Where's my oil going?

Hey guys,

My car is a 2003 330 with about 170,000 miles on her. I just did an oil change exactly 1,000 miles ago and she's complaining with a yellow oil light which means I'm down a quart. I'm using Mobil1 0w-40.

I've always had to top up frequently with my car for years and just wondering if it is normal to lose that much oil in 1,000 miles. I have no leaks on the ground, nor do I see or hear complaints about blue smoke out the exhaust under WOT. I do drive spiritedly 5% of my driving and I am known to hit redline most of the times I go out at least once.

I always let the car warm up when cold and never beat on her until she's been in the middle coolant zone for at least 5-10 minutes.

Other than that she runs like a champ and even my good friend who's a BMW tech says my car feels quicker than other ZHP's he's driven. Is there anything I should be looking for?

I use 0w40 without any oil consumption. Any signs of an oil leak either spots on the driveway or engine bay leaks?

None of that. I have access to a hoist just about anytime I want and every couple months we check over everything to make sure nothing is wearing or leaking. Everything is clean! That's the only issue with my car, she likes to eat oil.

Try adding another quart and seeing if the same thing happens again. If so THEN we've got problems.

My car's always been going through a quart of oil faster than I think...ever since I bought her. I just never recorded it until my friend told me to document everything.

Might check around the Valve cover gasket or oil retention gasket

That's not too surprising for a high mileage engine that's driven hard. You said it still runs well so it's probably not the piston rings, but you could get it compression tested to be sure. Sounds more like a leaky valve guide to me.

Maybe check the dipstick first? You might have a faulty oil level sensor

My BMW tech friend said that oil burning in our cars isn't viewed as excessive until you go through one quart per 600 miles. Oh and I was wrong about my mileage. My car has 112,700 miles on her.

I average about 25MPG when I'm driving around town so I'm relatively light on the throttle until it's time to pretend I just stole my car from the stealership once and a while. The highway I get from 28-34 depending on my mood and traffic.

When it`s time to change your oil (and when it`s a quart low), add a quart of ATF, and run the engine at fast idle (around 2000-2500 RPMs) for 15 or 20 minutes. Drain oil, install a new filter, and some good dino oil like Castrol GTX 10W-40. Run this oil for 3000 miles, and during this period, drive it *agressively*, running it up to redline frequently. After 3000 miles, change oil & filter, switching back to your normal synthetic oil, and see if you note any improvement.

What does that do/help for the internals?

I'm ignorant at that as I look at filling a spray bottle with regular water versus thicker water for example. Once I return to regular water it's still going to shoot the same.

It might help to read thread below (which is where I copied and pasted the above info). You might be suffering from a bad break-in early in your car's life.

http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sho....php?p=4192913

Wow thanks for that link. It's very informative and amazing to learn what a company can do to it's users/workers/cars because of money/politics. I will be looking into this further.

i'm having the same issue... what are you planning on doing?

OP - any updates regarding your increased consumption issue?

Still using the same oil right now. This won't be an overnight solve for sure. I haven't had to top up yet so I'm just recording my top up intervals throughout this oil change then I will do the ATF flush method when it's time to change. I'll let you guys know when it happens.

Originally Posted by SeanC

When it`s time to change your oil (and when it`s a quart low), add a quart of ATF, and run the engine at fast idle (around 2000-2500 RPMs) for 15 or 20 minutes. Drain oil, install a new filter, and some good dino oil like Castrol GTX 10W-40. Run this oil for 3000 miles, and during this period, drive it *agressively*, running it up to redline frequently. After 3000 miles, change oil & filter, switching back to your normal synthetic oil, and see if you note any improvement.

I'm currently running this regimen. Over the weekend I added a quart of ATF and ran the engine with no load for 20mins reving the engine across. Afterwards, I added 7q of Castrol 10W-40 and drove from 300miles. I'll keep you posted of progress as well, needless to say the car sort of feel weird, like too smooth or something...

Originally Posted by SeanC

When it`s time to change your oil (and when it`s a quart low), add a quart of ATF, and run the engine at fast idle (around 2000-2500 RPMs) for 15 or 20 minutes. Drain oil, install a new filter, and some good dino oil like Castrol GTX 10W-40. Run this oil for 3000 miles, and during this period, drive it *agressively*, running it up to redline frequently. After 3000 miles, change oil & filter, switching back to your normal synthetic oil, and see if you note any improvement.

I'm currently running this regimen. Over the weekend I added a quart of ATF and ran the engine with no load for 20mins reving the engine across. Afterwards, I added 7q of Castrol 10W-40 and drove from 300miles. I'll keep you posted of progress as well, needless to say the car sort of feel weird, like too smooth or something...

^

I'm glad you able to give it a shot before me! What kind of oil consumption have you been getting? And how long do you think it will take to get to the 3,000 mile interval? Thanks for posting and I look forward to your findings. What year is your car and what's your current odometer reading?

Originally Posted by Many330i

I'm currently running this regimen. Over the weekend I added a quart of ATF and ran the engine with no load for 20mins reving the engine across. Afterwards, I added 7q of Castrol 10W-40 and drove from 300miles. I'll keep you posted of progress as well, needless to say the car sort of feel weird, like too smooth or something...

Glad to hear the progress. There's nothing to about it now, is there? Smoothness indicates that you have gotten rid of a lot of dirt from your crankcase and burning chamber

Originally Posted by rovert

^

I'm glad you able to give it a shot before me! What kind of oil consumption have you been getting? And how long do you think it will take to get to the 3,000 mile interval? Thanks for posting and I look forward to your findings. What year is your car and what's your current odometer reading?

Before trying this (since you have some time to do so), do yourself a favor and dump one of these in your fuel tank and fill it up:



I was getting a little bit of consumption on the 5er myself but this seems to have the problem go away (I reset the trip counter everytime I top off the oil and the oil message hasn't come back for 600 miles, usually I'd need to add about 1/3 qt every 200-300 miles). I thought you might want to give it a try.

I will of course do the ATF routine when it's time for an oil change.