Excess soot in exhaust?

[martinGTT]

Just thought i'd try and pick a few of your brains on here.. a friend of mine has a new GTI petrol, it went in for its first service at a local VW dealership.. back in Oct and since then has had to put in about 4/5 liters of Oil in topping it up from then till now.. and the soot build up on the exhaust tips seems excessive.. he says hes had it back to the dealers for diagnostics etc and they said it was fine. as there is no leaks, signs of smoke etc?

any ideas why it would be using so much oil? and excess soot?

[Jimble]

Sounds like he's over filling and the car is burning off the excess, i'd be checking he's filling it to the correct level as too much can be as bad as too little and 4-5 litres is waaay too much to be topping up. My car gets sooty pipes but i clean them regularly.

[ScottA]

My GTI gets sooty pipes too, haven't noticed any excess oil consumption, done 2k miles now and haven't topped up but will check when I get the car back & make sure it's not going down. Think I checked 500 miles ago (ish) and was ok

[martinGTT]

Hes only been topping it up when hes checked the oil and noticed its low.. its a brand new car so unsure why it would be using so much oil?

Ive done over 3k miles in my mk4 turbo since i swapped the oil and hasnt used a drop.

Its seems to be using the oil somewhere but with no signs of smoke or leaks? puzzled? 

[mkviken]

my gti gets very sooty tail pipes too especially with stage 1. i wouldn't worry about it

if its using oil there is a problem though as they're not know for using oil, though a brand new engine could be expected to use a bit while running in.

any blue smoke will indicate burning oil

again i would double check he is checking the level right.

mine done 4500 miles now and not use any oil but as i say it does have very sooty tail pipes

[andyr]

I agree with Jimble, get your mate to check that he's using the correct dipstick markings and not over filling, topping up 4-5 ltrs since October is excessive.

Check that they tightened the sump plug bolt correctly...or the bolt actually has a washer on it   

My sons A3 used a similar amount of oil over a similar period with no signs of smoke etc. Turned out to be cracked oil control rings on 1 cylinder.... but that was on an engine that had done over 70K, I wouldn't expect that on a new block

[Jimble]

Doesn't the engine take between 4-5 litres from empty? In which case he should be getting a low level warning if he can get that much in, i suspect he's reading it wrong.

[andyr]

Doesn't the engine take between 4-5 litres from empty? In which case he should be getting a low level warning if he can get that much in, i suspect he's reading it wrong.

I think he means that he topping up 4-5 ltrs over the 6 month period, i.e. a litre a month (...ish)

Still waaay too much!

[JoeGTI]

Nearly every GTI I see has completely black tail pipes. I used to keep mine fairly clean but they'd get sooty in no time.

Strangely the pipes on my GTD never get sooty (I'd have expected them to be worse!).

[wigit]

Nearly every GTI I see has completely black tail pipes. I used to keep mine fairly clean but they'd get sooty in no time.

Strangely the pipes on my GTD never get sooty (I'd have expected them to be worse!).

this tends to be the norm now, our mk5 has sooty tips as did my rocco (hence i went ceramic finish on my milltek)