fair enough, i get your point. and ill be having them check it out throughly. i bet they will 'not be able to find anything' and it will just keep happening.

time will tell however. lets see how long it stays at the high level

zei20t said:

fair enough, i get your point. and ill be having them check it out throughly. i bet they will 'not be able to find anything' and it will just keep happening.

time will tell however. lets see how long it stays at the high level

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I believe there is an acceptable oil usuage ml/1000km somewhere and if its below that its behaving normally. Some more techy peeps might have an idea. The car does log the low oil warnings though and they can be used against you unfortunately!

1 litre per 1000miles is the max, so 2 litres in what equates to just over 6000 miles is below that threshold.

Engines are funny things, especially when new and bedding-in - one week they won't touch a drop of oil, the next week it'll use 1/4 litre. Which is why, even when new, it's vital to check all fluid levels, tyre pressures, etc once a week.

It states this in the owner's manual of any car by any manufacturer.

1L per 1000 miles? that has got to be a joke if they think thats 'normal'. we would never have to change our oil, just keep topping it up.

lucky for me, its been through its run-in period and its 15k service. i SHOULD have checked the oil after it was done, what if someone didnt put in enough oil?? lol im sure it can happen!

Re Ken's original post. Co-incidentally the orange warning light came on my 1.4 Sport a couple of days ago. I pulled the dipstick out and it was wet with oil. I wiped it, stuck it back in and it came out more or less dry! I thought "crap dipstick", tried again and realised with horror that it was because there was no oil in the beastie! I had a service fairly recently and as mentioned in one of the other posts didnt think oil would have gone down so much (I've done 24,000 miles and had 18,000 service). Begs the question did they change the oil or has it supped up the lot in 6000 miles!? Anyway, nuff said the lesson seems to be check the oil regular which is what I will be doing religiously!

You know, it's times like this that I stop and wonder if maybe professional engineers/mechanics who spend their lives developing and maintaining engines know more about engine behaviour/habits/maintenance needs than some people on a forum.

Saying that "1 litre per 1000 miles must be a joke" is an insult to their intelligence and flies in the face of common knowledge of engine characteristics*


*Common knowledge, as in, realising you don't know everything in the world evar about engines and fundamental mechanics and deciding to go and read up/learn about it.

GA Wilson said:

Begs the question did they change the oil or has it supped up the lot in 6000 miles!? Anyway, nuff said the lesson seems to be check the oil regular which is what I will be doing religiously!

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If you do the maths, according the the manual the sump and filter hold just under 3 litres of oil. 6000 miles, 0.5l per 1000 miles is well within tolerance levels.

The lesson to be learnt here is that Fiat write this stuff in the MANUAL for a reason and if you choose not to read the manual or choose to ignore what is said in there then you've only yourself to blame if you end up running under the minimum with your oil.

zei20t said:

1L per 1000 miles? that has got to be a joke if they think thats 'normal'. we would never have to change our oil, just keep topping it up.

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That's a maximum consumption before Fiat get concerned. The vast majority come nowhere near that.

Bear in mind with Mazda RX8's they advise you'll need to top up the oil level every time you put fuel in because the rotary engine drinks so much.

Mine seems to be using about 1 litre between services which for me is about 14000 miles which is pretty good I reckon.

We have an approach to running engines in where we make sure the fluids are up to temp and then drive it using the full rev range, with good throttle loadings, none of this staying below 3000 revs for the first couple of thousand miles. I believe that approach makes the most of the bedding in procedure and ultimately leads to reduced oil usage.

Every engine is different though, even with factory production no two engines are exactly the same.

Well, after owning 4 nissans, 2 subarus and a honda, this is the only car that has used oil. do you see where im coming from?

its already been said we should be checking the oil more regularly, which is what i will do from now on.

but a car with 3L in the sump using 1/3 and more of its capacity between services somehow isnt right.

and i wasnt insulting fiat engineers re the engine. however, there are many MANY engines out there that should never have been built.

Jap cars just don't use oil unless they are broken tho. The F.I.R.E. units Fiats seem to even when perfectly healthy, keeps you in good habits when I ran Fiats I checked the oil once a week and after it had been thrashed.

zei20t said:

Well, after owning 4 nissans, 2 subarus and a honda, this is the only car that has used oil. do you see where im coming from?

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My wife has a Subaru, the manual still tells you to check the oil regularly.....

My wifes car had a leaking rocker cover gasket which was leaking a crapload of oil and if not for regular oil checks it would have run dry and that's not cool with a turbo engine....

im pretty sure all car manuals tell you to check the oil. maybe except rolls royce

zei20t said:

im pretty sure all car manuals tell you to check the oil. maybe except rolls royce

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So you didn't check the oil and now you're complaining?

correct!

how often did you check your oil on any new car you owned?

zei20t said:

correct!

how often did you check your oil on any new car you owned?

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Once every 2 weeks or so?

This is a silly Thread really.

Check oil level evry week when you check tyre pressures, coolant level & top up screenwash. We all do that dont we...?

Well if you said "No" you're a numpty...

Jeez it takes 5 mins on a Saturday or Sunday.

We have 4 cars, the Stilo which is sold now never used any oil between services, my MJet uses a litre or so. The Peugeot my eldest has doesnt use any but the Seat my youngest has went from Full to Minimum in a fortnight... she went away last weekend.

Moral is to check... regularly!

which i will be doing from now on.

actually i might put it in for an early service as the oil is fairly dark now.

Bear in mind that oil pressure is independent of oil level... if it happens again and you know the oil level is fine then get it to a garage ASAP as it could well be leading on to further (bigger) problems.

My 205 throws up an oil pressure warning every now and again for no apparent reason. Being a 20 year old french car though there are more reasons completely unrelated to oil that would cause it than reasons that cause pressure loss