Noticed this flashing at me yesterday on my drive home (never flashed up before). Drove 20 miles or so (flashed up three times I think in total). Put 5W30 fully synthetic oil in as soon as I got home. Question is, is that 20 miles likely to have buggered the engine in any way?

no, the light should be yellow to let you know oil is low, simply top up.

 

 If it was red then this would suggest oil pressure dropping and is more serious.

No hopefully not,

the warning was that, to let you know to take action.

 

Is the level fine now when checked as it should be.

How much oil did it take to get the correct level?

 

george

Cheers James. Went into slight panic mode yesterday and its been bothering me today at work lol.

my Passat used to flash the light on every 7000 miles or thereabouts, a simple 3/4 litre top up and all was well, the Fabia will need less than that though.

Hi George. All I had at home was 1 litre so I put that in. I park on a slight gradient so it was measuring halfway. I'm off out tonight to visit my folks so when I park up I'll leave it for an hour and check on the flat.

Hope I haven't put too much in then :0/

The oil should be in what they call Area 'A'.

 

Normally Check 5 minutes after stopping, not one hour later.

 

Maybe Try a simple check before driving, 

it gives the same level as a 'hot Check'. (when on the level)

 

Open the bonnet,  engine cold and cold oil.

Turn on the ignition and start the engine, stop right away, as soon as started.

 

Dip the oil and see where it is on the dipstick.

 

Later once you have been someplace, & the oil is hot. Try a hot dip.

You might well find it shows the exact same level as the 'Jabozuma way'.

 

george

Cheers George. I'll go and check what it's at.

Just checked and its just shy of full (under the top line on the dipstick).

Good, that should be near enough the 3.6 litres in.

 

(if you do a cold dip in the morning or whenever without starting the engine, it will possibly show a little higher, near to the top orange marker.)

 

george

Normally i do 300-500 miles a week in my vRS, before it gets parked any time it gets a hammering the oil up temp,

from starting it has always being warmed up first before hard driving. well almost always.

(it never uses oil apart from when i lent it before for a couple of weeks..)

 

So I lent my vRS to someone 3 weeks ago.

& it went to them with under 27,000 miles on it, oil at the top of the cross hatch,

just got new filter and 3.7 litres of oil in before they got it.

 

Returned to me tonight, the car is fine, it has only covered 520 miles since the oil change,

used almost every day for the 3 weeks i am told, so not much miles per day.

 

The oil was at the bottom orange blob on a hot check, just showing on the metal.

It has taken just over 1 litre to get it to near the top of the cross hatch.

No Yellow Light had shown on it, 

just more than a litre of oil used in only 520 miles.

 

So i will do a cold dip later, and i have a 300 mile trip to do tomorrow, 

i expect it will be fine and use no oil.

 

Just goes to show though how oil can disappear from them when being driven in a different way.

& importantly no Yellow Oil Warning light had shown.

Leaves me wondering how low it would have needed to be,

or if the Red Low Oil pressure light would have shown first.

 

george

Is an oil warning light supposed to light up with all the others at ignition on when starting the car?

No idea if supposed to,

but they do not check/illuminate with the other lights doing a check at start up.

The oil light comes on after the dipstick has become dry, mine was using lots of oil before the 2nd service and now its seems to have decreased a fair bit, i was given no indication that any "fix's" or ecu updates performed. 

 

I believe between the top and bottom of the dipstick is 1L 

 

It was not 1 litre this week with me.

 

From above the bottom orange blob, so on the metal, to get it to below the top of the Cross Hatch took 1.2 litres.

That is in an engine with only a 3.6 litre oil capacity.

 

Skoda use the same dipstick for engines with 3.9 litres in the Sump & the vRS with only 3.6 litres.

Here's a thought I have had,

I have looked at the history of my car, the service record states that the previous owner had it on the variable service. In the service book the "use of variable service oil" or something like that was ticked. My car got serviced at 5k miles. And then again before I got it at 9k miles. Mine used to use a bit of oil. I got it service for the first time at the end of last year at 19k miles, because I do more miles they put it back on the fixed service of 10k miles or 1 year. So in my service book that "variable service oil used" or words to that effect was not ticked. Consumption of oil in my car has gone down!

So could it be the type of oil used causing an issue?

No not really,

the cars leave the factory with Long Life Oil, and then most Dealership Services will put in Long Life Oil even if the car is Fixed Servicing.

 

Really the engine uses Oil or it does not use Oil,

& ones that do not normally use oil might start to with different types of use.

 

For normal use best just keep ocsasional checks on the Oil, use the Recommended oils,

& if it regularly uses too much oil, then get it checked out.

Fair enough, just a thought!