:rolleyes:A thing that bugs me whenever i look at the dipstick is the colour of the oil , we have a 55 plate 140 dsg a5 Elegance 24000 miles now and its had its first variable service last September. In the past i owned Fiat 2.3jt vans and when i looked at the dipsticks i had to hold them up to the light to see properly, they were so clean . Now ours is literaly black even from after the service so do you think they are not draining the sump properly?. Nissan use to flush our Primera sump and in 980000 miles we never put a drop of oil in it as it lasted from one servict to the other, last wek i had to top up the Octy with .5ltr.

The oil in all of my PD engines has been as black as yer hat.

Primera 2.2Di, Astra 2.0DTI and Berlingo 1.9D were all the same too.

And yes, I have driven some exotic machinery over the years.

EDIT: they use oil too, Mine always needs a half litre top up of 507.00 every 8000 miles or so.

Mine wasn't thick black for the first 8k miles or so, more of a semi-translucent black. Now it's black black, as was the oil in my Fabia 1.9TDi. I think it's pretty normal in a diesel.

A former boss's Celica 2.0GT petrol which was on 80k miles, the oil was the same amber colour when it came out after 8k miles between services as when it went in! :eek:

I thought the oil in diesel engines always turned black

I think it might have something to do with soot.