Car engine experts...any idea?

I got an oil change for my girlfriends 2001 certified pre-owned VW Jetta about 4000 miles ago (VW manual says to change every 5000 miles). No problem, however when I drove the car yesterday the "low oil pressure" light came on with a loud repeating beep. So thank God I was parking at her apartment already. So I go inside and come out an hour later to check oil after engine cooled. OIL NOT EVEN TOUCHING DIPSTICK!! That low! I look under the car at the pavement in her assigned parking and there is NO oil spot on the pavement nor do I see any leaks on the cars underbody.

I ended up putting 2 full quarts in the engine go get it to the sweet spot.

MY QUESTION. With no apparent external oil leak, is it feasable for a vehicle with only 53,000 miles to internally "lose" 2 quarts of oil?

I'm shaking my head thinking that maybe when I got the last oil change they put too little in or something.

Any ideas?

Thanks so much in advance.

lol we had a car that used over 10,000Km (about 6000 miles) about 6 bottles of oil (full bottles, maybe 3 litres each) and 2 engines, and a raditor, and two sets of tyres LOL.

man that was a disaster on wheels that car.

[-peep-] idiot light really pissed me off of that puppy HA HA. and guys never trust the "chains" of car places, they charged us for all this work and i presume they just poured in a bottle of motor-up or somthing and fixed nothing. bloody wankers.

and then we had a mechanic who did most of his work for free. or really really cheap. and was brillient. man that guy has my respect. if i ever see him again i am gonna go buy him somthing really cool.

p.s. our oil disapeared coz it was being burnt in the engine somehow. the mechanic found no major leaks anywhere, he found a few that were so pitiful that he fixed them up, but they didn't fix the problem, so yeah it is possible

Alltaken

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oh you mean you didn't need to check it daily?

the car we were driving, we only drove for 3 weeks that was 6 bottles worth in 3 weeks.

the knocking sound we ended up hearing was a slipped bearing and the piston smacking into the top of the sparkplug and engine. drove it for another 20Km like that LOL. not such a good idea, but when you are in the middle of nowhere in australia its the better option than walking

Alltaken

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If you drive it with a lead foot, it could be escaping oil by the rings and burning off the oil. If rings are just a little loose, the increased pressure can cause blowby, burning oil excessively. It is not uncommon under hard driveing conditions to burn 1 quart between changes, 2 is a little high though. Are any plugs fowling?

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Oh VW....

Last time I heard about VW oil consumption was in the paper, years ago about the VW Rabbit. Guy had written in & said he burnt up a new Rabbit because it ran out of oil. Rabbit only held 3 or 3 1/2 qts. as I remember. Back then they didn't have the idiot lights like today's. The paper contacted VW to get their response. VW responded to the paper that it was within the warranty if it consumed 1 qt. of oil per 1000 miles. That is a hell of a lot of oil consumption. Bottom line VW did nothing for the guy. I've never had anything to do with VW before that, but surely not after....



Dazzle them with Brilliance, or Baffle them with BS!
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I did not know the oil was low until the beeping and low oil pressure light came on. Thank goodness I was literally parking at the time. I waited 1 hour before checking oil to. No smoke and no drop in performance that I could notice. Thanks for offering help. And I hope that no one here thinks I would pay to get car checked. I bought this car Certified Pre-Owned AND got the extended warranty to 100,000 miles. I refuse to pay for anything wrong with car since I keep up with the scheduled maint.

It is very common for oil changes to end up leaving you short in oil.

Most oil change experts read a quarts per engine type but some times they don't.

In any case what it sounds like happened with your girls car is they installed a new oil filter changed the oil topped it off then the car was run for a short time by you or her and the oil filter depending on the size can absorb 2 quarts of oil all by it's self. If you have no leaks this is probably what happened. Along with a little under-filling by the guy that changed the oil.

The oil filter is in effect a sponge and they can soak the oil up slowly installed new and when the oil reaches operating temperature they soak up all the oil they can hold.

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After reading what you said, I remembered that on more than one truck that I have owned in the past, you had to be carefull that the parts store gave you the correct filter because one would be longer than the other. This has nothing to do with this guys engine. I doubt this happens very often. Thing is both of those filters were the same exact size except for the length. It took me a long time to finally figure out that my trucks had not been burning the oil, but that they were low becasue of those friggin long filters.