"having said which it's probably changed its own oil over the course of top ups over the miles!"

This is the point I was attempting to make. Rather than one oil change with cheap supermarket oil run for say 500 miles, then another oil change with decent oil and filter; the top ups with fresh oil (albeit wrong type) mean she's sort of flushed the system. It's letting the oil level get too low that worries me!

She does know how to top up the oil correctly so it's only to the max mark on the dipstick not just sling in a load of oil and hope?

I'm amused and mildly envious, if i treated a car in this way it would have died long ago and left me with a stonking bill for my negligence.

Surprised the turbo is still turning, i'd have thought the oil filter would be blocked by goodness knows what rubbish by now, and the gunk going through the bypass should have blocked the turbo's oilways and seized it solid, quite apart from more obvious damage that such treatment, oil light coming on, usually causes....as said must be a good little engine and the rest of the car ain't bad either.

I once bought a similarly neglected ex taxi Diesel Granada with the 2.5 Peugeot engine for pennies at 2 years 80K old, no turbo but the crank bearings were shot and excessive bore wear meant i had to strip and rebore the lump and new shells all round (no crank wear though), the savings made by this taxi owner cost him probably 10 times as much in value loss, effectively scrapping a car at a third of it's life.

Edited by gordonbennet on 02/04/2011 at 08:40

Most people are clueless idiots when it comes to car maintenance, but the car manufacturers have not helped by telling us that 'their' model will go 20,000 or 30,000 miles between services. This is sales pitch, and nothing but. Whilst oils and fuels have improved over the years the fact is the internal combustion engine is still very inefficient, (around 70% so) and carbon is produced during the combustion process which contaminates the engine oil. Anyone who believes they can run their car on cheap oil with infrequent changes deserves all the trouble they get, and the big repair bills that go with it.....