Hello,

Well my light in my car has come on time to fill it up with oil.

Car is petrol 1.6 turbo (150hp)

Put my reg in and recommended:

5w-30-c2

How critical is the ‘c2’ but?

Will in go bang if I put c3 oil in itv

Many thanks

LLL

What light exactly has illuminated? You have a low oil level warning light? How long has this been a thing in cars?

Usually the red oil light warning illuminates just shortly before terminal destruction due to naff all oil pressure.

Apart from that, I’m unable to answer your c2/c3 question. Nowadays I refer to the API code as found in the handbook and trot off to get some of the same.

Probably not, increased full consumption maybe. If its under warranty then dont do it because if something happens and dealer can prove you used the wrong spec oil your claim could be refused.

Why dont you Google the difference and tell us.

What’s the car n what’s the year c3 tends to be a low ash synthetic for dpf diesels

What light exactly has illuminated? You have a low oil level warning light? How long has this been a thing in cars?

It’s becoming increasingly common for manufacturers to use a level sensor/virtual dipstick now and actually remove the physical dipstick entirely. Which is a stupid idea.

A mechanic told me ages ago to always check the dip stick as lights can fail. Advice always stuck with me so I still do it…30 seconds every couple of weeks.

It’s becoming increasingly common for manufacturers to use a level sensor/virtual dipstick now and actually remove the physical dipstick entirely. Which is a stupid idea.

This.

Yesterday I showed father in law and brother on law how the electronic dipstick works on thier Volvo D5’s. Both have had the cars for a year…

itll be fine. especially if its a petrol car.

what is it.

Many drivers never even open the bonnet, my friend even takes hers to the garage to fill the screenwash……

Pop to halfords and get the correct oil.

Also:

What light exactly has illuminated? You have a low oil level warning light? How long has this been a thing in cars?

Usually the red oil light warning illuminates just shortly before terminal destruction due to naff all oil pressure.

Don’t be tempted to over fill it either.

It’s becoming increasingly common for manufacturers to use a level sensor/virtual dipstick now and actually remove the physical dipstick entirely. Which is a stupid idea.

Except it’s not stupid at all. Do you have a dipstick on your fuel tank? on your engine coolant level or brake fluid level? Most people wouldn’t know how to operate a dipstick so having a light on the dash is the best option all round.

As for the oil spec…just go to Halfords and look on their charts for oils that meet your manufacturers spec.

Well my light in my car has come on time to fill it up with oil.

Traditionally, the light on cars is an oil pressure light not an oil level light. So if it comes on, it means all the oil is gone and your engine is going to die in seconds. I have heard people think that the light is simply time to fill up, like the fuel light. Oil does not work like this, you need a full supply of it all the time.

That said, your car may be different. I get a low oil warning, but it comes up as a message on the display, and it has to be pretty low to get the warning so it’s not ideal to rely on it.

wobbliscott

Member

Except it’s not stupid at all. Do you have a dipstick on your fuel tank?

Whilst I kind of get where you’re coming from, running out of fuel is not really comparable to running out of oil…….

just to shed more light…

cars is: 2003 Citroen DS3 1.6 THP

Saturday morning got a little message on the center console saying oil low and service light come on(this goes out after a short period of time). Quietly confident its not pressure related…

Checked the dip stick (weird crappy dip stick…length of spring with two ball bearing like things on it) mark was towards the lower end.

I looked in the owners manual at what oil they recommend, then did the ‘Halfords’ Oil check with my number plate and that’s how i ended up on – 5w-30-C2

They suggested the ‘Catrol Magnatec blah blah bla’ they had it for £35 for 4L

Reason i was asking about C2/C3 was because i found a great deal on the above but C3 – £20 for 4l.

However i have since bought the right C2 oil. 4 liters for £25 from Eu parts. They mark it up something stupid like £51.77 but i found a healthy discount code which brought it down to reasonable price

Asda do also sell the above oil for around £20 4L but wheres sold out.

Thankyou all

they didn’t make the DS3 in 2003 – 2013 perhaps?

Don’t buy from eurocarparts.com go to carparts4less.co.uk

It’s the same company, but cheaper.

There is ALWAYS a 17% off code knocking round too.

In fact, make an account add something to your basket then leave the site. A day later they will email you a code.

Member
just to shed more light…

cars is: 2003 Citroen DS3 1.6 THP

Saturday morning got a little message on the center console saying oil low and service light come on(this goes out after a short period of time). Quietly confident its not pressure related…

Checked the dip stick (weird crappy dip stick…length of spring with two ball bearing like things on it) mark was towards the lower end.

I looked in the owners manual at what oil they recommend, then did the ‘Halfords’ Oil check with my number plate and that’s how i ended up on – 5w-30-C2

Sure it’s a 2003 DS3? I don’t think DS3’s were a thing in 2003.

Anyway. We’ve got a C3 Picasso (2009) with the 1.6VTi engine. It uses oil like nobody’s business.
I agree that the dipstick is crap. I can never discern how much oil is actually in the engine.

Our car pops up a message every now & again saying ‘low oil level’ with the service light, that then extinguishes after a min or so. I don’t think that when that warning comes up it is a damaging state for the engine to get into. It’s just warning you that you need to top-up.
I’m sure that keeping it brimmed would be better, but I am always concerned about over-filling & the rubbish dipstick doesn’t make checking the level very easy.

We use the 5w-30 stuff from Halfords that comes in a copper/brown bottle. I think it’s about £35 for 5 litres. The C2 bit is something to do with the DPF, if my memory serves me correctly.

This is the stuff: https://www.halfords.com/motoring/engine-oils-fluids/engine-oil/halfords-5w30-peugeot-citroen-fully-synthetic-oil-5-litres

Don’t buy from eurocarparts.com go to carparts4less.co.uk

It’s the same company, but cheaper.

It often looks cheaper but they discounting is less aggressive, so it usually comes out about the same IME.

This might be a stupid question but I’m no car expert…

Reading all the above posts, If the low oil light was a low pressure light, and if this coming on is a sign that the engine is about to die very soon, why wouldn’t the manufacturers make the light come on when the pressure just drops a tiny bit not basically when there is no oil and no pressure left?

Ignore what’s on the front of the label, look for the manufacturer codes on the back and match that up with what it says in the handbook. Eg, mine says “VW 507 00.” So long as it says that on the bottle, you’re golden.

In any case, I don’t believe there’s a vast amount of difference between C2 and C3, it relates to emissions and would be more important to a DPF-equipped diesel. C2 should give you better fuel economy and slightly lower emissions (so I suppose that might cause an MOT issue if you’re borderline on emissions to start with).

, why wouldn’t the manufacturers make the light come on when the pressure just drops a tiny bit not basically when there is no oil and no pressure left?

Could also mean terminal oil pump failure, which is what you have to treat it as.

My car does two things, a console message if the level is really low = fill up asap, and a big red danger light if it is a pressure loss = stop car right now. The previous owner thought the light meant “fill up soon”, continued to drive to next exit from dual carriageway, and lunched the engine in the process. As a result I bought a 170k mile car with a 40k engine…

why wouldn’t the manufacturers make the light come on when the pressure just drops a tiny bit

The oil sits in a bucket under the engine (the sump) and there’s a tube that picks up the oil and pumps it around the engine in channels. So as long as there’s oil, it has pressure. When the level drops to the point it’s suddenly not sucking any oil up, the pressure immediately drops, so no oil. That’s when you’ve got about 30 seconds to pull over if you are lucky before your engine is toast. So it’s doesn’t gradually fall, it just drops suddenly.

why wouldn’t the manufacturers make the light come on when the pressure just drops a tiny bit not basically when there is no oil and no pressure left?

Largely because oil pressure ( at least where the sensor is) fluctuates normally with temperature, rpm, etc. It would be quite difficult to pick a pressure which would not give false positives (the 90s 1.8? L be engine had a glitch where the low oil buzzer would go off Everytime you decelerated from motorway speeds)which would cause massive panic. Having said that, modern lights should properly be called ‘catastrophic engine damage now occurring lights’ the trigger pressure is so low. Also,in many cases, the light doesn’t illuminate if the sensor goes kaput, instead you have to notice that the light doesn’t illuminate at prestart key on position so you can blithely drive with no oil at all and never know, not until the bang, anyway.

What light exactly has illuminated? You have a low oil level warning light? How long has this been a thing in cars?

Generally with cars there’s a litre between Max and Min levels. Most cars will use a bit in normal use and with 2 year service intervals becoming the norm it’s very worth while to have a warning when you’re at min.

My previous car was on 2 year service intervals, after about a year I’d get a notice “Add 1 litre oil” although it did have a normal dip stick, it was always pretty much bob-on.

It’s a different warning to oil pressure warning, which ‘back in the day’ pretty much meant “your engine will die very soon, check the oil / pump now and it might live to fight another day”.

C2 and C3 are mid saps oils, C3 meets requirements for a higher hths, this is what could increase fuel consumption if C3 is used. How relevant the hths is for your engine will be determined by lots of factors which the engineers will have investigated and arrived at the the correct spec for protection, emissions etc…

Edit. The C specs are diesel so won’t be relevant to your car, as someone else has already said.

I once had a company Astra that blew a faulty spot welded oil filter apart at m-way speed, the oil light came on, clutch in got it straight on hard shoulder – engine was toast.