Polo GTI High Oil Usage - Discussion Thread

[Hail22]

Yeah, i'd say that's a case of the VGA official line of "no problems with oil consumption" piston rings issue that the UK dealers are having to deal with.
So far I know of 3 engines being replaced within 5000 miles of ownership and that's only on 1 forum!

3 engine replacements?

I have a distinct feeling regardless of what VWG says this is the plagued TSI engine that had the infamous "explosion" due to the load on a small engine with a turbo/supercharger config.

I pray i am wrong as VWG can't afford to get it wrong this time...if not you guys can upgrade to Golf GTI's

[Corey_R]

Only 3? Wow... we had way more than that here

[Guy_H]

8000kms of hard driving, one oil change, never used a drop.

[Trepid4tion]

8000kms of hard driving, one oil change, never used a drop.

Much the same, 6000 (as of thismorning), one oil change and level has never budged, despite the oil i found in the charge pipe to the throttle body from the turbo.

[VW Convert]

3 engine replacements?

I have a distinct feeling regardless of what VWG says this is the plagued TSI engine that had the infamous "explosion" due to the load on a small engine with a turbo/supercharger config.

I pray i am wrong as VWG can't afford to get it wrong this time...if not you guys can upgrade to Golf GTI's

Funny how far perception can be from reality, I'd bet if all the facts and figures were available the reality would be that the scale of the issue is fairly small. We are dealing with an engine built in large volumes and a handful of problems.

Let me try to illustrate the scale on which companies such as VAG work. I've spent decades working in automotive parts field and have been to Germany many times to attend automotive trade fairs and visit factories both of which are mind numbing in terms of trying to take in the sheer scale of things. On one of these trips in 1998 I was lucky enough to get a guided tour of the Kolbenschmidt factory at Neckarsulm. I saw in one area a number of production lines doing final assembly of pistons, fully automated and working at a frantic pace. One of the lines was producing VW pistons, I enquired about the number produced in a day, the answer........a staggering 7,000 per day! A handful of engine replacements is small potatos.

Second perception that is far from reality, "the load on a small engine with a turbo/supercharger config."

Where is the extra load? Supercharger operates at low revs, turbo cuts in when it is boosting and supercharger cuts out, it is nothing more than spreading the load across the rev range. Does this arrangement increase boost and therefore load on the engine?

Chipping a conventional turbo engine would increase load but having both super and turbocharger would not.

[gavs]

Well, 7000 pistons only equates to 1740 engines which I guess is still a rather high number. To clarify:

Out of approx 25-30 GTI owners:
3 engines ALREADY replaced
4 undergoing official consumption tests
1 booked in for new rings / possible rebuild
2 already with new rings, one of which is back on official oil consumtion test.

So, based on that, out of a very small smaple size there are already 10% failures with the potential of that becoming 20% rather quickly. Being based in an automotive background (like I also am) you would know that a reject rate higher than 1-2% is deemed unacceptable, especially for a company operating under ISO 900 and ISO14001 standards for quality systems and environmental management systems.

Some of these GTI's are running like 2 strokes with the amount of oil they consume. I'd like to know what the EPA would think about the amount of harmfull emmisions coming out of the exhaust pipes of these cars!

I'm currently a lucky GTI owner and I put it down to the running in period I gave the car, some others aren't so lucky..... Guy's is a definate exception, but I believe that his too is due to the running in (aka flogging) it got from day 1 and it looks to have helped

Guy, by the way, what oil do you run in the Polo?

[Guy_H]

Castrol Edge, 5-40, only use it because its convenient.

Audi seem to have a bigger problem with their 2.0 TSI's (Valve lift), we have some threads going on at OZAudi, and there are a lot of people having issues, and I'm sure a lot less cars delivered.

Q5 2.0 TFSI Burning Oil Problems
A4 / A5 / Q5 Q5 2.0 TFSI Burning Oil Problems

[Hail22]

Do you think a product campaign will be coming out considering from what Gavs said 10% is quite a large figure and to my knowledge i believe in the UK with the 1.6 TSI "Explosive motors" was only 8% (correct me if i am wrong).

[VW Convert]

Well, 7000 pistons only equates to 1740 engines which I guess is still a rather high number.

Per day........line was running 7 days per week a that time.......that's some 12,000 engines in a week........the point I was making is that the numbers are very high compared to the number of failures being talked about.

To clarify:

Out of approx 25-30 GTI owners:
3 engines ALREADY replaced
4 undergoing official consumption tests
1 booked in for new rings / possible rebuild
2 already with new rings, one of which is back on official oil consumtion test.

So, based on that, out of a very small smaple size there are already 10% failures with the potential of that becoming 20% rather quickly. Being based in an automotive background (like I also am) you would know that a reject rate higher than 1-2% is deemed unacceptable, especially for a company operating under ISO 900 and ISO14001 standards for quality systems and environmental management systems.

Some of these GTI's are running like 2 strokes with the amount of oil they consume. I'd like to know what the EPA would think about the amount of harmfull emmisions coming out of the exhaust pipes of these cars!

I'm not saying there is not an issue, all I'm saying is that conclusions are being drawn from incomplete data. To arrive at the conclusion there is a 10% failure rate overlooks a very important issue, that being that only a small group of (rightfully) unhappy owners expressing their opinion on an internet forum.....unhappy consumers vent their spleen......the majority of happy owners don't get online to say how good their car is. The sample group is way too small.

[gavs]

Castrol Edge, 5-40, only use it because its convenient.

Audi seem to have a bigger problem with their 2.0 TSI's (Valve lift), we have some threads going on at OZAudi, and there are a lot of people having issues, and I'm sure a lot less cars delivered.

Q5 2.0 TFSI Burning Oil Problems
A4 / A5 / Q5 Q5 2.0 TFSI Burning Oil Problems

Where abouts do you get it from, I've been looking high and low locally and cannot find anyone who sells it, I can only find the Edge Sport which isn't to the VW engine specs, Castrol edge is specifically for VW and Audi, yet it's not sold here, brilliant!

[ATYPIC]

Where abouts do you get it from, I've been looking high and low locally and cannot find anyone who sells it, I can only find the Edge Sport which isn't to the VW engine specs, Castrol edge is specifically for VW and Audi, yet it's not sold here, brilliant!

Found it at supercheap
Castrol Edge Sport Engine Oil - 5W-30, 5 Litre - Supercheap Auto Australia

[Guy_H]

We get ours from Burson Auto Parts or Repco!

[gavs]

Found it at supercheap
Castrol Edge Sport Engine Oil - 5W-30, 5 Litre - Supercheap Auto Australia

It's different oil. For anyone else reading this Castrol Edge SPORT does not meet VW engine oil requirement specs 504 or 507 and if indeed you do put this oil in your engine and you have oil related engine issues, vw will void your warranty. Would they go to the trouble of testing the chemical composition of the oil? I don't know, but would anyone like to risk it.......?

The reccomended oil is Castrol Edge, here is a picture of the bottle:


This is the product that supercheap sell which is Edge SPORT:


Guy, I'll have to double check, see if they do sell the proper stuff now.....

[Diesel_vert]

Castrol sell and market different lubricants according to region;

- Castrol Edge 5W-30 (504.00/507.00) only appears to be distributed and sold in the E.U.

- Castrol Edge Sport 5W-30 (502.00/505.00) is distributed and sold in Australia, and probably the rest of Oceania as well.



Regarding VW oil standards, here you can actually use either;

- 502.00 : because Australian delivered cars are not on the LongLife service regime (variable intervals), or;

- 504.00 : because 504.00 spec supersedes the older 502.00 spec.

Naturally, given the choice I'd recommend using the newer 504.00 oils, as they were specifically designed for FSI/TSI/TDI engines.



Also note, that you don't have to use Castrol exclusively - you can use any brand of lubricant as long as it has been formally approved by VAG.

Audi seem to have a bigger problem with their 2.0 TSI's (Valve lift), we have some threads going on at OZAudi, and there are a lot of people having issues, and I'm sure a lot less cars delivered.

Q5 2.0 TFSI Burning Oil Problems
A4 / A5 / Q5 Q5 2.0 TFSI Burning Oil Problems

It would appear that Audi have acknowledged the problem by releasing a fix for excessive oil consumption (at least for the 2.0 TFSI):

A4 / A5 / Q5 Q5 2.0 TFSI Burning Oil Problems - Page 4

I wonder if a fix for other engines will now be forthcoming from VW...

[Corey_R]

As per the Fuels and Lubricants forum, there is a VW, Skoda, Audi Factory Approved Oils & Other Lubricants thread. It contains lists of the currently approved oils. And there are lots of them.

A word of caution, as Diesel_vert has pointed out, some oil is marketted with different names or specs in different regions, so you should always check the label of the local bottle to ensure it has the VAG 504.00/507.00 certification.

I and several others for instance use Liqui-Moly TOP TEC 4200 | 5W-30 (scroll down that page to it) which is both Germany made and engineered. It's around $80 for 5L from several places such as Autobarn, MotorActive, and even some of the VAG specialists, such as European Autotech.

Anyway... check the other sub forum, and see what others have been purchasing recently