I'm surprised it took this long for Renault to come up with their own oil spec - VAG and others have been doing it for years.

 

yep! even now, Renault is far from enough, it should be coming up.

 

It would just have to be a low SAPS oil designed for the particulate filters of modern turbo diesels. ELF sell a comparable oil and that's all I'd bother to use as Renault would I'm betting be just an ELF/Total product re-badged.
Try you local ELF or Total distributor; I buy all my oil for both our Citroen Xsara and my Scenic from ELF and I get it for friends when I buy so get a decent bulk rate which makes it better than even the most generous autobarn sales prices.

 

It would just have to be a low SAPS oil designed for the particulate filters of modern turbo diesels. ELF sell a comparable oil and that's all I'd bother to use as Renault would I'm betting be just an ELF/Total product re-badged.

It isn't even rebadged. It's "Elf Solaris DPF" according to the bottle. For as long as I can remember, my cars have come with "Renault recommends Elf" stickers in the back window, so it's no big surprise that this is where the oil is coming from.

According to the bumf on the rear, it meets ACEA C4, level ACEA C3 and Renault RN0720 standards. C4 seems to be the required standard for DPF/FAP equipped cars, so I wonder whether its equivalent to RN0720.

Opie have some alternatives that meet the spec http://www.opieoils.co.uk/c-899-rn0720-oil.aspx - though comparing the prices for a litre bottle, only the Gulf one is cheaper than the one I just bought, and even then, it's marginal.

Though price is secondary to getting hold of the stuff when you need it. Right now, it seems to be a choice between mail order or going to your nearest Renault dealer.

 

Did you not get a "FREE" 1 litre container of ELF oil complete with dipstick wipes a cloth and a nice little zip up plastic bag with your new Lag Horatio?

Ours did - even with a bit of velcro on the back of the bag so it could be stuck to the side wall in the boot of the car without rolling around!

The demo we borrowed for the day also had the oil and bag etc in the boot.

This may be unique to our local dealer though, as they also "give" you a 1 litre top up bottle when they service the car - or at least they did with our old Lag, that was a few yrs ago though.

Perhaps they are trying to tell me something - perhaps I should put it back in the boot of the car rather than on the shelf in the garage - if the car needs regular topping up.

That reminds me - must check my oil level via the dipstick - electronic dash gauge says its full.

 

Did you not get a "FREE" 1 litre container of ELF oil complete with dipstick wipes a cloth and a nice little zip up plastic bag with your new Lag Horatio?

Nope, but I did find a mention of such a pack as an optional extra on Renault's website. Perhaps your dealer is going the extra mile and supplying the cars with them.

That reminds me - must check my oil level via the dipstick - electronic dash gauge says its full.

If the dash says it's full, then it probably is. Though I don't suppose it hurts to check. I'd go out and check mine, but it isn't parked on level ground.

Interestingly... I've been doing a bit of digging around, and Nissan specify an (own branded but presumably rebadged) ACEA C3 oil for use with the dCi 150FAP in their cars.

 

Well it threw up the low oil message again today, so I decided to take another look at the level. The dipstick is about as easy to read as Egyptian hieroglyphics, but as best as I could tell, it was closer to Min than Max.

I put 200mls in to start with, playing it safe. The warning was still there. I put a further 300 in, and that took it up to two dots on the scale. Bunged the rest of the litre in, and it's now showing four out of six, suggesting that each dot is roughly 1/4 litre of oil. That'll do for now, though I suppose I should get another bottle to keep in stock for the next time.

Is this a symptom of 'running in'? Is this kind of oil consumption normal for this engine? Or do I have the symptoms of something nasty? A colleague has had his Avensis engine rebuilt twice as it was consuming excessive amounts of oil. I just wonder whether 1.5 litres in 10K is excessive.

 

They gave my dad 2 litres of that oil with his 59 dCi 115 Trafic - I think at least one went in before its first service at just past 18k (I didn't know they also did variable service intervals too now...)

Perhaps these engines behave more like VAG TDIs, which again, seem to burn off oil in-between services. I suspect at a higher rate during run-in, too. Lots of electronic complicatedness going on here - we also found out from the dealer that it had different mapping until run-in, designed to be removed by technicians at its first service. He manually did the procedure after the run-in period and it goes a lot better now.

 

I've not been able to find anything regarding acceptable oil consumption on the 2.0dCi but I did find something generic on an American website. It reckoned that anything over 1 litre every 2,000 miles was excessive. As it stands, I've used about 1.5 litres in 10,000 so that seems reasonable.

Now that I think of it, my old 1.9dCi would go from full down to one or two bars between services, and it was on a 9K interval. Perhaps I have to budget 0.1p per mile for oil. It's no biggy if you look at it like that :d

 

Well at least I've answered the question as to whether or not this is normal oil consumption. Judging by the patches on the path where I normally park the car, the oil isn't being burned by the engine.

Perhaps I should be surprised that a four month old car is leaking oil all over my drive. Funnily enough, I'm not in the slightest. Come to think of it, I've now had more Lagunas with oil leaks than I've had without. Ho-hum.

 

I'd want to be sure it is engine oil and not from the gearbox

 

horatio - my lag 3 gt 180 fap has just been for a service at 30k. Took 6.5 litres of oil at 47+vat. They also found out that either my cam or crank seal is leaking oil and its dropping out from behind the timing chain cover.

 

Thanks for the replies. Excellent point about the gearbox - I should have thought of that earlier, considering that a gearbox leak ended up as a replacement box on my last car but one (fortunately under warranty.)

The plot thickens, and perhaps I've put 2 and 2 together and made 5. We stuck a piece of cardboard under the car and left it there yesterday. There was a streak of something on it, but not much, and it didn't look like oil. What's more, I still have the four bars left that I had when I topped it up a good 500 miles ago.

I've also noticed that there's oil on the path nearest the house, and only the wife tends to park nose-in (I usually reverse on.) Suspicion has now moved over to the Clio, so it's going in to have the engine and gearbox oil levels checked today.

 

Looks like the Clio is the culprit. It's leaking from the sump drain plug. It must have only just started doing it, as the oil level hasn't really dropped yet. It's getting sorted on Wednesday.

It's a shame in some respects. If it'd been the Lag, we'd have got it sorted under warranty and we'd probably have been able to get them to come and clean the path again.

 

Can I put any oil in my 7 year old Laguna petrol. I was thinking 20w 50 would be ok? Its pretty cheap, but will it do any harm?

 

Just enter your registration into this Peccles and all should be revealed -

http://castrol.mobi/go.php?k=3.790​

I wouldn't shy away from the recommended grade with a modern engine, they're not always as forgiving than older ones.

Have just seen this offer on the forum, seems good to me....

http://www.renaultforums.co.uk/showthread.php?p=646596#post646596​

 

Had the low oil level warning on ours - car was parked at an awkward angle on a slope.
Checked it when I got home, after engine had been switched off for a while and gauge on dash said 3 out of 6 dots full, dipstick ( I agree horatio - a right pita to read) was nearer max than min???
Put about an 1/4 pint in just to see what happened - dipstick now shows about full ( as far as I can tell) yet the digital gauge still only shows 4 out of 6 dots full.
????? Is the digital gauge that inaccurate? or is it erring on the side of caution knowing that most people rely on that rather than physically checking for themselves???

 

My wife's Cit Xrsara does the low oil thing on forward slopes; start the car and the level/pressure light stays on, even when at correct level until the car is running on level ground. It won't play up on level starts when the level is right.
Sensor could be on the blink? Dipstick may even have been swapped at some stage??(unlikely)

Only way to be certain is to completely drain the oil, change the filter and refill with correct amount for a full oil change. Run engine to warm, allow it to sit, go have a cuppa then come back and check the dippie and also look at the elec gauge. What does each say?
Also, find out just what is the amount to be added from low to full mark for future reference.