hi all and happy new year........i have a yr 2000 vw golf 1.4 16v with low milage of 28,000,it seams to use quite a lot of oil,roughly 1/4 litre per 1500 miles is this normal :wonder:

Max allowed is 1 litre per 600 miles before its considered excessive.

Prob burning a bit, rings are common issue on the 1.4.

yes those engines are well known for premature piston ring wear/failure..

edit: haha beat me to it :-)

ah........ok,not realy what i wanted to hear but thank you both....i am surprised at that from vw,german engineering and all that,especially from such a low milage car.i`ll keep an eye on the oil consumption and log exactly what its using as iam only guessing at moment :wonder: thanks again

just had another thought.....i could do a compression test at the same time as checking the oil,parhaps once a month to see if its getting any worse........long term though as we dont do a great amount of mileage in this car ill probable have to live with it

The compression will be fine I'd say from experience, it's normally just the oil control rings that wear.. on the later engines they used chrome plated rings which are much more durable but that has the other negative effect of wearing the bores quicker.. If you do decide to replace the rings on your engine be aware that you cannot remove the crankshaft from the aluminium engine block without damaging the main bearing pedestals so you will need to hone the bores with the crankshaft still in the block, it can be done with the engine still in the car and be sure to replace the big end bolts too when refitting the connecting rods, the ally blocks have steel liners so I would recommend using brake fluid rather than using honing oil too plus it's easier to clean after, when I replaced the rings on my pickup (pretty much the same engine except mine is cast iron block) it came to about £140 for a set of rings and big end bolts from vw and I did the whole job and had it back on the road inside one day. Whilst the sump is off is always a good time to clean out the strainer on the oil pickup pipe to the sump too. I found that I could wedge a load of clean rags into the bore to protect and keep the internals clean whilst honing the bores, the under piston spray jets do get in the way a bit but the 1.4 ally block engines don't have them.

The other thing which does cause a compression leak on the roller rocker cylinder heads like yours is the exhaust valves burn out for some unknown reason but it's not as common

thanks for that tom,lots of good advise,iam going to keep an eye on it for now,might still do a compression test just out of interest and compere to standard,would this show up on the emissions test come mot time,last one was september with no problems,i was 2 weeks late taking it in though,seams to come round all too quickly

I've got a pm from you morrispaul but my iPad wont let me look at it, :wonder:

if the engine burns lots of oil it will have a relatively high HC reading on the emissions, but it has to be burning up quite bad before you notice any major emissions problems.

its not smoking or burning or anything silly just using oil (no leaks)i`ll have a look and see if i can find the print out for the emmissions from the last mot,the pm was about your tailgate and how much which i should`nt be asking :no: here.