A question for the oil experts onboard:

My mini has a bit over 7k miles on it, and it's going in for its first oil change on Friday. (We'll stipulate that I'm a procrastinating fool and should have had this done 3k miles ago.) This past Saturday, I checked the dipstick and it was down a whole quart. How could this be? How bad is it?

 

Let me add that I immediately purchased a quart of Castrol Syntec 5w-30 and put it in.

 

But it was my understanding that MINIs don't require their first oil change until 10K--or until it tells you, depending on your driving habits. I can't personally imagine the typ of driving one must do in order to make it think it needs an oil change at 3-4K. And I've also heard that the shop won't do an oil change prior to that unless you pay. :smile:

You can breathe easy now

~Kelley

PS. Not that anyone would ever tell you it's a good idea--and i must stress emphatically that it is not--but my mother drives her car regularly in a 2 quart deficit and it's got about 98K on it. Everything runs perfectly and her engine is peachy. Again, not that I condone this and one should never ever treat their MINI in such a fashion (or any car, for that matter) but just to ease your mind a bit.

 

Sure - oil changes might not be required till 10,000 miles but that is most defintely not the same as topping off. All cars will use a tiny bit of oil, leak a bit, or something and being down a tad bit after 7000 miles is not un heard of. I check my oil once a week in all my cars as well as the coolant to make sure fluids are at proper levels. Then again I'm at 11,000 miles and have already changed the oil 3 times.

 

Using one quart of oil in 7,000 miles is nothing to worry about, since the engine uses oil during break-in. Your other car probably would use the same after 7000 miles but you'd never notice because of more frequent oil changes.

retroom

 

After picking my "S" up with 450 miles on it the oil was 3/4 qt low. When I did the first oil change at 1750 miles I was another qt low. I know high-performance engines burn a little oil but is this too much?. My 5.0 mustang uses 1 qt every 2500 miles, just in time for a oil change. This is the first car I've had synthetic oil in and I've also heard that Castrol has more burn off than other synths. I changed to Mobil 1 and we'll see how that works. Next oil change 5K.