[BMWyorkshirelad]

Hi,

Over the past few months I’ve noticed I’ve had to top up the oil every 4 weeks. It’s my first car so didn’t know if this was normal or not but I’ve spoken to friends and family who have said they top up there’s once a year or so.

I’m just wondering if this is an issue or if anyone knows if it’s common with the year/model of my car?

Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated!

[No one]

Hi,

Burning oil is a matter of mileage, not time. Initially, my car ate 1 litre per about 10000 km. Now that it's mileage is approaching 70000 km it's about 1 litre per 3500 km. I spoke to a mechanic at an official BMW service and he told me anything beyond 1000 km per litre of oil was fine.

[rogan]

Check your air intake pipe.

My 116i F20 had a minor oil consumption when I bought it - 2014 with 100,000km on the clock. When I replaced the air filter, I found my my air intake pipe had perished where it joins to the turbo - where the clamp attaches had separated from the rest of the pipe but this might have worsened or failed when I was moving the airbox around to get to the air filter. It still fitted and as I didn't have a replacement I put it back on temporarily - the car won't run without it. Oil consumption went up to 1litre / 1000km.

After that 1000km I replaced the air intake pipe. I have just checked the oil and there has been very little loss in the 1000km since I replaced the pipe. I haven't done any other work to the car in that time so hoping that the pipe was the problem. The pipe is plastic and gets very brittle over time, especially the end closest to the turbo.
I got an aftermarket part for about GBP30 and took about 10mins to replace. It's a very easy job requiring minimal tools.

If you are having a look at yours, don't apply much force to it in case it is very brittle and breaks ,as the car won't run without it. When I tried to pull off one of the hoses clipped to it, it tore the whole pipe apart!

Photo below is from the web.

[Njloeffen]

I've had the same thing with my 116i, it was consuming oil way too fast and after every highway drive the car told me that the oil level was too low. I had a powerloss as well in the higher rpms, the car would then shake and jerk forward.
This was due to a timing chain that was way too loose, i had the whole timing chain set replaced at a garage, and every issue I listed above went away.

Hope this helps