Oil use in Mk7 GTD

[baser]

Hi all

First post do be gentle.

I've had the GTD for about 9 months now and I have put 16,000 miles on it so far, just had the oil light come on again and topped her up with her second litre of oil which for me seems like a lot?  Our Skoda Fabia 1.6tdi and the Transporter van I have for work don't  need topping up from one service to the next.

How much oil is everyone else using?

Thanks
 

[corgi]

Not as much as that... but your usage would not be considered abnormal.

From what you've said you're using a litre every 8K miles. I seem to remember Ford dealerships were told that unless a Sierra Cosworth was using more than a litre every 1000 miles then that was fine...

What is your mix of driving?

[monkeyhanger]

Haven't needed to top up between services, I had an oil thirsty MK5 GT TDI. It was ran in on motorway miles and used a litre of oil every 2k miles, that was just about considered acceptable by VW back then.

[fredgroves]

Some "modern" engine designs do consume oil by design.

Seems the current GTD lump is one of them.

I used to have a Renault Megane (petrol) that drank oil, about a litre every ~2000 miles. Perfectly normal apparently - but I just assumed that was the French agricultural engine design

I'm at 12k on my GTD, not chucked any oil in yet but fully expect to before the 1 year/20k service.

[corgi]

Some "modern" engine designs do consume oil by design.

Really, why?

[baser]

Thanks for the replies everyone, mostly its motorway 70 ish mph, I say ish because a lot of my miles are on mainland Europe so vary from 50 mph on some of the Belgium sections to infinity mph on the German autobahns.

I wont worry to much if its considered normal.

[monkeyhanger]

Most people won't need to top up between services, but most people aren't doing your mileage and are getting their car serviced every 10k miles on the time and distance regime. I wouldn't call your oil use normal, but VW will consider it acceptable.

[corgi]

If they are designed to use a bit as described above, then it will certainly be "working as designed"...

I don't believe that modern engines are designed like that - in fact modern production methods with lower tolerances and better spec oils should mean lower oil usage but as Monkeyhanger says the level of use you describe will be considered acceptable by VW...

I've had to top mine up once in 17K miles and it wasn't a full litre...

[phazer]

VAG diesels do seem to use a bit of oil apparently by design as others have said. The Mini we used to have used none at all in almost 3 years. Perhaps it's the fuel contamination from the DPF process thinning the oil and it passing into the combustion process, I think BMW use a chemical process on the mini?

Above all in my experience it would seem granny driving and softly softly in the first few thousand miles on a diesel will give you increased oil usage.

[mcmaddy]

I ran my gtd in for about 1000 miles and haven't topped up the oil yet so I don't think a hard and fast rule can be applied. All cars are different so some will use oil and some won't.