Car consuming alot of oil !

I have a Volkswagon Polo that is consuming alot of oil. I am getting about 900 miles out of every litre. It was not always like this. I am constantly topping up the car with oil. I checked under the bonnet and their appears to be alot of excess oil all over the place. Their appears to be no dripping of oil when the car is stationery as their is no oil marks.

I had a google on the internet and I was under the impression that the oil was leaking when the car is being driven at speed ie pressure related .

I spoke to the mechanic who had a look at it and it appears that under the engine - the seals will need to be replaced as they cannot see a leak anywhere else. This is the diagnoses even though they cannot fully check because they have not taken the engine apart to take a look. They confirm that it is not actually leaking but more so buring alot of fuel. I am not sure if this prognoses is correct - as it does not justify itself against all the oil that was under the bonnet before the service.

What is one's thought's on whether it would actually be the seals or could it be elsewhere ? Apparently redoing the seals is lengthy in time --- so I am assuming it will cost alot of money to get repaired due to the amount of labour involved.

Thanks in advance

First thing I would do is to steam/pressure clean the engine ALL over and then during the following days keep a close eye on it to see exactly where the oil is coming from, therefore pinpointing what gasket/seal has failed.

You don't say whether it is petrol or diesel, but if there is any white/blueish smoke from the exhaust, especially when the engine is under pressure, then it is (also?) burning oil.

EVO magazine have commented a few times that the recent (new model) polo's they have on long term test, are consuming a lot of oil. They've asked other owners to write in with their experiences. Seems to be a characteristic of the engine. You could have a completely different problem though.

[broken link removed]

'Easy-going’ was how I described life with the Polo last month. Since then, I’ve received several emails from evo readers and members of www.polodriver.com alerting me to cars with high oil consumption. It seems a batch of early twin-charged 1.4 TSIs have suffered from faulty piston rings, with a small handful of cars needing new engines.

As if on cue, with the odometer reading just shy of 6500 miles (around 4000 of them with evo), on popped the oil warning light on our Polo. The handbook suggests consumption of up to 1 litre per 2000km (1243 miles) is possible, so this is well within tolerances, and a butcher’s around the manuals of other VW group cars revealed this to be a blanket warning.

Click to expand...

[broken link removed]

There is one potential cause for concern with the VW, though. Browsing Polo forums revealed a major thirst for oil from some twin-charged TSI-equipped cars (Polo, Ibiza and Fabia). While some have needed replacement engines for a known piston ring issue (evo 165), the vast majority simply slurp more oil than you’d expect from a diddy-engined hatch. Happily, our GTI fell into the latter camp, and £16 every 4000-odd miles wasn’t financially debilitating.

Click to expand...

alexandra123 said:

I have a Volkswagon Polo that is consuming alot of oil. I am getting about 900 miles out of every litre. It was not always like this. I am constantly topping up the car with oil.

Click to expand...

I have a similar issue with a petrol corolla, I have it from new, 120K miles on it now, and since around 50K miles it started using oil, not leaking just using. I top it up every 2 weeks, 5 Litres from the local motor factors usually lasts 3 months, tried different grades and brands, makes no odds.

In my case anyway it seems as the engine ages it just uses more oil.

Petrol wise, it’s as economical now as new and has been trouble free and faultless, so I’m happy to keep topping it up.

I would guess that would not be normal for a Toyota engine.