I've been keeping my eye on my oil level since new, and last week at 13,000 miles, it looked very low just before a long journey. Unhelpfully the manual doesn't tell you which oil to use (it only gives a part number) so I left it until I could contact the dealer. 200 miles later the oil warning lamp went on.

Having found the right oil to use (5w 30 fully synth, btw) I filled it up and it took a whole litre. That seems a heck of a lot on a new engine. There are no signs of any oil leaks. The dealer thought useage was too high but couldn't ascertain why.

Anyone got any ideas?

I've been keeping my eye on my oil level since new, and last week at 13,000 miles, it looked very low just before a long journey. Unhelpfully the manual doesn't tell you which oil to use (it only gives a part number) so I left it until I could contact the dealer. 200 miles later the oil warning lamp went on.

Having found the right oil to use (5w 30 fully synth, btw) I filled it up and it took a whole litre. That seems a heck of a lot on a new engine. There are no signs of any oil leaks. The dealer thought useage was too high but couldn't ascertain why.

Anyone got any ideas?

I don't think that 1 litre 0n 13000 miles is excessive ?? My 1.8TSI Octavia would use that amount and I have heard about higher consumption figures than that claimed to be "normal"

Without wanting to be rude, if you were monitoring it from new and saw the level dropping... it may have been a good idea to find out which oil it uses and put some in before it needed a litre?

Or was it a quite sudden drop?

Having found the right oil to use (5w 30 fully synth, btw) I filled it up and it took a whole litre. That seems a heck of a lot on a new engine. There are no signs of any oil leaks. The dealer thought useage was too high but couldn't ascertain why.

Anyone got any ideas?

I have had this with VAG cars before, use a lot of oil until they have done a few thousand miles and then use nothing between services.

I think the 'problem' is the lubricating efficiancy of the oil, with fully synthethic oil there is very little wear, so of course it takes much longer for piston rings etc to bed in and form a tight seal.

On BMW Motorcycles they put a semi synthetic oil in initially so that the rings bed in faster, they recomend that a fully sythetic oil is not used until after a couple of oil changes, then the oil consumption stops and all is well.

(Mods anychance of a spell checker on this site, I'm sure my spelling of 'efficiancy' looks wrong !!!)

I wouldn't describe 1 litre in 13,000 miles as excessive when you consider that VAG car manuals say that anything up to 1 litre per 1000 miles is normal and there are lots of threads on here started by folk who are using much more than you.

Have done 6500 miles in my 1.8TSI Octavia and put in half a litre at 5000 miles to bring it back to max - I am perfectly happy with that. My last 1.9TDI Octavia used a little less - about half a litre every 7-8000 miles.

(Mods anychance of a spell checker on this site, I'm sure my spelling of 'efficiancy' looks wrong !!!)

Look at the top right of the reply window - a tick with ABC above it...

Needs a download though

BTW it is "efficiency"

my 1.2 has used 4 litres in 9000 miles'..dealer says there is nothing wrong and no leaks!..car was run in as recomended...not happy as in 26 yrs of driving ive never had any car/motorbike use oil like this.....car is due its forst service soon so will see what happens then

High oil consumption at first seems to be the norm now, and not just with Skoda. If anyone listened to the BBC 1 consumer programme earlier in the week there was a statement from Vauxhall saying they thought 1000 miles per pint quite normal.

And I know that Ford are the same, as are Toyota.

Without wanting to be rude, if you were monitoring it from new and saw the level dropping... it may have been a good idea to find out which oil it uses and put some in before it needed a litre?

Or was it a quite sudden drop?

Yes, it was a pretty sudden drop. Dealer thought that the ECU may have run engine rich for a short period for some reason, but he wasn't sure.

A point to beware of is that the part number for the oil on a 1.2TSi on variable servicing is "VW 50400", which almost made me make the error of assuming it was 5W 40 oil, but is in fact 5W 30!! (5W 40 is used for 1.2's running a fixed service interval and is part number "VW 50200").

And there is now a bottle of 5W 30 stored in the boot!

Edited 28 April, 201115 yr by Abominable