Was there ever any analysis of this gritty oil, to find out what the 'grit' was?? Oil analysis is a huge part of condition based monitoring and gives a HUGE amount of info!

If diesel was leaking into the sump, the oil would be thinned...SURELY a tech would notice this when draining????

Good luck anyway!!

Pull the dipstick and let a drop of the oil sit on the back of a business card for 24 hrs. The oil flattens out and if there are any deposits they will be in the middle. Best done with a hot engine as soon as it is turned off so any bits cant settle out.

Obviously you wont be able to tell what this contaminent is without analysis but if it's shiney start to worry :(

edited: to make sense.

Edited 26 January, 201214 yr by Golf-Fiend

OP asked (see #5) and they had dumped the oil. All we have to go on is the oil was 'gritty'. Agree with JJBS3 - even the least observant tech should have noticed diesel in the oil.

Pull the dipstick and let a drop of the oil sit on the back of a business card for 24 hrs. The oil flattens out and if there are any deposits they will be in the middle. Best dont with a hot engine as soon as it is turned off so any bits cant settle out.

Obviously you wont be able to tell what this contaminent is without analysis but if it's shiney start to worry :(

Business card...never thought of that but I guess it would work . A bit of filter paper would work to show if there was diesel getting into the oil too....light brown halo around the darker spot.

But had a proper analysis been carried out, the actual contaminants could be identified and consequently if there was some part of engine eating itself. Oh well, if its gone its gone!

Cheers guys, someone did mention getting the dealer to save a sample of the oil, by the time I had rung them to ask they had already swapped out the oil and it had mixed with the oil from all the other changes they'd done using that particular 'bowser'.

I even did a little bit of homework to see if there was anyone who could do the analysis for me if I sent it through the post; I know this service exists in the US!

The dealer has tried to reassure me by telling me that it may have been the first turbo failure that contaminated the oil.

Interestingly the turbo failed / began to whistle just after a rare but prolonged full throttle acceleration from 2nd to 5th. Ironically as most of my commute is at a steady 70mph I drive hard up this hill most mornings in the hope of preventing the turbo vanes from clogging up and therefore prolonging the life of the turbo!

Someone told me that if a deposit of baked-on carbon broke off during the acceleration and made its way through the turbo this may have contributed to the initial failure?

Could this carbon have also caused the oil to feel gritty I wonder?

...The dealer has tried to reassure me by telling me that it may have been the first turbo failure that contaminated the oil...

OR the contaminated oil was the death of the death of the turbo :(

It is true that the oil has to 'work very hard' in the turbo. If the bearing was glowing red hot, then that might burn the oil.

I guess you just have to trust the tech who did the job.

Well, picked up the car tonight. No diagnosis I'm afraid, DM Keith, Skoda UK and Skoda CZ are stumped.

They have had the injectors and glow plugs out, taken pictures, run the most advanced diagnostics and still no joy.

On a positive note the turbo no longer whistles!

Despite all this I have nothing but praise for the guys at DM Keith, after speaking to them in depth they really are as desperate as me to find the problem. Whilst the rocker cover was off they offered to change the glow plugs (£110) with no labour charge but they said they don't think it'll help as a faulty or failed plug would generate a fault log. They examined them for damage and colour (?) and said they were normal.

All I can do is see if it gets worse and monitor the oil level.

Never mind, I tried and failed! We all agree something isn't right but for now at least we'll never know.

Sounds like they had a good look around so if there was a problem they would have found it.

DMK agreed a pricematch deal on a major service and MOT this week - so praise here too - for now