Funny, I've never had a problem with oil consumption on my 10ish i6's of varying model. M54's, M52, M50, and M20. Errr, I take that back. My wife's X3 with M54 uses about 1 quart every 6000 miles... at which time it gets an oil change anyway.

Term, inbox problem fixed. Premium sub had lapsed so inbox automatically became full. Piddly 50 msgs allowed under normal sub. :rolleyes:

Wow. We should swap cars to see what's really at play here. My 3.0 E53 drank a quart every 6 weeks.

But you know? Now that I think of it, my mother-laws '01 3.0 does not require me to fill. Maybe-- and this *may* be crazy talk-- Maybe... they drink more oil according to how they're driven?

Wait. What? :dunno:

So.. and again-- crazy talk-- what we NEED is someone who drives their E53 like a grandmother. If we can find TWO of 'em, we'll have something to bite into. And THEN... if we can find a granma-driving V8... Well.. won't we just have some fun looking into stuff and proving hypotheses.... And generally screwing around with the scientific method... ;)

Fantasy world to be sure. But what the hell! If you're gonna dream.. Dream BIG! :thumbup:

I'm interested in knowing the contact of your mechanic (I'm in Seattle). I have the smoking issue and would like it fixed eventually but not soon..why?...because the temporary fix is working for me for almost a year now and I need to do a complete suspension refresh first. And what is the temporary fix? Here, when doing an oil change:
1) Start with 2 quarts lucas engine oil stop leak
2) Fill the remaining of the engine oil capacity with shell rotella t6. It's 5w40 synthetic diesel engine oil. Yes diesel. It's a popular oil in the BMW 335i N54 world. Has great cleaning properties and is safe for our engines.

Since doing the above I've been trying to get my car to smoke without success- it's completely gone. Been to the Canadian border with long traffic jams; been to Whidbey island multiple times with the long ferry queues. No more smoke, not even a whiff. And she used to smoke like crazy before the temporary fix.

Ill send you a PM with his contact. Yeah I hear ya with the suspension refresh, I'm in the same boat right now and I'd like to put a band aid on the seals until I figure out the suspension. I'll try the Liqui Moly treatment first cuz it's advertised for stopping blue smoke caused by leaky seals and lots of people have had great success with it.
If it fails, maybe I'll move to the Lucas oil for a couple months or so although I doubt it'll let me down.
I've heard mixed reviews on Lucas oil stripping out the additives in the oil, requiring much shorter oil change intervals. Not sure if that's true though, maybe Liqui Moly does the same. I remember reading it in one of the threads on bobistheoilguy.com

Thanks! I agree, with these band aids, better to reduce oil change intervals. I change every 5k miles which turns out to be twice a year for me.

Any thoughts on a mechanic who could do this for my 07 e70 4.8i, I live in Virginia? Texas is a long ways away. thanks