This evening, one mile short of home on my usual 6 mile commute, oil warning lamp momentarily flashed on, with a beep and then disappeared. Engine seemed to be running OK, so I pushed on home.

Let the vehicle stand, then took a dipstick reading. Horror of horrors no oil at all !:eek:

Took filler cap off, and there was some residue there. Looked underneath the car and in the engine compartment, no leaks !

Phoned colleague at work to see if the parking space was contaminated . Nothing !. Similarly, no mess on my home parking space.

What's happening ?

I would be grateful for any comments ?

Can I chance refilling with oil before I run it down to the local SKODA dealership, or is it low-loader time ?

2003 Petrol 16 DOHC 1.4 engine prefix BBZ, regularly serviced by SKODA, mileage approx 28,000.

Nick,

16/02/07

When did you last check the oil? When was it last serviced?

Last serviced 3/06 at 18,000. Last in Skoda dealership 01/07, admittedly for bodywork repair. Last checked oil 09/06.

Nick

16/02/07

You last checked the oil in september last year?????

Yeah! Usually only do 6000 miles per year. Its been Ok for three years operating this way, checking oil every six months. My ex 1981 Golf got the same treatment and was OK for 15 years.

No warning lights have shown to date, except for todays, no evidence of oil loss on ground, no smoke from exhaust, no misfires, no evidence of oil in coolant.

So no real grounds to check further. With modern engines I wouldn't expect to check at a lesser internval than 3k.

This seems like a sudden component failure rather than a slow burn one.

Nick,

16/02/07

Odd,

VAG spec btw is 1 litre of oil per 600 miles (1000km) is permissable oil consumption.

So you engine can run out from full in 2100 miles and still be within spec.

That may well be the case but, if that's the spec, I wonder why the specified service intervals are longer ?

I would imagine that an engine would have to be well worn or leaky to consume that much.

Surely, if the reserve in the sump falls near minima, the oil pressure would fall and the oil light would be at all times.

Nick,

16/03/07

That may well be the case but, if that's the spec, I wonder why the specified service intervals are longer ?

Because you are suposed to check and top up your levels periodically inbetween your services. IIRC levels and tyres should be checked every two weeks in the owners handbook.

I'd top your engine back upa nd see what happens, get it checked over for peace of mind.

What type of oil to use ? I don't know what the dealer's been using, refined, semi-synthetic or synthetic or the grade ?

I suppose I'll have to ring the dealer

Nick,

16/02/07

It doesnt really matter, anything is better than nothing at this stage. I would think it will be regular semi synth 10w/40 or very similar, nothing special on the 1.4 16v.

Cheers !

Just cogitating here, are there valves in the oil path to and from the sump. If so, are they electrically operated ? Could one be jammed/blocked ?

Nick

16/02/07

There is a mechanical oil pressure relief valve.

Was it a red pressure light that came up?

A red oil can

Nick

16/02/07

That is low oil pressure, and seeing as the oil level is low i'd top it up and see how it goes. If the light only flashed on you may be lucky and not have done any damage.

Is it worth VAG COMing to see if there would be any messages ? I've got a copy on my laptop and the cable.

Nick

16/02/07

Give it a go but it wont tell you anything relating to the oil, thats mechanical so to speak.

The problem is you have no oil in the engine, VAG COM aint goona help you wil that.

Update: This evening, checked security of drain plug and filter, refilled with 10w -40. Started-up, red oil symbol light went out. No apparent leaks, squeaks, rattles, grinds, bumps or smoke. Went for 20 mile run, no problems. Hurrah !

But i had to put in 3.25 litres to get to the high mark on the dipstick !:eek:

When is that lite supposed to come on ?

Being the pessimist however, I fully expect some damage and I think i will be asking the dealer to take a careful look.

I presume that if this amount of oil went through the exhaust in 5,000 miles it would b*gger the catalytic convertor. In the absence of a leak, or a team of leprachauns who specialise in nocturnal oil syphoning, I can't think where else its gone, unless its a manifestation of the VW engine sludge problem ?

Nick

17/02/07

Might be time to change your car while you still can...

The light is a pressure light NOT a level light (the fabia doesnt have one of these). So by design when it does come on its because the pressure has dropped to low. Usually by this time its to late however as damage may have occurred.

You put 3.25 litres in, dont sound good as the engine only holds 3.5 anyhow.

Correction. I re-checked the magic window of the oil can I used to re-fill and its showing 3 litres used.

Given the likelihood that, in the course of normal Uk road travel, that 0.5 of a litre of oil would be insufficient to keep the sump oil pick-up submersed at all times, then I it would be reasonable to conclude that the oil pump must have been pumping air a lot of the time. This would have led to frothing of the oil, bu there was no evidence of that and, I would have expected a correctly functioning oil pressure sensor to have been turning the oil warning light on an off in sympathy ! Again, this didn't happen !

Similarly, with the increase in friction, I would have expected excessive heat build-up, the engine oil to boil, the exhaust to start smoking and the water temperature guage to go off the scale. None of this happened - in the old days the moving parts of engines would seize solid as a result of a lack of lubrication and the fact that this had occurred was quite evident to the driver and usuallu occurred long after the red light came on !

I just wondering whether, I may have got away with it. Given that the oil pressure sensor is usually placed high-up the block, on the flow-side after the filter (On the golf it was positioned just below the head gasket joint), would it be fair to assume that only the high-end pressure fed components may have been effected ?

Given the apparent lack of evidence of a real seize -up could I expect a suitably instructed good dealer to do extra checks e.g. manual compression chech and inspection

In the course of this post, I done some extra research and come up with these "Intraweb" threads. Albeit American, but it looks as if they've done oil to death.

The Truth About Cars | Peek Oil?

States of Lubrication

Nick

18/02/07

the light probably came on after you went round a corner , i.e. the small amount of oil went to one end of the sump off the pick-up pipe

its very bad practise to not check the oil between services , you may have got away with the it on the Golf you had for 15 years , but to assume the Fabia would be the same in the oil consumption department is dangerous , sounds like you may have just about got away with it on the Fabia , but damage will possibly have been done

i've seized a car up at work , it was a none runner because the owner had lost the key , programmed a new key and started the car up , revving the engine up to clear a misfire , the engine made a noise and stopped , on checking the oil found there wasn't any , put 4 ltrs in (only takes 4.25) freed off the engine and it ran ok except for the misfire ,customer told of the problem and they took the car

Spot-on. 60 degree bend followed by the slightest of upgrades - light came on and beeped at me and then went off, almost instantaneously !. At the time I thought it was an electrical or RFI effect .

Before reaching home, one mile further on, negotiated railway bridge with steeper rampart, 1 in 10, no warnings !

Nick,

18/02/07

Have you read page 33 of the Owner's Manual which says in bold:

Warning

* The red oil pressure light is not an oil level indicator! One should therefore check the oil level at regular intervalos, preferably after every refuelling stop.

Or the Haynes Manual which you have which lists checking the engine oil level as one of the weekly checks?

Yeah. Don't rub it in !

The point still remains that , before this event, whilst my inspection regime was less than weekly, the car never lost any oil in the previous three years of ownership - I have had the car from new.

It passed its first MOT OK in March last year - new electronic cert. As I've already intimated, if it had previously, over these three years, been losing oil in the quantities recently experienced through the exhaust, then there's a fair certainty that it would have failed the exhaust emission part of the MOT.

Up until september last year, I was making regular trips to Devon, for family reasons, about 4 to 6 a year, and always checked the oil before before starting each leg of the journey. Since september I just being doing local home to work commutes. I rarely use the car at weekends.

I can't believe that the engineering tolerances on my Fabia would be worse than 1981 Golf - and 1093cc engine was well used through the gears !

All I can think is that when the car when into the body repairers in January, somebody unofficially batted it around - I did notice on return, that the set radio station had changed from R4 to Heart despite being the face-off type and that the nearside rear door had a micro dent in it. I took this up with the dealer, but basically could not prove anything as it was near enough co-located with the area under repair, nearside rear wing and the dealer claimed he could not do anything about it under tha6 repair as it was outwith the insurance company's specification !

I have to say that I did not think of checking the oil after a body shop repair !

Nick,

18/02/07

Yeah. Don't rub it in !

The point still remains that , before this event, whilst my inspection regime was less than weekly, the car never lost any oil in the previous three years of ownership - I have had the car from new.

It passed its first MOT OK in March last year - new electronic cert. As I've already intimated, if it had previously, over these three years, been losing oil in the quantities recently experienced through the exhaust, then there's a fair certainty that it would have failed the exhaust emission part of the MOT.

Indeed but the car is getting older, due to wear i wouldnt be suprised if oil consumption increases over time. Also the 1.4 16v is well known for burning oil and clogging up the intake system. I wouldnt expect oil consumption to effect an MOT emissions test unless it was smoking to the point you couldnt see out the back.