Engine oil smells like gas?

[sirlitchfield]

Upon checking the level of oil on the dipstick I noticed a strong smell of gas. I'm guessing this is not normal because my previous cars never had a gas smell on the oil.. Should I be worried?

[theresanothersteve]

By gas I'm assuming you mean petrol and you haven't had an LPG conversion...

Are you checking hot or cold? Do you do long trips that allow the motor to get to a proper operating temperature (and I don't mean the temperature gauge gets to 90 degrees) or do you do short runs? If you do short runs go and do a 60 k run on the open road and then check.

The twin charged motor will use oil, so I'm thinking dilution here...

Mine has done 62000 and uses about 750ml between services (15000 interval).

[sirlitchfield]

Yes petrol sorry, it is a VW Jetta 2012 TSI Highline.

Checked when the engine was still warm and I do average trips per day around 10-15km where the temperature hangs around 95-105.

I'd assume if something was wrong and petrol was mixing with oil the check engine light would go on?

[theresanothersteve]

Yes petrol sorry, it is a VW Jetta 2012 TSI Highline.

Checked when the engine was still warm and I do average trips per day around 10-15km where the temperature hangs around 95-105.

I'd assume if something was wrong and petrol was mixing with oil the check engine light would go on?

Possibly not. The oil light will basically come on if oil pressure drops below a threshold value.

Remember the thermostat will control the temperature of the coolant, so it will get to 90 within a short space of time. Oil will run a bit hotter but it takes a lot longer to get there.

I'd reckon you're not travelling far enough to get everything up to its proper operating temperature. If you go for a long run, say 100 KM or so, I'm expecting the oil level to drop massively.

So what do you do? First thing I'd do is have an oil and oil filter change. I'd consider a compression test. I'd change the air filter. If it hasn't been put on a computer lately I'd get that done (we used to call them tuneups and included adjusting air/fuel mixture with a screwdriver). Then I'd monitor it closely. (I also monitor fuel consumption closely and will investigate unexpected consumption figures).