If its running OK not blowing smoke not rattling unduly not knocking no odd warning lights coming on just carry on driving it but do keep the oil topped up.

Possible that running low could have caused extra wear so it might use slightly more oil due to this, if it does burn a bit extra buy 5 litres of half decent oil of the correct spec from ebay (doesn't need to be made from angels tears @ £70 a sumpful from the makers parts dept, anything of the right spec from one of the indy suppliers on ebay will do) and top it up to at least the half way mark every week, even if it costs you £40 a year in top up oil that's not even an hours labour towards fitting another engine, which is probably not needed anyway.

Worry about it if it starts to make odd noises or smoke.

Are you saying that you drove the car to the garage for a service and it had no problems before you left it? I cannot understand if they were going to service it why they would put so much new oil in it before draining the old does not seem to make sense.. When you drove it away to go to the second garage was did it drive as you would expect. Cannot comment on the belt?chain? Presumably the first garage did not service it saying the engine had a big problem?

There are potentially two types of oil warning lights 1) Low oil level 2) Low oil pressure

Unfortunately not all cars are fitted with a Low oil level light - I wonder if this is the case with you car?

If you experience a low oil pressure light it can be game over - you have possibly JUST ducked a bullet as this never happened. It's not great - but hopefully....

Have you experienced any rumbling or tapping that wasn't there before?

Edited by Big John on 06/01/2023 at 22:30

If they topped up (as opposed to changing) the oil, an elemental oil analysis would give you a clue as to whether significant damage was done. though of course it wont fix it. Bearing wear will put excess lead (and perhaps copper) in the oil.

Probably more commonly done in the US at the consumer level than in the UK, but for 40 quid or so might have given you clues/some peace of mind.

32.5 quid from these people, who apparently give you large (abnormal wear) particle analysis that the standard method misses.

oilanalysislab.com/buy-oil-analysis-kits/

You could do it before your next oil change if you still have the car and are still concerned about possible bearing wear.

4WIW, due to being distracted by the blazing row that tends to follow whenever I attempt to get GF's to help with car problems (that's MY excuse anyway), and/or/aka simply my stupidity, my car was towed in gear for a few hundred metres with the oil below the pickup pipe. This certainly damaged the bearings, since I could see bearing lead sediment in the sump when I subsequently took it off.

Its still going 7 years later, but I do run relatively thick oil.

I took my car to be have its 60k service. The garage told me that car was dangerously low on oil. (low oil warning light had not come on) They said they had to put 2.5 lltrs of oil in the car and that because it had got so low the engine will have been damaged and said i would need a new engine. ........ The last time i had filled the car up with oil was 6 mths ago but before this have never needed to top up oil between services..... I'm now confused and don't know what to believe. Any thought on this would be welcome

I'm also confused. Why would they put 2.5 of oil in before they drained it? I presume an oil change was part of the service.

My thought? The editing note name implies that you are probably genetically XX. I think some garage mechanics assume that this implies little or no knowledge of engines which leads some of them to offer, ahem, opportunistic advice. I also think that if an oldish car sounds and works OK, it's OK to continue to drive it. If it works, don't mend it. I'd keep an accurate record of oil consumption - i.e. how many litres per 10,000 miles. A small engine of this age in reasonable nick shouldn't use more than two.

The light on my nissan qashquai has never came on. It was running fine until one day it died while I was pulling away from the curb. Brought it to the garage to find out that the oil has run out (checked 3 month prior and yes, also lesson learned). This caused chain to slip and wrecked the engine. No warning signs, no rattling, no signs at all. Just died. 5k to repare. The car is only 55k miles. Ill repare it and sell it before something else breaks. Nissans are extremelly c***py card since they merged with Renault. My advise, fix it if you can and get rid of it. I will certainly avoid nissan like a plague in future. "s*** brand" doesnt even describe how c*** they are.