My neighbour came to see me today: his son's 1.0 Lupo, around 70k miles, had given the lad a fright with the low oil pressure warning. When he checked the oil, it didn't even register on the dipstick.
Thing is, I know that it was up to the full mark about 3 weeks ago, because I gave him oil for it then. The lad's mileage has gone up a bit lately, but he's not doing starship miles and doesn't thrash it.
In the meantime, about a week ago, it also had a bad misfire on no.2, (both recording a code and running very rough) and the plugs were changed: No.2 looked a mess, very little electrode left, and a bit oily, but others looked OK. With the plugs changed and the codes cleared it ran well, though it's had a longstanding sticky EGR valve (with a rounded-out bolt securing it....)
When he appeared today, we fetched no.2 plug out, expecting an oily mess, perhaps from dodgy rings or valve stem seals but no, it's a normal, light brown colour, as was no.4, which we checked for comparison. Coolant level/colour is normal.
It has a small engine oil leak, (from where I can't tell) but nothing huge, and there's no huge oil stain on the drive- just a small patch, but clearly, over 2 litres of oil has gone *somewhere*, and surely that would make a big mess.
There's no visible smoke from the exhaust- but can a catalyst mask that?
Any thoughts?