2l 8v bora burning oil

[proden]

Hi all
First post here
Did a bit of search, but could not find an answer.
I bought a Bora 2L 8V petrol - 2001 model. Fully serviced ,all FSH by VW, 52k miles. OK HERE GOES..
When I bought it did about 1K and the oil warning came up, toped it up and no problems until the next 1K , the warning came up again. Topped it up with up to 500-750 mills of engine oil.
Is this normal or is there something wrong. Had it diagnosed and there were no faulty codes whatsoever.

Please advice.
Many thanks

[Boardboy]

Hi Proden that sounds excessive to me. Doe's it smoke when you start upand have you noticed it smoke when you lift your foot off?
Regards Boardboy

[proden]

Hi Boardboy, thanks for the reply.
Nope, no smoking .NADA. The exhaust is clean as a whistle.
No probs whatsoever

[Boardboy]

Have you checked the coolant tank for oily deposits?
Regards Boardboy

[proden]

Yup all clean as a whistle ? weird .. looks like its normal for some strange reason. checked reviews in parkers.co.uk

[Boardboy]

Proden just been looking on the web. There seem to be a few people with the same problem. One guy refers to the handbook saying consumption can be as high as 1 litre per 1000km.
Well if it's not chucking it out the back or filling your coolant up all I can surgest is keep your eye on it to see if consumption increases.
Regards Boardboy

[adamss24]

Its normal for the 1.8 turbo 20V as it is a highly tuned engine straight from the factory and feature piston cooling oil jets to lubricate the valves and the piston crowns. It is however in your case an excesive oil consumption due to the fact that the 2.0 L engine its a fairly simple engine compared with the 1.8T 20 V. Get someone to drive the car and you watch from behind(preferably from another car following yours) especially when he changes gears and accelerate quickly . If its smokes blue/white, i sugest you have a vw specialist do a leak down test. Regards.

[AndyV5]

Hi, I bought a brand new 51 plate Bora 2.0 back in Sep 2001. After just a few thousand miles I had the same problem!! And it is normal apparantly with this engine. Infact, later models were actually supplied with a top up kit of oil in the boot. My new 2006 4Motion GT (petrol Fsi) car came with this... didnt burn oil though.
That is not to say you dont have another issue with your car though. Maybe its been hammered in the past when cold?? linings are scuffed, or rings worn etc? Hope its all sorted now however.

[Tonye]

There is/was an issue with these engines at that time which VW will not tell you about. It related to faulty piston rings. Mine went onto three cylinders permanently about 2 days out of warranty and VW tried to deny liability even though they had been monitoring the problem for two years!

To be fair to VW if your has reached that mileage it may not be the same problem, or a lesser version of it.

Tony

[shagi101]

ive had my bora 2.0 for a couple of montha now, it had 42k on the clock and has the exact same oil consumtion being talked about here.

exhaust not smokey, coolant is ok aswell. ive done 3000 miles and have used about 2.6 liters of oil so far. it really is annoying that a lump such as the 8 valve enigne is so costly to oil. (i use 5w 30 edge).

ive read some articles about high oil consuption due to vw messing up piston ring assembly, but it was for US models?

[Tonye]

shagi101, how old is your Bora? Does it have full dealer service history? I presume it is well out of warranty.
The problem with the piston rings definitely affected UK cars as well. If the car is runing OK and the oil consumption is steady you may be OK but if oil consumption gets too high it can mess up the lambda sensor and you end up with a rich mixture which can damage the cylinder bores.
If you are going to moan at VW you will have to be prepared to persevere.

[shagi101]

alrite Tonye, my Bora was born in 2000, 45k atm.
(the car does have service history but not all at vw).
Do i have a leg to stand on with VW? the consumption is about 1 liter every 1000 miles - which seems to high to me?

but yeh, i really wana bug vw (and i did call them once, but te guy just fobbed me off by saying that ill need to bring the car in to investigation and pay for it. he refused to say that vw were at fault). but what else can i say???

[Tonye]

shagi101, I am no expert but I doubt that VW would be interested at all after 9 years. I had a real fight with mine and they knew about the problem inside the warranty period. If the engine is running OK and not contaminating the lambda sensor then you are probably stuck with putting oil in. If it is contaminating the sensor then the ultimate problem is what happened to mine - very rich mixture putting petrol in the bores and rapid wear. If you have that you are better to fix the rings or you will have a lot of damage to the engine. You could always try a slightly thicker grade of oil to reduce the oil consumption. 10-40 semi synthetic is OK

[Chris6108]

I've exactly the same problem! Mine's a 78k mile '99 2ltr SE, with the same consumption with no contamination (though i do get traces mayo on the oil filler cap?). I changed to the slightly thicker oil and it reduced the consumption slightly...