Just wanted to remind people on the forum who push their car hard at times, to please check your oil levels often.

Just finished the Corsa Xen Rally and my oil level was again very low after 4 days of very spirited driving. Again the funny thing is there are no warning lights to indicate there is a low oil problem. The car runs smooth when on a flat surface, but when on uphill road, (luckily SF has many of them), the engine starts to stutter, sputter and error codes start flying.

I experienced the same thing after the Fuelrun Rally. The car really likes to burn through oil when going hard. I do have a tune and pulley but I think the same would occur if I was running the OEM tune. This is just something people should take care to watch for. I wish our car had an old fashion dip stick or a faster electronic dip to make this process less painful.

 

Regarding "fast electronic dip" (or read out), as I have mentioned before if I pop the hood I get an instant read out, no waiting for 10 mins, no stuffing about with cruise control buttons, doesn't matter when the car was last driven or what temperature the engine or oil are. Of course YMMV.

 

A word of caution, if you have experienced low oil condition it is associated with immediate bearing damage. Typically, crankshaft bearings furthest from the oil pump fail first in such situation. Send your oil for analysis, return car to stock configuration and prepare to fight dealer for warranty coverage.

Before you panic, how did you determine that you have low oil? E-dipstick isn't that accurate and only shows last 0.5gal or so. So empty there doesn't necessary mean you run your engine dry.

However, typically you don't get error codes for this type of failure. It is more likely that in your case codes and sputtering is caused by something else.

 

To clarify - low oil condition that leads to damage is your oil pump sucking in air. It takes more than 50% of oil fill gone for this to happen.

 

Agreed. So how much oil was the OP's car down?

Dave