Oil Loss

[KlausA3]

Hello,

 

First post here so forgive me if its in the wrong channel.

I have an Audi A3 Cabriolet TFSI, 2011 which I have owned now for almost exactly a year. When I drove it home from the dealer, it ran very rough at idle and in 6th gear, which I disregarded as "perhaps I'm not going fast enough for it in 6th" - however after it idling in a car wash for a long time, I pulled away and it went into limp mode. I diagnosed it as plugs and or coils, so I changed all the plugs and coils. While changing them, the car that was sold to me as fully serviced, was missing a compression washer on the 2nd cylinder... I wasn't particularly amused, and the dealer ignored all my attempts of communication.  Fast forward a little bit and my car was loosing oil quite rapidly, every 100 miles or so... it was also loosing water, and I feared the worst... a head gasket.

Fortunately, after taking it to a reputable local garage, they diagnosed the water pump was leaking (how much for a water pump!?!) and that there was a very small oil leak at the bottom of the engine, but after a road test it was decided that leak would not be the cause of such a fast loss of oil. They topped all the fluids up after a flush and said "We're not sure, keep an eye on it" - they also carried out compression tests, crankcase tests etc. and said the readings are spot on, gaskets and rings should be absolutely fine.

Today was MOT day, and I took it in with the following readings from where I have driven it until the oil warning light comes on:

• 63 Miles
• 80 Miles
• 59 Miles
• 170 Miles (Thicker Oil)
• 123 Miles (Thicker Oil)

I had to put thicker oil in because thats all the garage I stopped at had, what oil you ask, I've forgotten and its raining outside, but I'm going to say I went from 5W-30 to 5W-40. After the MOT  they concluded that they couldn't find a leak, and that perhaps it's the turbo, though it isn't particularly smokey, and definitely not blue.

So here I am, sorry for the essay, but hopefully someone could point me in the direction of what to do next, it is getting rather expensive topping up with oil so often.

[Stevey Y]

Hi the difference between the 30-40 is the upper operating temperature, in hot countries 40 is recommended over 30 as 40 denotes the degrees at which the oil will protect the engine, the 05w is the winter grading meaning it will happily allow the engine to crank and raise oil pressure at minus 5 degrees in very cold countries they use 0 as the winter benchmark as this denotes that it will allow cranking and a subsequent oil pressure up to minus 15 degrees.

I think your problem is its burning oil which won't manifest itself as blue smoke as the oil is low saps [ash] and is designed to burn clean.

Steve.

[KlausA3]

Just now, Stevey Y said:

Hi the difference between the 30-40 is the upper operating temperature, in hot countries 40 is recommended over 30 as 40 denotes the degrees at which the oil will protect the engine, the 05w is the winter grading meaning it will happily allow the engine to crank and raise oil pressure at minus 5 degrees in very cold countries they use 0 as the winter benchmark as this denotes that it will allow cranking and a subsequent oil pressure up to minus 15 degrees.

I think your problem is its burning oil which won't manifest itself as blue smoke as the oil is low saps [ash] and is designed to burn clean.

Steve.

Hi Steve,

If it is burning, I assume it outside the engine specs to burn so much so quickly, so it must be a failure of something causing oil to be burned?

[Stevey Y]

24 minutes ago, KlausA3 said:

Hi Steve,

If it is burning, I assume it outside the engine specs to burn so much so quickly, so it must be a failure of something causing oil to be burned?

Hi I don't know what designation your engine is but the one thing I do know is between 2009 and 2012 they had a problem with what was loosely termed low friction petrol engines they had used thinner piston rings and slightly larger bores to defeat friction within the engines and cut emissions, this worked until the engines had more milage on them and the burning of oil caused the rings to stick in and burn even more oil, the only reason that I know of this is my friends wife had an 09 cabriolet which was getting through a litre of oil every week, they had such a problem in the USA with this suffering multiple law suits the government got involved and Audi had to admit to the problem and retrofit different blocks to the offending engines at their expense to rectify the problem, this started an avalanche of litigation in Europe which is how my friends wife got her engine fixed after several monitoring sessions with Audi who kept telling her the oil consumption was normal and her threatening legal action they finally rebuilt the engine, this problem is extensively catalogued on the internet with loads of info on which engines were affected, if you look on the archives of this site its probably received more than a mention.

Steve.

[Shytot]

Have a look on this thread 

https://www.audiownersclub.com/forums/topic/18813-buying-a-mark-2-facelift-tt-18-tfsi-and-oil-consumption/?tab=comments#comment-67154

The issue and affected engine designations are covered and Steve explains the issue /reasoning. 

[KlausA3]

6 hours ago, Shytot said:

Have a look on this thread 

https://www.audiownersclub.com/forums/topic/18813-buying-a-mark-2-facelift-tt-18-tfsi-and-oil-consumption/?tab=comments#comment-67154

The issue and affected engine designations are covered and Steve explains the issue /reasoning. 

Hello,

Where would I find my engine designations? Is it part of the engine number, and if so, any clues as to where the engine number is to save me a search 😄

[Shytot]

9 hours ago, KlausA3 said:

Hello,

Where would I find my engine designations? Is it part of the engine number, and if so, any clues as to where the engine number is to save me a search 😄

I can only rely in Google - wiki gives a full list here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_A3

2nd gen near the bottom. 

If you have 1.8 tfsi then it looks like CDAA

[Stevey Y]

Hi Richard you are on top form with this one, well done its info I have looked at before but after a twelve hour shift had no motivation to go back to, 10/10.

Steve.