Oil Consumption @ 94k miles

J

JonZ4G

Member
 Cardiff
Hello all,

Have driven about 2,500 miles in my 2003 Z4 and have had the oil warning light show twice. Both times I've left it until the yellow light comes on permanently until topping up....so I've now put, in total, a litre of fully synthetic oil in as top up.

Seems to be using a lot of oil to me. Is this normal consumption, or am I possibly not adding enough at each top up?

Today, I topped up so that the dip stick was slightly above half way up the middle section of the dip stick and prior to that to the middle of the middle section....(make sense?)

What do you think

Thanks

Jon
 
Sounds low to me,mine used to drink oil 1000miles to a litre,now after 30,ooo miles none at all,but this is the same with bmw motorbikes.they get better,yours sounds wrong?? :o
 
cars milage is 63,000 miles, I have used half a litre in 14,000 miles. Personaly I would be concerned if my car was using so much oil. Is the engine wet or is it being burnt.
 
What's your driving profile? If it's lots of short journeys it MAY be nothing too much to worry about but I'd be inclined to get it checked, could be running a bit rich or could be a more serious problem. What's she holding on the revs at tick over when warm?

What engine size by the way?
 
The M54 engine is known to consume more oil later in it's life, it self adjusts to what is required.

If you're doing short journeys, the car will use more oil, but bear in mind the engine has a 7L oil capacity, so using an additional 1L isn't too bad.

My 330ci (same engine) used more oil when I was just going to and from uni for 6 months.
 
When I asked a BMW engineer why my 325Ci drank so much, he told me that the new(er) engines using the fully synthetic oils are so well lubricated

This means that the oil scraper ring (at the bottom of the pistons) never really gets "bedded in" properly like they used to, so they never work as well as they should/ used to

My Zed has pretty much the same engine, and uses oil at about the same rate, so I guess he could have been right?

Thinking about it though, as I remember my 1.6 Cortina used about a pint every 100 miles, so perhaps we have moved on!
 
steve853 said:
When I asked a BMW engineer why my 325Ci drank so much, he told me that the new(er) engines using the fully synthetic oils are so well lubricated

This means that the oil scraper ring (at the bottom of the pistons) never really gets "bedded in" properly like they used to, so they never work as well as they should/ used to

My Zed has pretty much the same engine, and uses oil at about the same rate, so I guess he could have been right?

Thinking about it though, as I remember my 1.6 Cortina used about a pint every 100 miles, so perhaps we have moved on!
Click to expand...



So BMW burn oil ? What quantity of oil is being used, say, every 10000, I reckon Im using 250 ml , which Im happy with, I feel its a good tight engine , comments such as "drank so much ", "alot " I feel are not particulary helpfull to JonZ4G . Seems your Cortina was just like mine the pistons slapping around the bores. :lol:
 
My money is on your oil filter housing gasket leaking. See the other thread on oil consumtion.

Get a good LED (white) torch and look at the engine block - look down between the oil filter housing and inlet manifold. Mine is bright gold coloured due to leakage!

Mine uses around 1L/1500 miles - ill fix it soon :D
 
Interesting. My 325Ci burnt a lot of oil too. I had it from new and BMW told me it would improve but it never really did (I sold it with 111k miles on the clock). Used to burn 1-2 litres between services (<>15k miles) which I was never very impressed with....
 
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