Polo GTI High Oil Usage - Discussion Thread

[LarryRSA]

Oh by the way. It seems the MY12 spec cars are all getting the CAVE engines. Mine is one of the first shipment of MY12 cars that came to south africa and I have a CAVE engine code.....

[gavs]

All polo gti's run the CAVE engine, have done since MY10 spec.

[kelal]

Oh by the way. It seems the MY12 spec cars are all getting the CAVE engines. Mine is one of the first shipment of MY12 cars that came to south africa and I have a CAVE engine code.....

what is the difference between CAVE engine code and the original?

Disregard this please

[GraveDilute]

My oil light came on this morning.
11.5k kms

This will be the 2nd top up bottle that I buy for this car

[brad]

If thta's 2L in 11500km then that's OK & will probably continue to improve. If you mean 10L......

[Hooti3]

I did an oil change over the weekend.

I hope my oil consumption settles down after that. If not, then off to Dealership to have a consumption test started.

[davidred]

I had my first warning light come on about 2700km and put in about 500ml. The dealer said the same thing as most others though, that it will burn through some oil in the first few months and then will settle down.

[RoknRob]

I spoke too soon!

Last month I checked my oil levels, and was planted right in the middle of the indicator, at 2000km.

Today, on 3000km, I am down near the bottom of the dipstick... no warning light yet, but prevention is better than cure!

So I was obliged to top it up with a litre today.

I had my oil changed (therefore re-filled) at 1500km, so this is bad news... but, to be expected, according to the manual, the service chap, and these forums. I still find it tough, since I have never, EVER had to top up a car with oil before this one.

This was despite doing the hard-ish, no babying break in. I really thought that would help...

Oh well - I'll just have to pay attention more often. Hopefully will settle by 5000km, though the service chap told me to expect it until 10000 kms....

[Hurricane]

I must be lucky then, since I break in the engine just like they said it in the owners manual and after 3140 km I still got most of the oil.
It's at least 3/4 full.

[Diesel_vert]

Last month I checked my oil levels, and was planted right in the middle of the indicator, at 2000km.

Today, on 3000km, I am down near the bottom of the dipstick... no warning light yet, but prevention is better than cure!

So I was obliged to top it up with a litre today.

I had my oil changed (therefore re-filled) at 1500km, so this is bad news... but, to be expected, according to the manual, the service chap, and these forums. I still find it tough, since I have never, EVER had to top up a car with oil before this one.

This was despite doing the hard-ish, no babying break in. I really thought that would help...

Oh well - I'll just have to pay attention more often. Hopefully will settle by 5000km, though the service chap told me to expect it until 10000 kms....

IMO, by changing the oil early, all you are doing is prolonging the break-in period, because the first-fill is most likely a synthetic oil.

The problem with using mineral oil is that you risk damaging these highly sophisticated engines of course, even for short durations - so this isn't the solution, in case you (or others) were wondering.

The owner's manual states that oil consumption should stabilise after 5000 km, but since you changed the oil at 1500 km, in your case you shouldn't expect oil consumption to stabilise until 7500 km - if at all, in which case it would confirm my suspicions of there being a fundamental problem with one or several components with some of these FSI engines (though here's hoping this isn't the case with your particular vehicle).

Call back after 10k, then we'll see what's what.

Variable quality control FTW, not!

[RoknRob]

Diesel_vert,

Just to clarify, I never switched to mineral oil.

I kept using VW's own LongLife III - which I presume was what they use for first fills, as well.

I don't see how changing the oil early can lead to a prolonged break-in period.

As far as I can tell, the only effect this would have had is MAYBE clean up the oil and filter of crud that MAY have accumulated in those first few km. It was probably a waste of time and money, but I don't see how it could actually have a detrimental effect...

Feel free to enlighten me...

[Diesel_vert]

Just to clarify, I never switched to mineral oil.

I know. I just wanted to make a point in general, in case people started to get ideas or something.

I don't see how changing the oil early can lead to a prolonged break-in period.

As far as I can tell, the only effect this would have had is MAYBE clean up the oil and filter of crud that MAY have accumulated in those first few km. It was probably a waste of time and money, but I don't see how it could actually have a detrimental effect...

Feel free to enlighten me...

As a synthetic oil better protects the engine from wear compared to a mineral oil, it would naturally take longer for the engine to break-in (I reckon).

A prolonged break-in period caused by a premature oil change isn't really detrimental as such (to the best of my knowledge) but it's just something I feel is a rather pointless exercise from an operational point of view.



In any case, I think it's rather unlikely that this is what's causing your oil consumption, nor is your run-in technique (wouldn't have made much difference IMO).

As Audi have already done, I'm sure VW will present a solution soon...

Maybe.

[gavs]

VW already have that they are not making public (see poor dav's post about his GTI apparently being a 2 stroke!) and the service people here are seemingly reluctant (along with supercharger clutch issues) to actually allude to the true root of the problem.

Have a look at international forums, the supposed "fix" doesn't even work. It's an engine build quality control issue as I know of 1 person who had a whole engine replaced and is stil experiencing oil consumption issues

[brad]

Oh well - I'll just have to pay attention more often. Hopefully will settle by 5000km, though the service chap told me to expect it until 10000 kms....

A lot of Subarus don't seal until 25,000km. I t wouldn't surprise me if VWs took that long as well as they use similar "low-tension" piston ring technology.

[Corey_R]

As Audi have already done, I'm sure VW will present a solution soon.

What is Audi's solution? Was that listed in this thread and I just missed it?