Greetings! New to Audis and the forum.

My girlfriend has a lovely late/early 05/06 A3 2.0T wagon. I'm out visiting from San Diego--she lives in NOLA--and she says her oil light keeps coming on and if she opens the oil cap and puts it back on the light keeps going out.

I did bite my tongue from suggesting like this is having a banging noise from the engine and just turning the radio up and thus, "fixing" the noise.

/facepalm

None-the-less, we stopped to get gas, I check the dip stick and I nearly had a heart attack with death not far behind. NO OIL other than a bit of residue on the gauge. That was BEFORE the second check and wiping the stick, which came back dry as a bone.

Sooooooo, we go to Target--the filling station didn't have any of the grades that'd work with the car, and the Target was but a couple blocks away. Figure we'd made it that far without the thing seizing...

We're in Target for about 4 hours and when we get back to the car, I check the stick again--since it's cooled at least what I'd hope to be suffiencintly since I checked it when it was hot. Same bone dry stick, though *maybe* a little bit of oil on the very tip. So, poured oil in as per the OM a quarter of a quart at a time. At the end of the first quart, the stick measured almost exactly at the MIN line. At the end of the 2nd quart, it was about 1/4 of the way below the MAX line. Didn't want to take a chance and overfill the crankcase so left off there.

The OM says the case takes between 4.9 and 5.9 quarts, might be a bit off on the .x but what really concerns me is, if the engines requires that much oil, surely 2 quarts wouldn't fill it enough for that much of a measurement?

Now, my confusion stems from reading the OM a bit closer and checking about the Net. My girl isn't really sure how many miles/mos since the oil and filter were changed; possibly 6mos/3k give or take. I see on the Net oil consumption isn't unheard of, but differing reasons for it--crankcase breather too short, PCV design change, performance vehicles eat more oil, turbo is oil cooled so it eats more oil, etc. However, this was the oil pressure light, not a low oil light. I think I know enough about engines to know low/no oil can definitely throw a low oil psi light. I'm guessing there was enough oil in the engine--wasn't showing signs of overheat and no check engine light. And, based on the 2 quarts of oil, I'm wondering if more than one thing was going on?

Any clues for the clueless?

ps and yes, i'm looking for a decent german service station for a check because of the low oil. =)

 

The same thing happened to me. I quickly added oil to get the alert light off.
Then I hit the forums and have read that some turbos do burn oil. This was new to me since I have never owned a euro turbo before. Suggestion: always make a conscience effort to check your oil level every 2-3 weeks before you turn the car on and carry an extra qt of oil with you for maintaing a proper level.

 

I would definitely change the oil and make sure to keep an extra quart on hand. With 2 quarts low, you'll get a low oil pressure warning when you stress the engine load as there is no extra oil ready to be pumped. That could lead to sludging in the engine and extra wear on vital engine parts. Make sure you are checking the level every couple of weeks or every other gas fill-up and you'll be okay. Mine burns about a quart every 5k, but others have been much more, and a newer engine will burn more oil. Make sure your lady knows that oil is to an engine, like blood is for a person, and ingoring the warning for too long will result in a catostrophic engine failure. Good luck!


Cheers!