ok so i checked my oil, the dip stick shows none, and my oil light isn't on, should i be worried?

 

I believe that the oil idiot light senses oil pressure, not oil level. Figure out why your level is low, fix the problem if there is one, top it up, and keep an eye on it.

 

Yes - be worried. The oil light won't come on until you basically have no oil pressure, and that won't happen until you're almost completely out of oil.

But a lot of damage can still be done to the engine before you get to the "completely out of oil" stage.

How many miles are on the car, how many miles since the last oil change, and how long has it been since you checked the oil level? If it's been quite a while since the oil was changed, it's possible that you've just lost a little over a quart to normal consumption, and that would be enough to make the dipstick come up dry.

Unless something's wrong, it would take a while to lose that much oil, though. I routinely go 10-11k miles without the oil level coming off of the "full" mark on the dipstick.

 

i keep adding oil to top it off, and then it doesn't seem to take it, like the dip stick doesn't give a correct reading, and i dont want to over fill it...

 

Hmm - you might be quite low, then. Don't be insulted - I have to ask this: You're checking the oil level with the engine off, right?

If you're unsure about how much oil is really in the car, the best thing would be just to do an oil change. Drain all the old oil out, change the filter, put in 4.5 quarts of fresh oil and see what your dipstick says then.

 

i just added a little over a quart, waited for the oil to settle, then checkd the dipstick, it's reading constant at full, so i guess that im ok...? tommrow im going to head to the dealership and have them take a look at it. im pretty scared right now.

 

ok another problem is that my car is so low that my jack won't fit underneath. so i cant change my own oil, yes the engine is off and the oil is WARM, not hot

 

ramps are your friend - no need for a jack. With my previous car I had to drive up on 2X8s, then up on the ramps but still no big deal.

 

If it only took you a little over a quart to bring the level back to "FULL", then your dipstick was just barely uncovered. You won't have done any damage by running a quart low, but I'm more concerned about why it got that low to begin with. How many miles are on the car, and how long ago was the level "FULL"?

Unless your car is completely slammed, check out Harbor Freight and Northern Tools for low-profile hydraulic jacks. I think mine has a minimum height of 2.5 or 3 inches, and was pretty inexpensive (about $80).

 

Sorry to inform you, but thats what my MCS began doing last week. Then 200 miles later, my engine blew (broken rod).

 

it's been ~10,000 miles since my last dealer oil change, im due for a change since my oil is really black, btw i put half a bottle of sea foam in the oil.

as for the jack, i was in harbor freight today looking at them, i want that alumium racing jack ~$130, ill probly pick that up this weekend.

 

yay i can't wait my luck can't get any worse

 

How many total miles on the car? Both my MINI and my wife's MINI burned about a quart each during the first 10k miles or so, but haven't consumed any oil between changes since then (37k on hers now, 53k on mine).

 

about 45k miles, btw i've been to 1 autocross already but i doubt that id chew through 1 quart of oil

 

I think I remember your post about the engine failure. When you got down to the point where the oil light started coming on and the rod started knocking, was a quart enough to bring the level back up to full?

The rod failure was likely a result of oil starvation in the bearings - did you ever find out what was causing you to lose oil in the first place?

 

I'll update that thread later tomorrow night with some pictures. We just took the head off today.

 

It only took a quart and it was thinned with Sea Foam so I would do an oil change and watch it carefully after that to see what is happening. I doubt that this is any indication of an impending engine detonation.

That said, using German Castrol I find that my 2003 MCS uses about a quart per 2000 miles. With Mobil 1 is is less than half that. Artoo has 85,000 miles and I have changed oil every 5000.

Rich

 

Nah - I autocross the hell out of mine, and it's never affected the oil consumption.

At 45k miles, you're well past any consumption from break-in, but judging from Rich's post, I guess some MINIs do consume a quart or so every few thousand miles.

How long ago did you check the oil? If your one-quart loss has been happening steadily over the last 10k miles, that's not bad at all. But if it was "full" last week and a quart low now, then something's wrong.

 

Iampullied, have you noticed any slow coolant leaks?

Sort of off topic, but I once heard that factory spec for the R53 MCS engine says the engine might consume up to 1 quart per 750 miles driven.

My MCS essentially consumed no oil, even after ~40 autocrosses, 5 full track days, and lots of very hard driving.

I had a slow coolant leak in my radiator that occurred during a 7000 mile road trip back in March that might have caused my engine to overheat, damaging a gasket or ring, causing oil to leak into unwanted places.

I replaced the radiator and coolant about 250 miles before my car began knocking. I did the install completely by myself and ironically my friend who owns the shop said he would laugh if I came in the next day with a blown engine.

I should have a lot better explanation tomorrow once I get time to further investigate the engine failure and get the advice from a few long time expert racing mechanics. Sorry for highjacking the thread.

 

no there hasn't been any coolant leak, at least not that i know of.

 

Checking on level ground correct? Not meaning to insult, just never know when any one of us might have a brain fart.

 

That's true - BMW uses a very generous definition of "allowable" oil consumption in order to cut down on customer complaints, but the reality is that very few (if any) MINI engines burn near that much oil unless there's something wrong.

It's similar to their attitude about speedometer inaccuracies. BMW won't fix an inaccurate speedometer unless it reads too low (which none of them do), or reads too high by 10% plus an additional 2.4 MPH. So if you're driving 70 MPH, any speedometer reading from 70 MPH up to 79.4 MPH is technically "within spec".

 

Actually, this has been happening to my car for about 2 years now. The dip stick shows just a slight hint of oil at the tip. I add about a quart of oil and the dip stick reads normally. I think it's pretty normal for MINIs to burn about a quart every 1000 miles.

 

Judging from seven years of NAM posts, I don't think burning one quart per thousand miles is anywhere near the realm of "normal", but on the plus side, you practically always have fresh oil in the crankcase. In fact, with that level of oil consumption, you could probably skip oil changes altogether and just change out the filter every 10,000 miles or so.

How many total miles are on your MINI? You might be getting to the point where you need new valve guide seals.


EDIT - Just for fun, I ran some numbers. With a 4.5 quart oil capacity and a consumption rate of 1 quart per 1,000 miles, you're replacing 22% of your oil every 1,000 miles. So any particular oil molecule has a 78% chance of "surviving" the 1,000 mile period. After 5,000 miles, the odds of that particular oil molecule still being in the engine drop to 28%. After 10,000 miles, the chance of the oil molecule making it that long drop to 8%.

So over the course of 10,000 miles, you will have replaced 92% of the oil you originally started out with. Also, 10,000 miles after a full oil change, the average age of an oil molecule in the crankcase is only 3,242 miles. After you add a quart at 10,000 miles to bring the level back to "full", the breakdown of the oil in your crankcase by age would be:

0 miles - 1 quart
1000 miles - .77 quarts
2000 miles - .6 quarts
3000 miles - .47 quarts
4000 miles - .37 quarts
5000 miles - .29 quarts
6000 miles - .22 quarts
7000 miles - .17 quarts
8000 miles - .14 quarts
9000 miles - .11 quarts
10000 miles - .37 quarts

 

That is quite a bit of oil consumption. I'm over 60k miles and I don't think I've ever had to add any make-up oil past the initial oil change or two when things were breaking in.