After washing the car today i thought i do my checks and found one tire had lost 0.05 bars of pressure and after topping up the screen wash checked my oil level to find it was 25% above min. Luckily i had a 75% full one litre bottle sat in the garage so topped it up. Knew it been sat at around 75% for a while, looks like the 3 return trips to newbury on the backroads might have contributed to a drop in oil levels.

from other threads on here I gather its not uncommon for the vRS TFSi to be rather thirsty on oil, mine certainly was so considering your engine is the same minus a turbo, im not suprised,

you'd think VAG with this long life oil and variable service they could produce an engine that didn't consume large amounts of oil, whats the point in long life oil if all your going to do is replace it between services? :P

You might also find that the owner's manual says to check the oil after you've switched off your engine and waited a few minutes i.e. engine oil is hot. Oil expands when it is hot and will give a greater reading on the dipstick. Conversely, when the oil is cold, the level will appear lower which may lead some people to overfill their engines by thinking they need to add oil when in fact, they do not...

you'd think VAG with this long life oil and variable service they could produce an engine that didn't consume large amounts of oil, whats the point in long life oil if all your going to do is replace it between services? :P

Naah - it allows them to claim 21000000 miles between oil changes because it's actuallly completely replaced every 500 miles by stealth

D

You might also find that the owner's manual says to check the oil after you've switched off your engine and waited a few minutes i.e. engine oil is hot. Oil expands when it is hot and will give a greater reading on the dipstick. Conversely, when the oil is cold, the level will appear lower which may lead some people to overfill their engines by thinking they need to add oil when in fact, they do not...

I'll need to have a look at that.

I've always thought to check the levels on the car when it's cold. How do you know at what point to check? You'd never get the same point every time.

Day to day temperature changes on a cold engine will be 10C and probably less. You could be out by 60C trying to guess the temp of a warm engine.

I have to admit, it is rather vague and I've always traditionally checked oil when cold, but the manual does say after keying off and waiting a few minutes. Your observation about not knowing the actual oil temperature when "warm" is a good one.

Maybe a Skoda official could clarify?

I understand that you can check oil 5 minutes after switching the engine off (??) Its allways best to check oil in a cold engine on a flat surface, just my humble opppinion of course.................................

It's best to check oil levels a few minutes after the engine is switched off, and yes a flat surface would help

i was always told to check whilst cold as the oil when youve just driven is still coated around engine parts and has a while before it reaches the sump again.

TBH, it doesn't take more than a couple of minutes before 99.9% of the oil is back in the sump (especiall when it's hot and thinner), so as long as you don't check the oil as soon as you've keyed off, it's fine.

As long as the oil is somewhere between min and max and the car is on level ground (or thereabouts), I wouldn't lose any sleep re: the oil expanding/contracting with temperature

These min/max markers are never absolutely critical. If they were, the hard shoulders of motorways would be full of cars, even ones that have just been dealer-serviced (often slightly overfilled in my experience, although I've not had a Skoda service yet...).

Modern long-life oils are MUCH thinner than those of old. I remember putting something like 20 W50 in my old Triumph Dolly. The VAG long-life oil is 5 W30, hence why it tends to weep more. Get yourself a 5 litre bottle at the next service (works out much cheaper than 5 x 1 litre top-ups) and should last a fair while - mileage dependant !

Anyone else think the new style plastic dipstick is utter crap? It's shiny black and too thin so you really struggle to see where the oil is up to accurately. The fatter, flat metal one in my PD105 was much better.

Edited 29 April, 200917 yr by wega3k

Lubricating oil can have a thermal expansion co-efficient of 0.0006 per degC.

This means that for 5L of oil, a temperature increase of 50degC increases the volume of oil by 150ml.

Steve

On the dipstick, what's the difference between the upper and lower marks ? My previous manual stated that 1L of oil took the level from the lower mark to the top, I can't find anything in the Skoda Manual.

Agree with Wega3K - the dipstick is crap - I mean, only a dipstick would make a black dipstick to measure a black liquid

D

my dipstick isnt black. from what i read from min to max is 1litre