Low Oil - Engine noise.

[stubbsy88]

First post on here, looking for a bit of advice.

About 4 months ago I got the timing chain changed on my 1.4TSI Scirocco (59 plate, 55000 miles). The engine sounded great afterwards.

The other day the engine oil light came on and I could here a rattling/ticking noise. I've put about 750ml of castrol edge into it but there's still a noise. Any ideas? Should I take it a drive to get the oil circulating or to the garage? As you can probably see, I'm not the best with cars.

Any help appreciated!

[iforland]

Did you actually pull the dipstick and check the oil level? Do that first before you do anything.

Running an engine will too much oil can be as bad as running with low oil level.

If the level is ok I would start the engine and remove the oil filler cap and see if you can see any oil moving around, if it looks dry then you could have a pump issue not circulating oil correctly.

With respect to the rattling noise, if the oil level is really low and/or is not circulating correctly this could be the hydraulic tappets (the things that adjust the valve clearances).

Fundamentally if you aren't sure what you are doing get your local garage to check, but normally if the oil light comes on and you are short of oil I would not drive it very far as you can easily wreck your engine.

[stubbsy88]

Thanks for the reply.

Yeah, I checked the dipstick and it was very low. I've topped it up with a litre now, after doing so the oil level is midway between the red measurements on the dipstick. I've not started the engine again as I'm going to take another reading in an hour or so. Is it possibly the noise will eventually stop now the oil has been filled?

[iforland]

If the noise was the hydraulic tappets then yes it may well stop...

However you may have damaged the engine if it was really low on oil, depends on how lucky you are...generally always better not to run it if you are not sure.

The other issue you need to figure out is where the oil went, did it leak out or get burnt, is the bottom of the engine covered in oil?

[stubbsy88]

Lesson learned, hopefully I get lucky. The oil went where it was supposed to go, a litre in total. I'm going to take it a run in an hour so dependant upon the level it shows when I check it again. Hopefully this noise stops, can't be doing with another expensive bill!

[Cuprabob]

The oil level has to be quite a bit below the minimum to damage the engine. The low level warning will flag long before there is any risk to the engine. If the low oil pressure alarm goes off, that's a different story.

[Gray170TDI]

I think you ought to start checking your oil regularly as you really don't want to be running it that low and potentially starving your engine & turbo of oil. I wouldn't trust the oil light as quite a few people on other forums have run dry without the light even coming on

It's really not worth the risk leaving it and left with a bill for a new engine. VW wouldn't offer any support as it says in the handbook to check and top up regularly