- fine.

Went Knowsley Safari Park today, Que was HUGE, a lot of stop/start thus burning more oil and car getting hotter.
as we were driving through the Lion enclosure the car began to shudder then stall, I started it back up and strong burning followed but I had to keep driving and couldn't get out the car until we were back in the car park. My car probably stalled about 15 times to the end of Safari to car park near entrance.
Popped open bonnet, checked dipstick with engine warm, completely empty of oil, maybe 0.5 % of oil in there. I asked a man and woman if they had any oil and they did and gave me some so I topped it up, then I left the car for about 30 mins to cool down and then drove home. car stalled a few times when driving at high speeds but only a few times, I managed to get home okay but I am wondering if my car will have suffered any internal engine damage as a result?

Reply 1

shaymarriott

Could have done... Still firing on all (4?) cylinders?

Reply 2

CurlyBen

Yes. Sorry to say, but if your engine was running that badly for that length of time then there's virtually no chance you've not done serious damage to it. I can sympathise - I made a bit of a rash choice when buying a car last year, which had been run very low on oil. Despite topping it up before it was completely empty and the pressure gauge (which I'll admit I'm now quite dubious of) constantly showing pressure, the big end bearings failed about 150 miles later.
Realistically, you're probably looking at engine rebuild or replacement. There are a few things you could possibly try first, but given that it stalled repeatedly and you drove it for quite a while afterwards you're probably wasting your time.
How much oil did you manage to put in? I assume it wasn't back up to the correct level?

Reply 3

RyanAir

Original post by CurlyBen

Hi.

My car drives fine when it is working, it pulls through each gear perfect and clutch is superb.
the engine itself seems fine but it is constantly stalling and unsteady. what about if I spray the electrical things under the hood with WD40 and clean the EGR valve with EGR cleaner?

Reply 4

JC.

If you drain the oil out of an engine, start it and run it at max revs it'll last about 2 minutes before the oil residue is displaced from the bearing surfaces and it then eats itself.

If there really was no oil circulating over the bearings you've severely shortened it's life if not killed it completely.

Reply 5

CurlyBen

Original post by RyanAir

Hi.

My car drives fine when it is working, it pulls through each gear perfect and clutch is superb.

the engine itself seems fine but it is constantly stalling and unsteady. what about if I spray the electrical things under the hood with WD40 and clean the EGR valve with EGR cleaner?

JC.

If you drain the oil out of an engine, start it and run it at max revs it'll last about 2 minutes before the oil residue is displaced from the bearing surfaces and it then eats itself.

You'll get damage before that though, as the bearings go from hydrodynamic to boundary lubrication due to the oil being displaced - though I know you're not saying running without oil for up to 2 minutes is fine!
(I realise there's quite an irony to me commenting on this - in the end I found a scrapyard that would take the engine out of my car and put one from another scrapper in for a price that made it worthwhile!)</span>

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 6

JC.

Original post by CurlyBen

Then you'd have WD40 (which isn't a particularly good contact cleaner) on your electrical components, and a clean EGR valve! Electrical components won't be affected by running low on lube oil. Is your engine making a knocking noise?

You'll get damage before that though, as the bearings go from hydrodynamic to boundary lubrication due to the oil being displaced - though I know you're not saying running without oil for up to 2 minutes is fine!
(I realise there's quite an irony to me commenting on this - in the end I found a scrapyard that would take the engine out of my car and put one from another scrapper in for a price that made it worthwhile!)</span>

I suppose what I've written is a little ambiguous. It's at around the 2 minute mark that the engine in my scenario will grenade - it's starting to eat itself from a couple of seconds in to the process since the oil displaced from the bearings is not being replaced.

The point I was trying to convey to the OP is that there will almost certainly be some form of damage.
The minimum mark on a dipstick does tend to leave more margin for error than most people realise. At the very least the bearing surfaces will be protected for as long as the oil pick up pipe in the sump remains covered and this is typically well below the minimum mark on the dipstick. Although, I appreciate I'm ignoring the cooling properties of oil when making this point and focusing solely on the lubrication aspect. :wink:

Reply 7

CurlyBen

Original post by JC.

(I realise I'm preaching to the choir here, but it might be of interest to other people!)

As you say, ignoring cooling the bearings should be OK as long as the pump pickup is still submerged. Of course one of the problems with cars running low on oil is neglect of maintenance, so by the time it's down to that minimal level you don't so much have oil as some mixture of oil, combustion products and possibly metal shavings, which on its own can do a fair amount of damage. As far as I'm aware my car never actually exposed the pickup, there was certainly some oil still in the sump and the oil pressure gauge remained positive (though as the indicated pressure doesn't vary as the engine warms up I'm dubious of it's usefulness) but the bearings were still shot. Ironically, fresh oil may have brought the failure on a little earlier!

Funny you should mention the cooling properties of oil - at the moment I'm using engines which are entirely dependent on oil for their cooling!