ive had my mini for about two days now and have been loving it. today i did something i probably should have done two days ago which was checking the oil. the guy i had bought it from said he had just doen a complete fluid inspection, and that may be the reason i waited two days to check for myslef. all the fluids seemed fine until i got to the engine oil. when i pulled out the dipstick the oil was far from the normal syrupy color and closer to black (though not quite black), this i wasnt to surprised by. but when i took out the dipstick after having put it back in to see how much oil was left, barely any had made its way onto the dipstick.

id liek to believe the guy wouldnt give me a nearly empty oil tank, but form what i see its pretty damn low. i just want to know if maybe i should have warmed the engine a bit up first or soemthing (which goes against everything i know when it comes to engine oil) but mini's are relatively odd cars and maybe they have an odd way of checking engine oil.

i dont know right now im pretty ticked the guy left me with very little oil, and ims urprised my car didnt notify me (i mean i know the lamp is based off of oil pressure, but doesnt having very little oil in turn affect oil pressure?) so if i missed some step in checking my oil that mini's do differently please help me, i guess right now im goign to have to go out to jiffy lube and put in some 30 odd dollars for some oil, actually im sure this car takes synthetic oil and ill probably be throwing away atleast 60 bucks

i just realized this maybe should be in the beneath the bonnet section so i would like to apologize if this is in the wrong section

 

Hello -V- welcome to NAM.

Here are my thoughts on this.

It's best to check the oil when the motor is cold if you can. As you probably know if it's warm oil will be up in the head & you won't get an accurate reading. If you have to check it hot let the car sit for 5 minutes so the oil can drain back to the sump.

As long as the oil light didn't come on there more than likely has been no damage done. If the oil goes below the oil pickup it'll trigger the oil light & yep the engines being hurt.

As far as color goes if it's very fresh it will be light honey colored. As it gets miles on it, it holds dirt in suspension & it can get quite black.

I feel that what previous owner told you what he believed to be true. Sounds like it was good the last time he looked, but that may ave been a while ago.

Good idea to have the oil change. The oil that MINI recommends is 5w30 synthetic.

Don't worry, enjoy your MINI.

 

yeah i fig to be on the safe side im goign to get it changed (id actually liek to do it myself but i dont have the timetoday and i need to buy ramps or soemthing since this car is so low). im just going to get hte cheapest 5w-30 synthetic in the car since its only like 3000 miles until the car has to brought in for service (which im going to assume includes oil change)

 

Just make sure it's FULLY synthetic

 

well in the end i wasted a lot of time for nothing. apparently the process of draining and replacing oil in a mini requires special tools jiffy lube doesnt have. seems a bit odd for such a relatively simple job, but knowing BMW i wouldnt be surprised if there really were special tools needed to change the oil. so i decided to go to the place i knew would rip me off but would have the tools whichw as BMW mini, whos service dept was unfortunately closed. so tomorrow i guess ill go and get it done, so much though for me changing the oil myself if it requires certain specific tools

 

Just a skinny 36mm socket or open wrench, really to get the oil filter housing off. Bit of a PIA to get the housing back on (must overcome some spring pressure), but not too bad. The filter is available from the dealer.

Of course, you can add the oil to get it to register on the stick by pouring it in the standard way. Oh yeah, and my '03 manual was wrong about the oil level, I believe that the oil should come up to the checked portion of the dipstick orange part. Good luck with the oil caper!