Oil Consumption

[jdstrickland]

Never, that's N-E-V-E-R, add oil without reading the dip stick. Never.

If you are adding oil without reading the dipstick and the oil level sensor is defective, then you have added 8 quarts of oil to the 8 quarts that are supposed to be there anyway, and this gives you 16 quarts of oil. If nothing else is wrong, 16 quarts of oil will become problematic very soon.

If you are using a quart of oil faster than a tank of gas, there has to be a huge mess under the car everywhere you park it. Oil should be literally dripping out of the tail pipes if it isn't in a pool under your car.

Did mention that you MUST check the oil level on the dip stick before you add any?

[kewlape]

First of all thank you all of pitching in. I apologize for the lengthy reply as I am trying to respond to all the questions and explain my situation.

No I did not overfill.

Yes the X5 has a dipstick. I tried to look at the level (after cleaning the dipstick) and reinserting it and it came out dry.

I did tell the shop that there was excessive oil usage and the indicator keeps coming on very quickly. I also told him about the very strong shaking when I started the car during winter. He changed the CCV valves and the problem went away for some time and came back in january. And yes he also checked the car for signs of oil leak and found none.

My usage of this car has been very minimal almost less than 50-100 miles a week in the past two years and the last time I topped the oil was in November 2014 and then took the odometer reading to remind me at what mileage i did it at.

I did however leave the car on in the cold mornings to warm up, so maybe that has caused additional consumption of oil but that should be an equivalent of another quart or so. I used to do oil changes every 12K-15K when I had the warranty. Even if say I made a mistake in noting down the odometer , is it normal to fill up every 4-5K miles ? There is a lot of smoke when the car starts but that dies down in a few minutes and the car runs normal. I will pay closer attention to the smoke this weekend.

I did read somewhere that valve steam seals cost 12K or more to replace. There is a video of a guy claiming that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF5rilgdyfc

I am not even sure what other repairs could be coming up so I can just have it fixed before major issues creep up.

The Car was a CPO with 32k and i had warranty coverage till about 90K miles after which it expired 2 years ago. So I got the dealer to fix what ever I could at the 90K mark. I have been starting to hit these problems and since my usage has been so minimal I didn't want to spend any more on this car. At some point it has diminishing returns. I also just changed the door handle 2 months ago by looking at a video on youtube.

I am at a point where I am trying to gauge if I can just live with it with the minimal mileage I drive or fix it or just get rid of the car.

[Doru]

Mine was using 1l of oil/200-300Km before tackling the valve stem seals. Exactly the same symptom as yours. The cloud of shame was visible once the engine was warm, and after a short idle at each stop light. Also absolutely no visible oil leak. But once stuff was taken off, well....every seal & gasket was shot. With the beauty covers on and everything else in place, you would swear I make things up. Take a read.

[GoldenEagleFan]

I also have a 4.4L (2006) with valve stem seal issues. After an extended idle of 1-1.5 minutes will see a puff of blue smoke at takeoff.

However, I have been checking on a regular basis (dipstick) and over the last year have been needing a quart of oil every 2,500-3000 miles depending on the whether it was mostly city or highway driving.

At this point hoping for the best long term. Pretty hard to justify a 6,000-7,000 repair unless someone knows a mechanic in the Milwaukee area willing to tackle the job for half of that.

[bestvaluestore]

Try another shop or try do fix it yourself if you got time ,knowledge and the right tools.

[jdstrickland]

If it is true that you are using a quart faster than the gas tank empties, you should have a huge mess on your hands. It should be painfully obvious where the oil is going, or has gone.

[diyanich]

I would remove the stiffening plate and look if the engine has any leaks.
That plate catches well all the fluids if it's not a liter per hour loss and stores it on itself and then once you are moving it's all dumped on the pavement.So may not even see anything on your driveway or garage floor.
Another thing to consider is,that if all that oil was burned then cat.converters would give a code,same applies to the O2 sensors.I lost 2 liters over 10,000 kms due to the wrong connection of OSV hoses(reversed them ) and I had all the aging codes for O2 and cat.converter.

[jdstrickland]

But wait, if there are 8 quarts in 2000 miles, there's nothing large enough to hold it.

[edogg]

If the shop you took it to couldn't diagnose the issue, I'd try another shop. There's clearly something wrong if your dipstick is dry after only 250 miles, assuming you're warming up the engine first, waiting 5 minutes or so, then checking the dipstick while the car is on level ground (the oil check procedure is described in the owner's manual).

My experience with valve stem seals was similar to those mentioned above. My X used a quart roughly every 800-1000 miles. And after sitting at a long stop light, or sitting in traffic, or sitting in a drive through, I got a big puff of blue smoke out of the tailpipes. But without the idling, there wasn't really any noticeable smoke.

$12k to repair the valve stem seals probably includes removing the heads. There's not much of a good reason to do this anymore now that AGA came out with a tool to allow the seals to be replaced without removing heads. Cost on this repair should be about $2000. Yes, it's not cheap, but it's way better than $12k. When I was shopping around for my repair, most of the shops in my area used this tool. I bet yours would too.

Also, I see you're in NJ. There's a guy who does this repair for about $1500 in NY or NJ with lots of happy customers. Search around here and on other BMW forums - he's mentioned a lot.

[LVP]

One of the X5s I test drove when shopping for mine had a service record for a visit to the dealer about excessive oil consumption. The statement from the dealer on the invoice was 0.8L/1000km was considered within BMW's spec. I read it and laughed.