My trusty old Fabia 16V uses oil, and this gets burned, and this leads the O2 sensor to throw up a fault - "too rich" and this leans out the fuel mix, and leaves the engine light on. So, if anything else goes wrong, I don't know about it. I was thinking of removing the 02 sensor from the manifold, blanking off the hole, and let the sensor breathe fresh air...

Will this work?

Quite simply, no.

"Fresh air" is even leaner

An O2 sensor monitors the ammount of oxygen in the exhaust flow, there's more oxygen in fresh air so it'd still throw a wobbly...

Kev

From an environmental perspective, an engine rebuild would be a better idea. Might just be valve stem oil seals.

I would take the car to an MOT station and get the emissions tested, also if it's the 100bhp version don't use standard unleaded, use super unleaded (as recommened)

Maybe an oil additive like 'Stop Smoke' which thickens up the oil might help - just don't go revving the nuts off it then!!

Isn't this oil consumption normally caused by the failure of piston rings?

So, wouldn't new piston rings fix it?

RE piston rings I was told by a highly reputed member on here that the prevent them from failing you need to 'thrash it' occasionally, as it prevents carbon build up which forces the rings apart allowing the oil problems.

Nope, my old car had worn piston rings, I found out a possible cause of this is the fuel you use, to get 100bhp from 1.4 VW recommends super unleaded (98 ron), not standard unleaded (95 ron).

PS. I was quoted by a local engine specialist £485 to fix the problem

The oil consumption is not very excessive, but it is on the top end of "normal" according to my dealer. The emissions are low. Oil residues get onto the sensor, apparently, and it then flags a fault after about a week of use, resetting the fault codes lasts one journey. The problem has been constant for 30,000 miles now - so I've been advised that an engine rebuild is uneconomic, as the car is worth so little anyway, but its useful for the day a week we use it. I was hoping that fresh air would keep the ECU happy as its looking for low O2 levels as being a "fault". I'll try the stop smoke stuff - didn't know it still existed!