Hi folks. My oil light came on a couple of weeks ago. I'm having a go a changing the oil myself but having trouble with the sump plug. I do about 200 miles a week, and have noticed the car has become a little sluggish. Should I get the oil changed at a shop right away, or is it acceptable practice to put a few hundred miles on the clock after the light comes on? Sorry if that's a dumb question, I'm a noob.

What do you mean by oil light? If its the red oil light then this is low oil pressure and continued driving will damage your engine.

If you mean service light then a couple of hundred miles wont hurt it.

Exactly, if it's the red oil light that's on you shouldn't have kept driving. Expect major engine damage if it was. As above, if it oil service indicator its ok to do more miles before before service.

It's the oil service light that flashes up with a spanner under the mileage. I was going to leave it until February before getting it sorted with the full MOT & service, but thinking that's not such a good idea... By a few hundred miles, you mean, 300 or 400 tops?

Also, it was serviced in March, so should I need a full service now, or just oil change?

Edited 27 July, 201411 yr by ionfly

If you only had it serviced in March I’m guessing you haven’t done 10,000 miles since?

Theres a high chance with an independent they just didn’t reset the service indicator.

as long as youve not done too many more than 10k miles id leave it.

If you only had it serviced in March I’m guessing you haven’t done 10,000 miles since?

Theres a high chance with an independent they just didn’t reset the service indicator.

 

This. You can reset it yourself, I believe it's in the manual somewhere.

 

To reset the standard display manually, switch off the ignition, then press and hold down the trip reset button beneath the speedometer. Switch on the ignition and observe the service interval, then hold the button down for 10 seconds until '---' appears followed by the trip readout. If the 'Oil' and 'Insp' intervals were reached at the same time, depress the button again for 10 seconds to reset the remaining interval.

Edited 29 July, 201411 yr by mrdaf