The oil on my dipstick smells like gasoline. Not always, but definitely quite often. Sometimes it's faint, while other times it's quite strong.

I tend to check my car when I get home from a drive.

Let me also say I don't normally smell my dipstick (that sounds bad) but the first time I noticed the odor, it was prominent enough that I could easily detect the odor without bringing the dipstick to my nose.

Has anyone else noticed this? Go ahead, check your dipstick. For experiment's sake check it after a brief spirited drive.

Thanks in advance for the input.

 

how old is the oil? could be a number of things, but in general it's not a good thing. i'd get the oil analyzed if you're very concerned

 

The oil is only a couple weeks old and my oil smelled the same before also. Car runs fine also and there is no colored smoke.

I guess I'm mostly hoping that other members can take a minute or two and go sniff their dipstick and record their observations in this thread. The topic has come up on NAM before and people have proposed differing theories and opinions on the matter but what I really want to know is, for the R56 is this a normal finding. If the majority of owners report that their dipsticks smell of gasoline that it would suggest my experience is normal.

So lets go everybody, go SMELL YOUR DIPSTICK!!!

 

Haven't done the smell test yet, but have a question for OP:
When do you get the smell, more after short drives or after long drives?

 

everyone will have varying levels of fuel dilution based on a lot of factors. it should burn off if the car's getting long drives etc. you can get a lot of info about it on bitog. i'd go smell mine but the cars covered in snow :(

my evo used to have the smell of gasoline on the dipstick from time to time though. oil analysis will tell you how much.

 

I had not yet occurred to me to make a distinction between long or short drives but I would guess it is typically after short drives because I rarely take long drives.

Today was definitely a short drive.

 

Here's what they say happens on short drives with a cold engine:
Engine does not fully warm up. Injected gasoline does not get fully combusted, part of it condenses on the cold cylinder walls and mixes with lubricant. This mix of oil with condensed gasoline washes down off the cylinder walls and is returned to the oil sump. Once the engine warms up the gasoline mixed into the oil does evaporate and burn, but if an engine is driven mostly on short trips, this won't happen and you get the gas smell in the oil. This is why mostly making very short trips does not do wonders for engine longevity.
There are a couple of things that might help with this: every now and then, try to drive the car a bit longer. Make sure the engine gets fully up to temperature. This will combust the gasoline in the lubricant. In a cold winter, this may take 15-20 minutes depending on driving style, just to fully get up to temp. I don't know how long it might take to then burn off the gas in the lubricant. My personal rule of thumb (since I also have a lot of short around town trips) is to once per week drive the car for at least 30 minutes. Also, on these 'burn the gas' drives, do not drive in sport mode, since sport mode lowers the engine temp set point on the S engine, which makes me think (and this is just my interpretation) that the higher engine temp (in non-sport mode) will burn off the gas quicker or more completely.

 

Mine does this as well because I drive less than a mile to work 6 days a week.

 

Thanks Zephyr, that makes sense.

 

That's also why, if your car (any car) sits for an extended period of time you should not go out just to start it. Either drive it long enough to get it hot, or leave it alone.

 

That explains it....
The oil never got up to normal operating temps to boil off the moisture and gasoline....
A longer drive or two should help...
But if you normally do short drives, be sure to change your oil more often....
The moisture and fuel sitting in the oil will use up the addatives in the oil...a oil sample test would report this as tbn...they would also report the % or parts per million of oil dilution from fuel and or water....
But mostly short trips meets the definition of severe duty....so more frequent oil changes should help.

 

yep. it's why short drives are considered "severe service"

 

I read some threads on the gasoline smell after emptying my catch can. The garbage that poured out looked like diluted oil, smelled of gas and had something in it that looked like swamp water. The dipstick smelled of gas as well.

Just to be scientific I checked for odors in the oil of our Toyota Sienna and it smelled as well. Not quite as pungent as the Mini. But I drove the Toyota 150 miles yesterday. That should have burned off or evaporated most of the gas.

How can I get to the bottom of what's really going on? How can I get the oil tested?

Thanks.

BTW I have a blue Mini. Not sure if the color is the real problem...Ha!

 

Send it to blackstone