losing oil..:(

[samSC1192]

since last oil change in my mk4 golf i have been losing oil? i have no idea why the car is not blowing smoke and if checked its not leaking oil on the ground and if had a look around under the hood and cant find anything that would be causeing it :S the oil if put in is 10w-40 could that be a problem could it be too thin ?

any help would be appreciated :)

cheers sam

[Transporter]

You probably burning it, have some one driving behind you watching your tail pipe especially when going up and taking off from the traffic lights after idling for a 2 minutes or so.
How much oil do you top up per 1000km?

[maxrob200]

May be a bad washer on the oil sump that is causing an intermittent leak. Would only leak when engine is either cold or warm depending on the condition of the washer

[Transporter]

If the area around the sump plug is clean then it is not leaking. If you have no one to follow your car to check the smoke, than you can warm up the engine, let it idle for 5 minutes and than fully depress accelerator while looking at the tail pipe. It's very simple. :)

[samSC1192]

if had someone follow me around to check for that already and its not blowing any smoke its so wierd and i put 1.5 litres to top it up about 5 weeks ago and its almost half way down the dipstick from full again :S

[h100vw]

How many k's in that time?

[samSC1192]

About 2000 I went and saw my mechanic he agreed with me on the putting a heavier oil in so that the engine doesn't break it down as much

[minircc]

Could be a leak from spark plug o-rings which means gaskets need changing.
You can check for internal leaks from looking at each plug.

[samSC1192]

forgot about this post fixed it a while ago now all i had to do is change the oil/ oil filter and put a slightly thicker oil in and it seems to have solved the problem.. how do i delete this thread?

[betasoot]

I would say, that's typical high pressure european car. i had a 2005 mini copper s before own vw. it burns the engine oil a lot. could not find any leaking and took to dealer to check up, everything was perfect. I had to top up every 5000k for about 800-1lt, so that works out pretty much it will be empty if not topping up till next service interval.

[Corey_R]

forgot about this post fixed it a while ago now all i had to do is change the oil/ oil filter and put a slightly thicker oil in and it seems to have solved the problem.. how do i delete this thread?

No need to delete the thread. Your story can help others.
Out of interest, you had 10w-40, what did you replace it with?

[samSC1192]

yeah thats what had me confused for ages is how the oil level was going down without blowing any smoke or leaking from anywhere. mine would have been losing alot more than that tho i never worked out exactly how much cause i always topped it up but since the thicker oil went in if done almost 1000k and havnt noticed a change which is good my mechanic just told me to let my car warm up a little longer of a morning to get the oil circulating...

[samSC1192]

No need to delete the thread. Your story can help others.
Out of interest, you had 10w-40, what did you replace it with?


yeah i went from a 10w-40 to a 20w-50 been months now and its done the trick.

you may know more then me i was wondering what causes the car to need a thicker oil could it have anything to do with the car just ageing and having more kms on it ?