Hi, my 2000 fabia 1.4 16v has been losing oil for a few months now but has got really bad over the past coulple of months, burning a whole tank in a month then have lost nearly half a tank the past week. I took it to my local garage last friday and the bloke told me to fill it up with cheap oil, check the dipstick everyday and bring it back in 2 weeks time. I didnt fill it up as i knew i may as well be burning the money myself i instead put the rest of the oil i had left which was exactly halfway on the dipstick. i faithfully checked it every morning before I set off on my 33 mile journey to work and soon relised it was going through it very quickly indeed. i took it back to the same garage today and saw the man who ownes the place. He took the airbox off and fiddle with the breather pipe wile the engine was running and told me to book it in and he would run a pressure test etc.

He told me the chances are the engine has had it, mentioned something about piston rings, re-bored and a few other things i vaugly understand. He said it is a problem with these particular vw engines when the hit so many miles and has seen many 1.4 golfs with the same problem which have had to have new engines fitted. He said that the engine could be reconditioned but that would not be an economical or viable solution. The first bloke mentioned something called Top End Treatment and the owner said a new engine would be around £1200-1300 for the engine alone nevermind labour to fit it.'t have a warranty or anything on it.

The car only cost me £1100 with the part ex of a broken corsa when i bought it in feburary.

Has anyone heard of this problem before?

I only know one person with a 1.4 golf who has had this problem

I do not have the money to put a brand new engine in it and would like to try to avoid buying a new car

Please help me and suggest what I should do

Edited 2 October, 200916 yr by OoJKoO

Common issue unfortunatly and it is most likely the piston rings.

As I see it (mine is the same) it's cheaper to keep pouring oil into the engine than replace it. Oil at ~£7 (wilco FTW!) will get you about 170 cans of oil for the cost of your engine. Assuming thats 170 months worth, or 14 years, it think it's worth doing and running the rest of the car into the ground. Certainly what I intend to do until I am done with uni and have a better job.

Other options are to do the pistons rings, ~£600 from memory, or an different engine off eBay or a breakers, again ~£600 (exc. labour).

HTH, Joe

How much oil are these engines supposed to use when in a healthy state?

If it is the piston rings, your main worry will be MOT time, as worn piston rings will cause high CO2 levels and it will fail. Mine failed old 1.4 16v 100bhp failed its MOT on this and it cost £300 for a new cat to get it thru.

Worn piston rings common on those engines. MOT fail will be on high HC levels.

Thanks for the replies

That oil is ~£7 from where sorry?

I need it to be as cheap as possible seeing as its going through it so quickly.

Will the problem get worse if i leave it and just keep topping the oil up?

If you do a search, you will see that a thorough clean of the crankcase breather system may well sort it out, cost zero.

Thanks for the replies

That oil is ~£7 from where sorry?

I need it to be as cheap as possible seeing as its going through it so quickly.

Will the problem get worse if i leave it and just keep topping the oil up?

I got it from Wilkinson (Search Results at Wilkinson Plus) althought its nearer £9 now, but still not too bad. They also have shops as well as online.

On my last MOT (July, at 96,000 miles) I had a reading of 0.00% CO2, and 25ppm/200ppm for HC levels. However, true useful that is I dunno, as yours could be more worn that mine.

How much oil are these engines supposed to use when in a healthy state?

Our 100BHP AFK engine uses next to no oil.

If you do a search, you will see that a thorough clean of the crankcase breather system may well sort it out, cost zero.

Thanks, i will look into that

Check the crankcase breather system first as stated above.

It could be valve stem wear rather than piston rings, that would be a cylinder head refurb which would cost in the low hundreds. You need to ask for a compression test to be conducted to establish whether it is piston ring wear. Also look under the engine and check for silly things like a leaking sump gasket (underside of engine/floorpan will be covered liberally in oil, drops of oil left on road/drive) - note this leakage can be caused by blocked breather system which causes the crankcase to become pressurised.

Temporary solution for worn rings/valves: use the thickest oil you can find, if you use 20/60 you will probably find oil consumption halved or more and the rate of deteriation will be reduced - however this spec oil is usually expensive and your fuel economy will suffer slightly. 20/50 will do, avoid 15/40 or thinner.

Edited 3 October, 200916 yr by skodakid

If you have used thin synthetic oil it might consume quite a bit if it's high mileage, so try what skodakid suggested: thicker oil. Also use Super Petrol RON 98, don't know if it helps with the oil, but is the recommended one for this engine, and some people suggest that the piston rings wearing is related with the use of normal petrol.

Thanks, its been a while since i checked this but i took it to the garage on friday and mentioned the crankcase breather system. i did check underneath the car, nothing to be found there. The bloke with the garage ad a look at the breather system and cleaned it out for me and he also found loads of white deposits on the spark plugs which he cleand up. He said he found oil in the engie and he thought it was the piston rings. He advised me to buy some lucas oil stabliser and some slightly thicker oil so i bought a bottle from a local place and some 15w/40 oil. I poured the whole blottle of oil stabliser in as was reccomended and topped it up with the oil. I also used shell v-power fuel, although I admit it was by accident haha.

I noticed a slight increase in power after I/the garage had done the above but haven't had chance to see how this effected the oil consumption as I only drove it monday and tuesday then solved the problem yesterday when I wrote it off on a notorious rounabout near where I live on my way to work that morning.

A mixture of the road surface, the wetness, possible diesel on the road and me not taking these into account made me understeer/ not steer at all straight up the curb which buckled both fron wheels, snapped the driveshaft, broke the steering and the suspension. I can now add myself to the long list of people who have crashed there, of the 4 bollards whcich were next to te roundabout there there are now none left standing. I passed by the place toady and there were workers resufacing the road which I am pleased about, if only they had done it before I wrote my car off there and it might not have happened.

weve had the same problem with our 1.4 16v fabia originally it started using oil and smoking bad on start up diagnosed it as valve stem oil seals had the seals done as well as a new head gasket cam belt ect stopped the smoking on start up but was still using oil my question is crank case breather where is it and how do you clean it also did this oil stabaliser work i put a pice of A4 under the exhaust and rev ved the car once= soot on the paper my golf there is nothing so its definatly burning oil

I have the same car with the same problem....

Right now wondering what to do :S

W reg Skoda Fabia 1.4 16v drinking oil like its going out of fashion. Some white gunk on oil cap and in crank case breather hose.

I'm not losing any coolant as far as I can tell. Ive also recently been having intermittant trouble starting when warm and

motor has recently been driven, but only occasionaly.

Any advice about what I should/could do greatfully received.

By the way any good and inexpensive garages in the middlesex area?

Thanks

Paul

I think maybe you should check also the oil separator which can in time get stucked with gunk. It should have a valve on it, it is a black box on the back of the engine. If it is the AUB engine then there is a pipe wich is going to the air filter from it that you already checked. In the BBZ engine the hose is going from the oil separator to the air intake. And there is another pipe that is going from the air filter to the head.

I think maybe you should check also the oil separator which can in time get stucked with gunk. It should have a valve on it, it is a black box on the back of the engine. If it is the AUB engine then there is a pipe wich is going to the air filter from it that you already checked. In the BBZ engine the hose is going from the oil separator to the air intake. And there is another pipe that is going from the air filter to the head.

Thanks mate,

Could you explain in any more detail or provide links on how I should remove/clean said oil seperator?

Many Thanks

Paul

Sorry, I can't help you too much, I think probably is accesible from underneath and is quite common with other 1.4 VW engines, I think I saw a VW one, was kept in place with two screws, and there were some small passages for the oil to come back which were blocked

I have the same car with the same problem....

Right now wondering what to do :S

W reg Skoda Fabia 1.4 16v drinking oil like its going out of fashion. Some white gunk on oil cap and in crank case breather hose.

I'm not losing any coolant as far as I can tell. Ive also recently been having intermittant trouble starting when warm and

motor has recently been driven, but only occasionaly.

Any advice about what I should/could do greatfully received.

By the way any good and inexpensive garages in the middlesex area?

Thanks

Paul

I just got rid of my Fabia 1.4i 16v 2001MY 70k. Have had similar probs with oil loss, engine management light on with occaisional EPC warning. I personally couldn't rely on the car, so just decided to cut my losses.

I'm not willing to spend over a £1000 on getting piston rings fixed. £1000 can buy me something more reliable. I've owned two VAG cars, an Audi A4 (head gasket) and a Skoda Fabia and both have had engine problems with both. Sticking with Japanese cars from now on.

The white gunk is coolant, the oil probably won't get into the coolant.

If you drive it every day there won't be as much gunk on the oil cap. I found that staying away from motorway driving, i.e. overall lower engine speed you won't lose hardly any oil. After a motorway run, I could lose 1/2 litre.

Edited 29 June, 201016 yr by zool0

i have a fabia 1.4 16v aub engine.just did the head gasket valve stem seals skimmed head .

car starts fine just getting smoke coming from breather pipe thast goes to the air filter housing from a

blackbox at the back of the engine.

Can anyone please suggest and resolve this smoking issue from this pipe

thankyou

i have a fabia 1.4 16v aub engine.just did the head gasket valve stem seals skimmed head .

car starts fine just getting smoke coming from breather pipe thast goes to the air filter housing from a

blackbox at the back of the engine.

Can anyone please suggest and resolve this smoking issue from this pipe

thankyou

 

It's supposed to do that, if it wasn't smoking from that pipe it would mean that the breather box was blocked.

Mine is 1,2 engine but I think we av talking about the same problems....

The most easy solution is to use Classic mineral 20w50 oil. I have good experiences with that in other engines.

The other solution is to make a vacuum in the crankcase. 

The normal workshop talk about crankcase breather system. But they try to repair in the worn end! Repair the valve and so on. The valve is only to not get to much vacuum!

what you have to do is limit the air from the air filter! I used a self made inductor in the tube and get 0,15 bar vacuum in the crankcase. That will limit the oil flowing ut in the cylinders! If you think twice you will understand.

Please send me a feedback on this? Money can also work!

Then we know how this two thing is working?

I did a lot of thing, but deeper repair...

Se my tread:

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/391355-oil-consumption/

 

My engine is goes as new now and use nearly the same as my 1,4 Skoda Fabia engine.

 

My engine is work well now. 

It use about 0,3 litre on 1000 km. That with 10W40 oil. But I will go for 20W50 when Im ready with the experiences.

Then I will have about 0,2 litre on 1000 km I think? And I´m satisfied. 

Edited 9 April, 201610 yr by Torbo

It's supposed to do that, if it wasn't smoking from that pipe it would mean that the breather box was blocked.

Hi thx for reply. It smokes so that when I connect it to air filter and close bonnet it finds its way out and seems like somethings on fire under the bonnet. Should it smoke that much and the cause. Can I reduce it some way. Remember head done new stem seals skimmed,valves seated thanks mate

Are you sure you haven't spilled oil on the exhaust manifold when you took the head off and now it's just burning off?