My wife’s 2003 Audi allroad (2.7 twin turbbo) has run well for 115,000 miles with no significant oil leaks or burning of oil. 3000 miles after a synthetic oil change, she was alarmed to have her oil light come on. She stopped right away and had the car towed to a garage. Sure enough, the oil was 5 quarts low (7 quart capacity), and oil was blown all over the engine compartment.
The garage reported minor leaks from the valve cover, but pointed to the improperly closed oil fill cap as the main cause of the massive oil loss. Does this make sense?
The garage does have an Audi specialist on staff, but we haven’t used this particular garage in the past.
Yes, it is plausible.
It’s nice to read about someone who actually stopped the car immediately when the oil pressure light came on. That’s pretty rare around here!
Yes, if the cap was not secured oil could blow out, and that’s why there’s oil all over the engine compartment.
There is probably no engine damage. There should be a lesson learned, however.
The car was driven 3,000 miles without anyone checking the oil level. That’s not good.
If someone were checking the oil level periodically this would have been discovered much sooner.
Yes, it makes 100% sense.
Most likely that highly-stressed, twin-turbo engine is badly damaged for being run with no oil in it, or in the happiest of cases, it will still run but not well and/or for not much longer.
And if you’re looking to assign any blame for this mess { sorry, couldn’t help it 
} here’s how it’s divided: about 5% falls on the technician who improperly attached the fill-cap. And about 95% of the blame falls on your wife/youself for allowing 3000 miles to pass without even raising the hood of that poor car, and doing the MOST BASIC of car-ownership chores: checking the oil level. Every owner’s manual that I am aware of says that the oil level must be checked at every gas fill-up. Had you done this even at every other fill-up, you would have caught this early enough, so that the engine would not have been damaged.
Point taken on regular checking of oil. I’ve checked it in the past, but my wife had to ask how to check the oil when she called me on the fatefull night. She did a nice job of verifying that there was no oil on the dipstick when she did check it.
Lesson learned.
The car is running fine by the way. Normal gas mileage, acceleration, etc. We appear to have dodged one.
Thanks to all for your responses.
Your good fortune in no engine damage is due solely in your wife shutting the engine down and having it towed, She should be app;auded and thanked. The technician who left the oil cap loose is the cause of this incident. My wife has never checked the oil either, I check the oil in both cars.