Car using oil still....any ideas? (some legal advice too please)

[rG-tom]

Hey guys,

As ive posted before, my car is using inordinate amounts of oil, and has been since i picked it up

The car had done 110k pretty much exactly when i bought it, and has a full bmw ervice history with its last service being an inspection 2 @ roughly 108k.

Fast forward to just under 500 miles after i pick it up, the oil light comes on. I think "ah well, 3000 miles after a service doesnt sound too bad for a top up" so in goes a litre of Mobil1 0w40 LL01 approved oil, oil light goes off and dip stick looks happily near the max line. Great!

Fast forward 450-500 miles, and the pesky orange oil light comes on again. Now i'm thinking wtf. Dipstick agrees with light, and I give it another litre of oil (thank god ive got a costco card! £23 for 4 litres vs £20 for 1 litre from bmw or £13 from tesco for 1l) and i give it the benefit of the doubt here.

Fast forward another 450 miles....and it comes on again. I phone the dealer I bought it from and arrange a date that I can bring the car to him, which is about 5 weeks away from this time. In that time i cover a few thousand more miles and it steadily uses a litre every 500 miles or thereabouts.

Car goes into the bmw specialist I bought it from on the 11th of August, they find a blocked oil breather, replace that and do a complete oil and filter change, spend 2 days trying to find leaks, do emission tests and everything comes back as completely clear.

Now, fast forward to last night as i pull up at asda to grab some food and my oil light comes on AGAIN. This is about 750 miles since the oil change now! I thought it'd gone away, but nope, sure as hell it's come back again I've put another litre in now (that's 8 litres ive given it myself, plus the full oil change that they did!) and the car has now covered 114,300 miles.....

This is costing me a fortune and causing a massive headache, ive had 2 different garages have a quick glance at it and cant see anything obvious and the independant who had it for 4 days couldnt find a beat wrong with it, it's doing fine on fuel ive never had a tank below 21mpg even with spirited driving (similar driving got 17-18mpg on the mondeo) and it pulled mid thirties mpg on the way back down to the dealership, fully laden and including some twisty a/b roads! It's pulling fine, no smoke from the rear, no patches left on the drive and the undertray is clear of oil too


WTF is it!!!! Also, I have a feeling im going to be having a major problem with the dealership i bought it from now as they swear blind there is NOTHING wrong with the car, and they're not exactly around the corner for me to pop to everytime the light comes on! (they're in chepstow south wales and i'm practically in west yorkshire)

As well as mechanical gurus, how about some legal ones too......if we can't find the problem and it does return to being a sub 600 mile fill up (bmw spec allows up to 1 litre every 600 miles), what would be the process on rejecting my car should the dealership not play ball? I shall phone them tomorrow and see what they suggest though.

Thanks guys!

Tom.

 

[rG-tom]

Take it back to them again with said problem, if they can't diagnose/fix it, get them to take the car back and exchange for another one on the forecourt.

I cant just take it back to them, it's a 600 mile round trip practically and i dont have the time!

EDIT also they have no cars on their forecourt atm that i'd want as a swap? none meet the spec that i looked for when buying and was willing to travel 600 miles to get!

 

[rG-tom]

How about looking under the car / doing some investigating of yoursel?

Ive been under the car, one of the garages that looked at it for me is run by a mate of mine, he let me under the ramp with it up in the air, it's clean as a whistle :|

 

[rG-tom]

You have to drive 600 miles round trip for a service?

i dont have to take it back to where i bought it from to have it serviced, i took it back to where i bought it from for them to find the problem!

 

[rG-tom]

Did you have the car running / up to temp?

Leaving cardboard under the car if you've just had a long run etc... plenty you can do to find a leak.

If you isn't physically leaking and you are losing that much oil that often you have a serious problem

there is nothing on the driveway which would show it up quite easily i think, and there is an undertray under the engine anyway which is clean.

Also yes the car was running and up to temperature.

 

[rG-tom]

bmw detectives for the epic fail:

Notice the door of the mondeo is open....id just pulled that can of magnatec 5w30 out of the mondeo whilst i was making sure it was totally empty of stuff i wanted

 

[rG-tom]

Epic fail did seem a bit strong, to remeber one tiny detail from a car he has no real interest is quite a feat imho.

aye that's true enough

 

[rG-tom]

Is that picture yours or the one from the previous owner. If it's the previous owner I will probably guess they had been topping it up with cheaper oil for sometime as they knew it had a problem. If it's a private trader you can near enough guarantee they bought it cheap knowing the problem.

the picture is one i took of it next to the car i part ex'd which is the red mondeo, and the oil is the stuff that i used for the mondeo! so no it's not them topping it up with magnatec or anything daft.

 

[rG-tom]

Who's the guy coming out of the servicing door. He the mechanic?

There are more than one mechanic, the servicing side is quite a large bit, three or four ramps iirc

 

[rG-tom]

The reason Jez's old 330i did not burn oil is because he is a girl and did not thrash it properly as he was selling it on!!

It does burn oil but is totally dependant on how its driven. If i cane it to an inch of its life (i.e. 90% of the time) it will use 1L every 750 to 1k miles. If i'm doing a lot of miles on the motorways then this can be 3k miles easy.

Defo issues with yours though IF your not caning it all the time.....

If i was caning it all the time there is no way i couldve managed to NEVER drop below 21mpg over a tank of fuel, despite living in the peak district and most journeys <20 miles in a 3l straight six petrol

 

[rG-tom]

If you are going to second guess me do it right, he's not getting a ribbing because he's a friend of mine not because he bought a 3 series

you ribbed me about the mondeo

 

[rG-tom]

Disagree, 22.9 was my caning figure when i lived out in the sticks near edinburgh. Took 12 miles to get off a b road onto a half decent a road. 20 miles to work took me 20 minutes each way. And if you knew the roads that is mighty impressive!

to work and back on what sounds like similar roads, but hillier, I average about 23.....ive only ever had one tank that was anywhere near 21mpg and that was on the manchester meet roads

 

[rG-tom]

hay that garage is just down the road from me, just had my M3 MOT'd there... I know the owner there can not fault them very well known in the area.... It's just down the road from the race course isn't it Let me know who you delt with there can have a word if you want...

hey fella, it's the owner that i dealt with, Chris with the m3 CSL

He was out of the office when i called this morning, will give him a call in 5 minutes though.

Tom.

 

[rG-tom]

Eye Chris and his dad run the place... top guys... any problems let me know the more people that ask maybe more will get done... and ye he has a nice CSL...

Do you have msn mate?

Tom

 

[rG-tom]

Blimey how many cars you owned that use oil.

i did the oil changes on the mondeo myself so kept the excess as top ups as and when needed

 

[rG-tom]

I had a similar problem with my Alfa (Oil running out in about 500 miles without any sign of it out the back or on the floor). Turned out the oil filter was leaking when hot, but the oil was dripping on to the exhaust and burning off which I couldn't see or smell from inside the cabin. I don't know what its like on your beemer but is there a chance that the oil is burning off without leaving any obvious residue?

thats one of my guesses, 1 litre every 450 miles is aprox 2.2ml per mile, which is absolutely bugger all in a hot engine bay the size wales to be burnt unnoticed

 

[rG-tom]

right, oil light came on again yesterday after 480 miles, so it's definitely not gone away, i get the feeling they perhaps put more oil in!

I left a message with the garage (multiple times in fact) last thursday, and on the owners mobile, and he still hasnt returned the call. Phoned today, and surprise surprise he's NOT in the office atm, this is starting to take the ****, how can i resolve something if i cant even get hold of the guy!?

GRRR.

Tom.

EDIT also people saying try a thicker oil, afaik 0w40 is as thick as this engine can take? (the 40 being how thick it is at temperature)

 

[rG-tom]

ok finally got through to him, and he's said basically he's fairly sure HE can't find the problem, suggested i try the warranty that I got with the car (RAC) but otherwise it's gonna have to be the money back route, and then he'd need hard cold proof that it IS using oil as he can't see it.

hmm.

 

[rG-tom]

+VAT

£23.49........i know too well, i'm on my third bottle

 

[rG-tom]

With the mileage you do have you consider trading the car in for a Golf Bluemotion?

funny you should mention that, I've just ordered one but i went for the optional wooden deck chair edition.....no cushions so it saves weight and thus fuel ,and thus, the planet