I have a Ford Focus 1.6 TDCi estate which was serviced at the end of February this year. The garage that did the service put 5 litres of oil in the engine instead of 3.8 litres as the handbook states. What are the consequences of such a mistake?

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Do you know that they put that amount in, or have you just been charged for 5L?

Have you checked the oil level yourself?

That much oil would cause too much pressure in the bottom of the engine resulting in it pushing out at the weakest point. This is normally the crankshaft seals. If the one on the gearbox end goes that is an expensive fix as the gearbox has to be separated from the block. The car will try to burn off some oil as the pressure will push it past the rings but I would haver thought starting and running would be difficult as well

Hopefully like Alex says they have only invoiced you for 5 litres rather than putting 5 litres in.

Definitely check the oil level at the dipstick and go from there.

TBH if they had put way too much oil in you would get it gushing out of the dipstick tube.

Thanks for the replies so far. I live in Spain and my Focus is a Spanish model. The vehicle has been repaired - costing me 1,874€ !!!! I got an 'engine malfunction' warning come up on my dashboard and the engine had gone into 'limp mode'. I took it to my local Ford garage to have the problem diagnosed. They found a number of faults. The 1st thing they showed me was the dipstick - there was obviously too much oil in the engine. Apparently attached on the inside of the fuel filler flap is a sensor which when you refuel and the flap is closed, it puts an additive to the diesel from a reservoir bottle just in front of the back axle. This sensor he said was missing. So he said "because this was missing it is possible that the on board electronics was telling the reservoir to put more additive into the fuel and this could have increased the oil level in the engine" ??? The replacement sensor is circular and is held in a strong plastic clip on the fuel flap, it is also very STRONGLY magnetic, so I don't know how it has gone missing in the first place. The result of this is that the Ford garage had to replace the Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) 800+€, the EGR valve 400+€, Turbo sensor and various other sensors etc. Any thoughts folks ??