We have a Mazda 5 Sport with an 08 plate which we've owned for four years and has 60,000 on the clock, one previous owner to us. I've only driven 25K in that time and I'm not an aggressive driver by any means (especially not with four DC usually in with me!) It's sailed through every MOT since we had it and we've had the bare minimum of repairs really. We always take it to a Mazda garage and have it serviced every year and taken good care of it. It's been a great car.
So imagine our surprise when I was told yesterday by the garage that it was most likely going to be a write-off as it had burned through a litre of oil in a week. We'd taken it in to get the aircon fixed last week, they topped up the oil. I drove 250 miles since then, brought it back to have more investigations done and there was barely any oil left. This, apparently, is a Very Bad Thing and means the piston rings are probably failing. Which seemed to surprise them just as much as me as it's such a young car with a low mileage.
They checked all over for leaks but it's apparently dry as a bone which means it has to be the engine burning it. I've been given instructions to check the oil once a week and see if it is going down. They said there is no point fixing the aircon (£700) if it's probably going to be a write-off. Sigh.
I couldn't see particularly blue smoke coming out the exhaust when I started it but what do I know? I never look at the exhaust. And clearly it had enough oil from March (when it was serviced) until last week when they topped it up or the engine would have seized or at least the oil light would have come on, right?
We've just moved house and mortgaged to the hilt and are still paying off costs related to moving so this could not have come at a worse time.
Anyway, I'm a software engineer not a car engineer so this is all new to me. Any thoughts or advice to what to do at this point very welcome. Are there things I can ask the garage to do? I'd have hoped they would have suggested stuff if there was, but still.