Hi

I've upgraded from my beautiful E91 (176,000 miles!) to a six cylinder F10 523i, imported from Singapore. 

I've had it for about a month, and when I collected the vehicle, it had just over 19,000 miles on the clock - not bad for a ten year old car! 

Shortly after bringing it home from the dealership, I noticed the oil level was quite low, and within a few days, the car nudged me into topping it up, which I duly did, by putting a litre in. Then, on a longish round trip, I noticed the oil level had dropped by a quarter, so it seemed that a quarter litre had been used in 400 hundred miles, which seemed a lot. I monitered the level for a week, and it didn't drop any lower. Then suddenly, on Monday, the level was back up to full again, and hasn't dropped since!

So, either the sensor has been telling me porkies, some of the oil has been hiding in the engine somewhere, or something else, i.e. coolant is getting into the engine. 

The exhaust does seem to exude some white smoke, which I'm putting down to the cold weather, and there's some soot in the exhaust outlet.

Otherwise, the car is running as smoothly as one would expect, and is a joy to drive. Am I just being neurotic? Any advice would be very welcome. 

Morning Philip

Check you dont have a dip stick down the side of the engine I would never trust the level sensors 

Dave

Hi Dave

And thank you very much for your prompt response. When I got the car, I did try to find a dipstick, but without any success. I don't think the N52 engine has one - I wish it had.

Judging by related threads elsewhere, the sensors can be a bit hit and miss.

I've got a lengthy motorway journey to do on Sunday, so I'll see what the situation is after that. In the meantime, I might run it up to my pals at Munich Legends to see if they can throw any light on it.

Mant thanks,

Philip

So, the oil level has been behaving itself - it seems fixed on a quarter litre short of full now.

Interesting is this post, link below, explaining how the electronic oil level indicator works. So, the advice is to just sit tight until the car asks you to feed it another litre. 

https://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1533444

Hmnn I guess if you had never had a dipstick or like a few of our sons friends who didn't know their car had one anyway !!! Then you would trust the sensor me as an old engineer ???

Glad it's settled down, enjoy your Beemer

Dave