Oil Usage - members poll

E36 323i Sport Touring automatic 1999 M52 (alusil) engine. No top ups needed between services at all and I *do* use the revs too. I use Millers or Halfords own fully synthetic 5W50.

JB

E38 728i 1996 My local garage said 750 miles per litre is 'OK' anything less than that would need investigating.

How many miles before you are topping off? And how many miles are on the engine?

--scott

"roy" wrote

Our '91 E34 525i M50 has 190K and uses 1 qt per 2000 miles. My '2001 E46 330xi has 110K and uses 1qt per 2500 miles.

If it were 1qt per 1K miles I'd worry.

FloydR

My E28 with 350,000 miles on it is getting up to 1qt/Kmi and I am starting to worry a little.

--scott

My E36 325i didn't use any. My E46 M3 uses some after about 7500k miles. My E38 doesn't use any (other than feeding it to the spark plugs) but it does tell em quite frequently that the oil level is low (which it isn't.) When I drained the oil after I first bought it there was about 2 extra litres/quarts in it.

Never topped up my '85 E30 320i since I've owned it (8 years?).

Al.

In my old E38 740i I NEVER topped it up between oil services 1 or 11. 12 years and 190K

Thanks everyone. I've a 65 mile round trip to work. Put about 600 miles on since the last top up. Last topped up with Mobil 0W40. I rarely really use the revs hard on the straight 6 but I do let it live a bit. Maybe some 5w30 would be a bit better. Or maybe my engine needs abit of work. The car is 2001 with 41k on. This ain't looking good is it!. R.

My 89 325i (E30) leaks about a quart every 2500 miles. I know it leaks (and I know where, the oil cooler plate on the side of the block) so I haven't been too concerned with it. The plugs are clean and the motor runs strong. 225,000 mile +...

That would be a very bad move unlkess you are trying extra hard to lubricate your spark plugs.

5W30 is *thinner oil* than 0W40. The second number is the viscosity at running temp, and the only one that is significant when considering oil use.

"roy" wrote

In 5000 miles, I did not notice any oil consumption on my e39 530i, certainly not enough that it would warrant a top up. That's with 0w-30 oil... in Florida.

Pete

The low oil light came on in my 2003 325 at about 14k miles. Nearly all of its predecessors (none were BMWs) needed a quart or so after 3k miles.

Jim

No. I have a '96 525 SE with 180k. No oil needed between oil changes. I also have a '97 528i with 170k. Again no oil needed between oil changes. Having said that, all engine burn oil, but a good std engine shouldn't burn enough to need topping up between oil changes. Any drop in the oil levels on my two cars is not really noticeable. Mike.

At "your" age, Scott, 20W-50 can be your friend.

Bob

And this tells you more..... Multi-grade motor oil The temperature range the oil is exposed to in most vehicles can be wide, ranging from cold ambient temperatures in the winter before the vehicle is started up to hot operating temperatures when the vehicle is fully warmed up in hot summer weather. A specific oil will have high viscosity when cold and a low viscosity at the engines operating temperature. The difference in viscosities for any single-grade oil is too large between the extremes of temperature. To bring the difference in viscosities closer together, special polymer additives called viscosity index improvers are added to the oil. These additives make the oil a multi-grade motor oil. The idea is to cause the multi-grade oil to have the viscosity of the base number when cold and the viscosity of second number when hot. The viscosity of a multi-grade oil still varies logarithmically with temperature, but the slope representing the change is lessened. This slope representing the change with temperature depends on the nature and amount of the additives to the base oil.

The API/SAE designation for multi-grade oils includes two grade numbers; for example, 10W-30 designates a common multi-grade oil. The first number associated with the W (again 'W' is for Winter, not Weight) is not rated at any single temperature. The "10W" means that this oil can be pumped by your engine as well as a single-grade SAE 10 oil can be pumped. "5W" can be pumped at a lower temperature than "10W". "0W" can be pumped at a lower temperature than "5W", and thins less at temperatures above 99°C (210°F). The second number, 30, means that the viscosity of this multi-grade oil at

100°C (212°F) operating temperature corresponds to the viscosity of a single-grade 30 oil at same temperature. The governing SAE standard is called SAE J300. The motor oil grade and viscosity to be used in a given vehicle is specified by the manufacturer of the vehicle.

Many new vehicles are marked to use 5W-20 oil (Honda, Ford, and more recently Toyota). Some ultra fuel efficient and hybrid vehicles are marked to use 0W-20 oil. For some selective mechanical problems with engines, using a more viscous oil can ameliorate the symptoms, i.e. changing from 5W-20 to

20W-50 may eliminate a knocking noise from the engine but doesn't solve the problem.

What's often forgotten - and is a cheap check - before thinking about worn valve guides, seals, or piston rings etc, is that excessive crankcase pressure will cause oil to be forced past the pistons and or valve guides. So check the breather system - all of it.

Hey, this is the NEW car! The old one has 480,000 miles on the engine.

--scott

I was told by the salesman that there was no need to check the oil level as the warning light on the dash would tell me.

There's nothing clever in the model I have - its just a low pressure warning light,

I remember when I was learning to drive around 33 years ago that If that light came on there were just a few seconds before the engine "blew up" so get over to the verge immediately and dip the clutch - how many younger people now never check oil levels? Its a bit worrying