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Thank you, very useful advice. I checked online, and looks like the way to check for diesel in oil is to wipe the dipping stick on some paper, and if there is a differently shaded circle around the central circle, then there is diesel in the oil. I'm afraid if this methodology is true, then this confirms your suspicion - looks like there is diesel in the oil. I guess the best course of action now is to stop driving the car until the oil change to avoid wear of the engine. Is there a serious underlying mechanical issue, or can this be caused by eg. reckless driving style?

Another thing to add - the weather over here has been extremely moist recently. There has not been a day in the last three weeks where I did not find a large amount of condensation of my car in the morning. Maybe that could be a factor?

1.6 TDI 81KW 100 400 km i'm not sure what oil was used exactly, but it was done at an authorized service center a little bit more than a year ago. I can call them to dig it up if you are really interested. A rough estimate - it was about 5000 - 6000 km ago. Can't remember what value they set it to a year ago, but when they were servicing the car 3 months ago, they told me the car does not need an oil change for another year (so basically two years from the last oil change). However they did not reset the counter.

While originally my oil change was foreseen in ~half a year from now, two days ago I got a premature notification to change it in 28 days - so I booked an oil change in a month from now. As I was driving around yesterday (nothing dramatic, just to work and back), the day count indication to change oil started reducing extremely fast - to give you an idea, it is now down to "Change the oil in 6 days" after driving ~6km over two days. So the counter reduced by 22 days instead of 2. I checked the oil level manually and it was nominal. The check engine light is not on. Any idea what could be causing this? Since my oil change is in a month from now, what should be my course of action? Reduce usage of the car, or do not use it at all? Or even try to regenerate the DPF?

Just reuploading the image in a better resolution and embeddable format:

Another update. I went to another (unauthorized) repair shop to get a second opinion. I just asked them to verify if the engine is okay for a 1000km journey. They did verify that everything is okay for such a journey but did not manage to locate the source of the power drop or the new raspy engine noise. They found the tube which caused the original problem in the first place though. It was left there by the previous repair shop. It was definitely chewed by a rodent. Here is a picture: b6ebed64-c291-407e-82bf-a8f953cea2d8.jfif Anyone has an idea what is the role of this tube, exactly? And what damage I could have done to my engine (that does not show up in diagnostics) after driving for about 30km to the repair shop in limp mode caused by this?

So just an update. I have taken it to an authorized car repair shop in Geneva. It was a torn "turbo pressure hose" (? - not sure about the terminology here, since there was quite the language barrier). The bill mentions: Verification of the turbo Dismounting and remounting of the air filter Replacement of the pressure hose All this came up to a whopping 235 CHF (Geneva prices...) However, the car is still not okay. While the MIL and glow plug lights are gone and the car is out of limp mode, it has not gained back all of its original power. A lot of acceleration has been lost, especially at higher speeds. I went to test it out on the highway and it feels like I can barely achieve 140 km/h with best efforts (down from no problem to get to 170). The car basically becomes a slug above 70km/h. Furthermore, a rattle can now be heard from the engine. I have uploaded the sound here: I am scheduled to go back home (1000km) in a couple of days and I am quite stressed out about this. Anyone able to identify the sound? Would it be the better decision to take it for (very expensive) repairs here to Geneva, or go back home and get it repaired there? Can it even last that long? Will other parts get damaged? And is it safe?

Thanks for the replies, guys. I just drove it again and it seems that limp mode has been engaged now. I will be refraining from driving it anywhere but the car repair shop from now. I am currently in Geneva, Switzerland, so I sure as hell hope that this is something minor...

After startup (not sure if this is of relevance, but it was after a rainy night). I got the glow plug light flashing and a start-stop system fault message. It does not feel like the car is in limp mode, nor do I feel an even minor decrease in power or anything else out of the ordinary, such as vibration or sounds. After one or two more startups with this problem, the MIL light was turned on as well. Scouring these forums, I found a host of issues that it could be (I did check my brake lights, they are okay) and of course the next step for me is to get the OBD read-out. I am visiting a car repair shop in four days, but my question is - can I use the car until then without risking any damage to the engine? I do need it quite badly. Let's say within the range of 60-70km total before I get it diagnosed. This is 1.6 TDI, 81 KW, made in 2016. 96000 km, serviced regularly every year (last one was 6 months ago).