Had my Octy serviced last Monday, have just gone to check the oil level as I do every week and it looks overfilled by just under a 1cm, I've already travelled 500 miles since the service, should I be worried about this? :eek:

I rang the dealer (Telfords Of Carlisle) and the woman (Gill) said that computers fill the engine with oil! :confused:

So I thought I would drain the excess only to find that the drain plug is under the engine cover which looks like it would be fun to remove.

I have lost all faith in Telfords as other errors we're made during the service. See http://www.briskoda.net/forums/skoda-dealers-north-west/telfords-carlisle/38321/2/ for details.

Anyway enough venting, what damage could be caused by this overfill, I've heard it can damage the catalytic converter. :(

Have decided, going to B&Q to get a pipe to syphone the excess oil out, will let you know how it goes...

I would certainly remove the excess. The under tray on my vRS is held on by 4 torx screws and comes off in about 60 seconds... syphoning should be fine though, I think.

I would take it up with the dealer, if it's knackered the cat' then I think they should be repairing it FOC...

What will happen is the excess oil finds it's way out of the breathers, which will in turn go through the engine like the breather gasses normally do. It is this excess oil passing through the combustion process which does the Cat no favours.

What will happen is the excess oil finds it's way out of the breathers, which will in turn go through the engine like the breather gasses normally do. It is this excess oil passing through the combustion process which does the Cat no favours.

Take it back to the dealer and tell them to let the computer sort out the oil

Why mess about with the undertray and sump plug? Replace the filter to shift half a litre. Or ask a fast fit place to pump out the requesite quantity using thei dipstick drainer (both for the general case). In this case the dealer got it wrong, so they're responsible for fixing it and any resultant damage (possibly MAF, lambda, cat and crank oil seals).

so for those of us with cold air intakes where the oil breather is not connected to the intake but has a mini filter on overfilling will merely result in it seeping out of the filter???

...then onto summat hot and poss causing a fire???

Take it back and moan like hell

so for those of us with cold air intakes where the oil breather is not connected to the intake but has a mini filter on overfilling will merely result in it seeping out of the filter???

...then onto summat hot and poss causing a fire???

Engine oil landing on a hot exhaust tends to create a cloud of thick white smoke, not a fire. DAMHIKT.

cheers, can it cause any more damage??

cheers, can it cause any more damage??

Other than as described above? Not really, but an engine rebuild, new cat and rear-ended by someone driving blind through the oil cloud is a fiar amount of damage IMO.

It's a case of too much of a good thing being a bad thing. There are a bunch of things that can go wrong from overfilling. While there is too much oil in the engine, high pressure may develop in the crankcase, you can get oil leakage through the oil pan gasket and other engine seals. You might have noticed reduced gas mileage while the oil level was too high - it's possible that the crankshaft was splashing in the oil, which made it work harder. And that splashing could cause the oil to foam up, which could cause the oil pressure in the crankcase to drop and perhaps lead to premature engine wear or even damage. In my experience, this would be a rare occurrence... mostly too much oil just makes a mess.

shamelessly ripped off the net

Its not unusual for dealers to fill slightly above the oil max line on the dipstick.

It's a case of too much of a good thing being a bad thing. There are a bunch of things that can go wrong from overfilling. While there is too much oil in the engine, high pressure may develop in the crankcase, you can get oil leakage through the oil pan gasket and other engine seals. You might have noticed reduced gas mileage while the oil level was too high - it's possible that the crankshaft was splashing in the oil, which made it work harder. And that splashing could cause the oil to foam up, which could cause the oil pressure in the crankcase to drop and perhaps lead to premature engine wear or even damage. In my experience, this would be a rare occurrence... mostly too much oil just makes a mess.

Yeah, all the rest of that too. It's just I know of a case where someone did blow a crank seal (fortunately the nose seal, or there's be a new clutch to add to the bill).

I'm going to go against the grain here and say that a little too much oil will do no harm whatsoever. If it's rediculously high then yes you are going to get problems, but I often fill up just above the mark.

Trust me it's better than being below the full mark, taking a hard corner, and starving the engine of oil. Now that will cause damage, i.e. new engine time!

1cm over IS high in these terms.... there is no benefit from overfilling, anything over halfway is not going to present any problems in terms of oil surge IMO, certainly on the Queen's highway and road tyres.

1cm over IS high in these terms.... there is no benefit from overfilling, anything over halfway is not going to present any problems in terms of oil surge IMO, certainly on the Queen's highway and road tyres.

Yeah i can't quite imagine in my head how much over 1cm is...

But I get so paranoid if my oil level is not on the max. The reason being is that I went on Donnington Park with the oil level of my GTI6 on half way between the max and minimum. The engine blew up through oil starvation on a corner, and that has a baffled sump too. It was knocking like mad on the way home! :(

So if you hit the corners quite hard then definately keep it on the max oil level!

Did you check the level hot or cold and on level ground? The dealer would have checked it cold, if checked hot it would have expanded.

Did you check the level hot or cold and on level ground? The dealer would have checked it cold, if checked hot it would have expanded.

So which is better then...to check when hot or cold ? I know the 20min rule is mentioned but surely it hasn't cooled significantly in that period of time ?

So which is better then...to check when hot or cold ? I know the 20min rule is mentioned but surely it hasn't cooled significantly in that period of time ?

The 20 minute rule is to allow oil to drain out of the returns, not to cool the engine down. Expansion of a liquid from ambient temperature to 100C is typically of the order of 1% of the cool volume, so not something you'd see on a dipstick.

Ended up syphoning the excess out with a tube via the dip stick hole. Took a good half hour to do so, now happily on the max line. Ended up being 3/4 litre overfilled. Had driven it like that for approx 500 miles, have done another 500 since and no problems to report.

How long should it take for oil to contract back and cool after a journey?

Draining back out of the returns will take maybe 20 minutes on a hot engine. As earlier actual expansion is too small to measure on a dipstick, but time to cool right down should be presumed to be several hours. If I want to do something that requires a cold engine (ok doesn't apply to Octys) like setting locknut tappets, I'd leave the car overnight.

Just drained some out of my Fabia VRS. Monkeys.

Bought one of those Pela thingys. Would have taken back to garage but to far away. (gonna need it for my Smart which has no Sump-plug anyway)

Remember same happened on my 306-GTi. Took it back a day later. Said think its overfilled. They checked it and said It was and I should get some drained out.... I said well you put it in... you get it out. They were most pleased at 11 am Sat.

Reckon if its a special oil (not the one in the 200 l drum at the side) they just through the whole can in (4.5 - 5.0 litres) as its about right. Also I supose if they are using vacuum pump to remove old oil they may not get it all out?

As I said Monkeys....

TBF it's not unknown for publications (even manufacturer's official ones) to be wrong. I did once manage to overfill my ZX cos the publication I consulted said it took 1l more than it actually did.