Two weeks ago I topped up the oil on my Octy as it was near service and getting a little noisy.  I know that they burn oil and it gets lower before a change is due.

 

Last few days, however, the oil light was intermittently flashing - odd.

 

Turns out that I forgot to put the oil cap back on, there were flecks of oil all around the engine bay and the tray under the engine was very oily.  Thankfully I'd not lost the oil cap.

 

Today the I changed the oil and gave it a good clean.

 

My question is: do you think that any dirt would have got in whilst the cap was off?  If so, would it be worth replacing the oil (or just the filter) in a couple of weeks rather than waiting 10,000 miles?

 

Many thanks,

 

 

 

Mark

 

PS it may cheer me up to hear if anyone else has done remarkably daft things with their cars........

Edited 8 February, 20206 yr by mark674500

My father god rest his soul did the silliest thing I know under very sad circumstances so very understandable.

 

My mother had died & he was distraught,  I was 15 at the time and a petrol-head.

 

The first Christmas he was very depressed, a family friend had given him a quart can of Castrol oil & another of anti-freeze, the types with the pull off foil seal.

 

To take his mind off things he went outside to top up the anti-freeze on the family Capri, it was very cold & he was gone a very long time, we thought he wanted to be by his-self.

 

He came in later looking very sad & said "son, I have done something very stupid 🙁 I have put engine oil in the radiator and it was so cold that it took me half an hour to do it and I still didnt realise 🙁"

 

I went out with him, removed the radiator & backflushed it, then the engine block then the heater matrix with hot water & washing up liquid then flushed it all out with the garden hose, during which time we both got soaked because I had more enthusiasm than knowledge & competence but it made us both laugh & broke the solemn mood.

 

That day he really would not have been capable of getting out of the hole he had fallen in to.

 

I am now older than he was then and doing more stupid things because i still dont know my limitations 😀 but it cheers me up to think back to that day & realise that i still have some way to go yet!

Sorry, forgot to say that the underbonnet area is so well protected, the area around the filler cap so well shrouded (why you did not lose the cap) that I doubt any measurable quantities of dirt will have got in, the crankcase has positive pressure, any that did will have been caught by the oil filter before being circulated around the bearing surfaces, I cant see the need for an oil change.

Forgot the ultimate oily idiot tale.

 

Friend whos father had left the mother, he had no male role model and by 17 was the male head of the household, mother could not drive.

 

He bought an old Marina after passing his test & recounted the following tale to me:

 

He decided to top up the oil before driving it, "blimey was it low J.R.!, it took all of the can so I walked into town and bought a can at Halfords (5 liter) and it swallowed all of that as well!"

 

You can probably see where this is going now 😀

 

"So I walked into town again and bought another can (5 litre) and it took most of that before it was finally full, I started the engine (WTF!!!! - it actually started!!!!!!!! 😯) but it was making a really funny noise and then I saw oil spurting out everywhere" 🤣🤣🤣

 

The rest is self explanatory.

Edited 8 February, 20206 yr by J.R.

I had to rescue a mates car when they filled the engine with oil 🤣

 

I've done a few stupid things in my time, the most timely one, I had a beautiful D3 A8 it was a 3.0tdi, they commonly suffered with chain rattle on startup, I went down to Audi and purchased two new tensioners for each bank, I had the timing tool kit and everything.

 

i look down at the crank pulley and there is loads of stuff in the way, I then decide the easiest way is to remove the tensioner, don’t touch anything and put the new tensioner in again without moving anything, I mean I did it on my old push rod ford engine without issue.

 

so that’s exactly what I did, I thought that was well easy, jump in the car fire it up and it ran like a bag of spanners, after the realisation set in that cylinders 1-3 weren’t firing, it transpired the moment I turned away to pick up the new tensioner was the moment the sprocket moved and as I fired it up I just kissed all the inlet valves enough to bend them and loose compression.

 

at this point I had no option but to get access to the crank pulley and it was annoyingly easy and not that complicated after all 🤦🏻‍♂️

 

and to top it all off I needed a £1000 tool to remove the cams so I had to buy a complete head and swap the heads over as it was cheaper, it ran lovely after all that work but I fell out of love with it and during it’s down time I bought my first petrol turbo car, a Leon Cupra and enjoyed it so much I’ve had petrol turbos in my garage ever since 😎

Just to add, as it was only two weeks ago I’d also be inclined to just chalk it up to experience and not worry about it any more 👍

Has a mate who knew nothing at all about cars but as a young sales rep had a nice shiny XR3i that he hooned around in.  Had an oil warning light come on so we stopped at a garage and he bought some oil to top up. Off we set again on the motorway. It started to rain and the screen was filthy so he squirted screen wash onto the window. Only it wasn’t screen wash!!!  What a mess that was. 

Edited 9 February, 20206 yr by Golf-Fiend
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Thanks for the replies, I feel less concerned about the oil, and more importantly had a good laugh about all those stories!!