[fuhrer]

Gone are those days when the first thing we do every morning before starting the car is checking the engine oil level, water level in the radiator, and battery levels.

A good friend of ours still have the practice of checking it every morning and found that, he has to top up with one litre of oil in his verito, to maintain the optimal level of oil, when the car was sent to service centre on this regards the service advisor said its common with logans.

Later when it was checked in my uncle's logan it was found the entire three litres of oil was consumed by the engine. I came to know about this, this saturday(23/jul/12), my logan has just returned to chennai from madurai(approx 460kms) few minutes back, to my surprise when i checked my car there was no oil in it. The car has just came back from highways where it was effortlessly doing 3 digit speeds. there was no warning light, the car showed no signs of engine strain or overheat, was shocked to find that there is no oil in the engine. Let the car cool down and checked it again this morning (monday 25/jul/12) the dip stick was dry. will be sending the car to the service station today or tomorrow.

Whats the reason for this oil cunsumption?
How car survive the highway with no oil in it?
Is this the reason why some logans smoke a lot?
Why did the engine check warning light come up in the dashboard?

[MAS]

This does seem to be a tricky situation. I have not heard of a Verito drinking engine oil. This situation was reported by a few Vento owners.

Most owner's manuals will advise you to check the oil level when the engine is warm (after driving 10 or 15 minutes), about 5 minutes after you stop the engine. This allows the warmed oil to be fully circulated in the engine, and then drain down to the oil pan (oil sump) where its level can be measured by the dipstick. You should never add more oil than you need, as indicated by the dipstick.

Your Logan, not showing any oil in the oil sump could be due to;
- The oil level being really low, but is just enough for the engine to run
- You checked the oil level immediately after it came back after the 460 odd km run, where the oil did not get enough time to drain down from the engine to the oil sump.
- Your oil is old and is now very viscous and hence taking time to come down to the oil sump.

Whatever the reason, you are opened many Logan owner's eyes by starting this thread. Have any other Logan owners faced this problem?


- Since it is the same 1.5 dCi engine that does duty in the Micra, Sunny, Pulse & Fluence, do owners of these cars face similar problem?
- The soon-to-be-launched Duster, will also sport this 1.5 dCi heart.

Is excessive engine oil consumption a common problem with this engine?

[carbookie]

Originally Posted by fuhrer

my logan has just returned to chennai from madurai(approx 460kms) few minutes back, to my surprise when i checked my car there was no oil in it. The car has just came back from highways where it was effortlessly doing 3 digit speeds. there was no warning Let the car cool down and checked it again this morning (monday 25/jul/12) the dip stick was dry. will be sending the car to the service station today or tomorrow.

Whats the reason for this oil cunsumption?
How car survive the highway with no oil in it?
Is this the reason why some logans smoke a lot?
Why did the engine check warning light come up in the dashboard?

Top up the oil before you crank the engine again.

[fuhrer]

the car was sent to the service centre where it was raised up and inspected for any leaking issues and there was no cracks or signs of leakage anywhere, the service advisor said the car is fine and there must be some amount of oil in the engine and its not empty as the dip stick says. it took 2 litres of oil to fill it up. the car was serviced at 58k kms previously in which oil wash changed next oil change is at 68k kms however the car has did 64k kms only they service advisor topped up the oil and asked us to drive till next service. the reason for oil drinking as given by the service advisor might be because driving the car at high speeds and he had no reply why the low oil warning light never came up

[rajeev k]

Originally Posted by fuhrer

and he had no reply why the low oil warning light never came up

Low Oil warning light is for indicating Low Oil Pressure and not to indicate Low oil Level. Therefore this light won't glow till the lube oil pump starve due to lower engine lube oil level.
But this never answers the reason for the excessive oil consumption. I had seen many a Logans with black exhausts on acceleration which surely is worn out piston or rings.
Another probable reason that can be attributed is to the damaged valve stem seals.

[SS-Traveller]

Loss of engine oil is a visible event. Check for telltale signs like surplus (wet) soot in the tailpipe, too much smoke on acceleration, oil marks on the underbody/sump, or oil in the coolant.

Don't drive the car with an empty sump to the ASC - top up with any cheap engine oil, drive to the ASC and fill recommended oil. Or procure some recommended oil, fill up & then drive.

[RM2488]

Originally Posted by MAS

- Your oil is old and is now very viscous and hence taking time to come down to the oil sump.

I was under the impression that engine oil thins out as it is used. The longer-chained heavier molecules break down into smaller-chained lighter molecules, thus thinning out the oil. The process is somewhat analogous to reverse polymerisation. Is it not so?

[blackfire_9]

Diesel engines spew out a lot of soot, much more than a petrol engine. And it is primarily because of this soot that the engine oil becomes thicker over time, as it removes the soot from engine components.

Originally Posted by RM2488

I was under the impression that engine oil thins out as it is used. The longer-chained heavier molecules break down into smaller-chained lighter molecules, thus thinning out the oil. The process is somewhat analogous to reverse polymerisation. Is it not so?

[fuhrer]

@rajeev K : thank you for clearing it out to me. However in my case instead of 3Litres there was only 1 litre oil isnt it low enough to loose pressure?
@SS-traveller : just checked the car there are no signs of soots , however the car is not driven since last night, so will check it again after driving it for a considerable distance. checked the coolent, head and other areas under the hood there is no sign of oil leak and there are no oil droplets in the parking lot either. will check smoke during acceleration.

my prime suspect was the rings but the acceleration and milage of the car is very decent, it confusing.
inputs from fellow logan users will be very helpful.
thank you for your valuable input guys

[RM2488]

Originally Posted by blackfire_9

Diesel engines spew out a lot of soot, much more than a petrol engine. And it is primarily because of this soot that the engine oil becomes thicker over time, as it removes the soot from engine components.

That's something new I learned today! Thank you!

IMO if the oil is not leaking, but is still reducing in volume, then the only two possibilities are-
1. Someone is stealing it
2. The engine is burning it off.
I don't think you FEEL it so much in a diesel. And the exhaust is naturally sooty, so that won't help either.

[blackfire_9]

Originally Posted by fuhrer

@rajeev K : thank you for clearing it out to me. However in my case instead of 3Litres there was only 1 litre oil isnt it low enough to loose pressure?
@SS-traveller : just checked the car there are no signs of soots , however the car is not driven since last night, so will check it again after driving it for a considerable distance. checked the coolent, head and other areas under the hood there is no sign of oil leak and there are no oil droplets in the parking lot either. will check smoke during acceleration.

my prime suspect was the rings but the acceleration and milage of the car is very decent, it confusing.
inputs from fellow logan users will be very helpful.
thank you for your valuable input guys

What is the prescribed engine oil for Logan diesel? And what is the oil that ASCs use? I have a feeling that the ASCs maybe using something that's probably getting burnt off in the engine.

Originally Posted by RM2488

That's something new I learned today! Thank you!

I am glad I could be of help

[fuhrer]

@rm2488 someone stealing my oil i wish they have a like button in our forum like facebook @mods can you provide that if its not too much to ask

@blackfire_9 i have no idea, i just believed that the asc will use the correct oil thats why even when the oil was low i didnt want to take chances, i took it to the asc, however now its ringing a bell in my head lets see.

i just checked the oil level again its fine now but the dip stick shows more oil than the max mark about 2mm more hope that does spoil anything

[k_nitin_r]

Originally Posted by fuhrer

i just checked the oil level again its fine now but the dip stick shows more oil than the max mark about 2mm more hope that does spoil anything

Excess engine oil can result in cavitation of the engine oil and therefore poor lubrication. 2mm may or may not be within the limits designed for the vehicle - only the engineers who developed the system probably know what the design limits are, considering the thermal expansion due to temperature on a particular day.

[goandude]

Hey Fuhrer, Engine oil consumption is a common issue, but what is normal and what is abnormal is the question.
Here is a link to a brand new audi with 2 lit oil in 2500kms http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/techni...km-normal.html
here is my experience http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/long-t...ml#post2173365
And here is a paper on measurement of oil consumption in a turbo diesel engine http://www.anst.ca/download/OilConsu...hureNA2010.pdf

hope this helps