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Skoda Octavia vRS gets through a lot of 5w30 engine oil, it's probably every two weeks on average that the dash warns me to check oil level. I'd say around 90% of my driving is in city traffic.

There are no oil leaks and always has a high-ish consumption since owning the vehicle. I was also warned that they do guzzle a lot of oil.

Just wondering if there is anything I can do help minimise this oil consumption...?

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  • What version vRS do you have? Mk1, Mk2, Mk3? Petrol or diesel? What mileage do you do? Whilst they can use a bit of oil I've had both Mk1 and Mk2 petrol versions doing around 20k miles a year and the amount you are suggesting seems excessive.
    – Andy Hames
    Feb 7, 2022 at 16:50
  • Mk3 (2016), diesel, average about 100 miles a week if I don't travel out of the city. Thanks Andy.
    – zigojacko
    Feb 8, 2022 at 9:58

2 Answers 2

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If there is is no visible oil leak, then the oil must be getting burned in the engine.

You don't say which engine you have, so I will just give a general answer.

There are 3 possibilities that I can think of that would cause a significant oil loss-

  • Worn/damaged piston rings or cylinder walls
  • Turbo bearing worn
  • Cylinder head gasket leaking between oil and cylinder
  • Valve oil seals/guides (to a lesser extent)

I would think that a leaking gasket would be the least likely, but still a possibility.

Checking the condition of the spark plugs (if there are some) may give you an indication if there is an issue with one or more cylinders being worn. The plug may have oily black deposits on them. If so, the only fix would be an engine rebuild.

The turbo could be leaking oil into the air intake. You could remove the pipe that goes from the turbo to the intercooler to see if there is oil in there. To fix this you may be able to get the turbo rebuilt or replaced. If the engine uses diesel, it would be a good idea to check this soon, since if the leak gets too bad, the engine could start to use the oil as fuel which can cause it to run out of control - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3wxQkZS0UA

You could try using the thickest grade of oil that is recommended in the car owners manual. That may slow down the rate the oil is burned.

As suggested in the comments below by David, oil can also get passed worn/damaged valve stem oil seals and guides.

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  • It has had a full service and there are no faults or issues (assuming that a full service would have identified something such as this). It has always been like this since owning the vehicle which was from a dealer with full service etc too. By the way, Mk3 (2016) and a diesel, semi automatic with a DSG gearbox if that helps.
    – zigojacko
    Feb 8, 2022 at 9:59
  • There is clearly something wrong, because you shouldn’t need to top-up your oil between services, let alone every 2 weeks or 200 miles as you say in the comments.
    – HandyHowie
    Feb 8, 2022 at 10:04
  • OK thanks, I will see if I can get this checked out to see if any problem can be found like you have suggested - many thanks.
    – zigojacko
    Feb 8, 2022 at 10:14
  • I think you should add (as another bullet point in your answer) "worn valve stems and/or valve guides," which can allow oil to flow into the combustion chamber(s). Mar 10, 2022 at 16:42
  • @DavidSupportsMonica I agree, but generally this would only be a very small amount of oil. I will add it to my answer though. Thanks.
    – HandyHowie
    Mar 10, 2022 at 17:36
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I know this is an old thread but I'm replying anyway. I have the same cap and mine uses 1L per 400km. I stripped down the engine and found that the piston rings are shot. I'm currently rebuilding it so I can't confirm that it is OK now. From what I have learned EA288 CUPA and CUNA variants have these problems and the rings need changing (if the pistons are not shot). Ofcourse changing the piston rings drags along alit of other parts so the cost is realy high I changed

  • Piston rings
  • crank bearings
  • main bearings
  • all of the seals
  • head gasket
  • exhaust gasket
  • intake hasket
  • valve cover gasket
  • valve seals
  • head bolts
  • main bearing bolts
  • crank bolts
  • oil foter
  • oil
  • coolant
  • coolant pump
  • tensioners
  • main belt
  • injector copper seals
  • injector o-rings
  • injector bolts
  • seal compound
  • head camshaft module bolts And maybe I forgot something
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  • Thanks for adding your thoughts/experience to the question. I'd be interested to know how oil consumption is affected after all of these replacements.
    – zigojacko
    Mar 13 at 10:57

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