Hi
I have a 2009 Clubman S with 47k. Some time ago, the timing chain repair was done. They didn't get one of the crimp seals right when they put the engine back together, and this caused an oil leak that was discovered this past March.

The dealership that did the original work did the repair. Last weekend, we noticed that the oil was a quart low (3 months after repair.) Today, they took another look. They changed out the seal around the oil plug because they thought there might have been a little oil around it, but didn't see anything else.

The service adviser tells me that using a quart of oil every 3 months is within normal limits for this car. I have had the car since February of 09 and have never had to add oil before. Am I being difficult if I think they are missing something? I have not had a car I needed to add oil to for a very long time, including the 05 Cooper S that I had before this one. I am concerned that the timing chain repair will be the gift that keeps on giving.

Do y'all have to add oil to your car every 3 months?

TIA

 

I do not, doesn't sound normal

 

A good number of R-56's are burning a quart to every thousand miles and I am sure you are going to get a ton of responses to this post in a very short time . The red flag I see thrown by the service adviser is that he says burning a quart of oil in three months is normal ? How the hell can me make that wild *** guess without knowing how many miles a month you drive? If you drive 5,000 miles a month average its not a bad deal , if you drive 250 miles a month ,which many do if your mini is your weekend toy , then it's not such a good deal after all. I can understand him pinning the usage mileage wise as some have at 1,000 miles per quart ( that is a travesty in its own ) but not on a time element.

Randy
M7 Tuning

 

Here comes one of those posts.
I have not had to add oil to my R55 09 Clubman S, but asked the dealership about the claim that a quart per 1,000 miles is normal. The SA told me that MINI considers that to be normal. I am floored. I do check my oil regularly, but find the dip stick difficult to read. I'm never really confident that I have an accurate reading.
I agree that saying a quart every 3 months is normal without relating it to the actual mileage is nonsense.

 

My bad... the SA did not use a calendar reference, I did. He said 1000 miles to a quart was within normal limits.

If it is not unusual, that is good. My concern is that it was not doing this before they cracked the engine. I guess anyone can screw up a crimp seal, but it does not inspire confidence.

Thanks-

 

1000 miles? Yeah, I would be beating on his door and demanding that they fix it. That is not normal.

 

This is totally normal for some MINI's and is full acceptable by not only MINI /BMW but also the standard for Ford, Chevy, Toyota, Nissan, Mercedes, Porche, VW, and well all the others as well.

and if you dont believe me check out all the threads where people state the same thing and have asked the dealers. There are "hundreds" of threads on this exact same subject here on the forums.

My MINI goes thru a quart about every 1200 miles. And that has been from day one.

Now for my other cars over the years. listed in quart per XXXX in no particular order.

Nissan Pathfinder 1500-1700
Nissan Maxima 1200-1300
Dodge Pickup (v8) 1800
VW Fox wagon 1400
VW Rabbit 1100
Jaguar 1100
Saab 900 1300
Ford Windstar 2500
Chevy Aveo 4000

 

Sorry, but I have been turning wrenches for many years and that is not normal. You may be buying that, but I wouldn't. I have both a turbo Subaru Forester and an R53 and neither burn that much oil over 1000 miles. Maybe at about 4K miles but not 1000. The problem is that the dealers don't want to fix the problem which would actually require them to replace that crap engine.

 

The thing that gets me is that cars like the OP's didn't always burn that much oil. In this case it started after a shoddy repair at the dealership and it sounds like they never did get the problem with the engine fixed properly.
My S car doesn't burn oil but I wonder if it will start to as it ages.
My dealer told me that it's MINI who says 1 quart every 1K miles is normal.
I just can't believe that is normal, especially in a small "energy efficient" car.
That's not environmentally friendly.
You can bet that I check my oil religiously!

 

Older cars can burn oil but by old, I mean over 100K at least. Even now I have almost 90K on my MINI and it runs great and doesn't burn oil at all. At 5K miles it is still near the top.

I am going to say this and you can take it for what it is worth. I was using Mobil 1 on the Forrester (Turbo) and it was burning more oil than normal. I was putting a quart in every 2500 or so. I switched to Amsoil and that stopped, in fact, I didn't have to put any in between changes. (5K for that car) The last change I did, I took the car to the dealer as I don't have room to do it myself and don't trust many of the mechs in my area. To date, we have not had to add any oil...

Perhaps certain brands burn off faster than others? Not sure and I haven't done any tests other than switching vendors so I have no proof, but if a car is burning oil, I might try a different brand to see if it makes a difference. That being said, I won't be using Mobile 1 any longer.

Bottom line is that the piston rings have not seated properly causing the loss of oil.

 

Very interesting.
I do expect an older car to burn oil faster, but to go from not needing to add oil to 1 quart per 1K miles doesn't make sense.
My car is under warranty and all oil changes have been done at the dealer.
We are going to buy the extended warranties, both of them, as I really want to keep the car.
So far, 35K, it runs great!

 

My wife's Clubman S burns about almost a quart every 1000 miles. I'm not happy about it, but I do think it is "normal" for some of these motors. My old E36 M3 burned about the same amount. My Kia Sportage with 2.0 Turbo burns virtually nothing between 5000 mile changes. Wish I could drop that 260 hp mill into the R55!!

 

(Note - this is a reply to the poster to whom you replied... )
1000 miles a quart is not accetable to Porsche.
We have 2 (and I've had others) currently and neither of them require oil between yearly changes (7000miles on the Boxster with 93 THOUSAND miles and 8-10k on the Cayenne). Both the Cayenne and the Boxster required maybe half a quart between changes until they hit 20-25k miles - FYI. Additionally, the 'box' holds 9 quarts so, a quart down is not as significant as it is in the Mini with it's MINIscule oil pan...

Porsche also supplies a READABLE dipstick AND a dash guage (or at least they did on our cars).

Given the speed with which Minis burn oil - a dash guage should be provided.

I check the Mini's oil once a week, it's about 1 3rd of a quart down this morning - last week was a heavy week - 300 miles. Car has 40k miles, new turbo, new timing chain, new valve cover seals...Craven dipstick is next on my list.

We like our 2008 Clubman but... When people ask me if the Boxster or the Cayenne require a lot of maintenance, I just laugh. Not trying to compare Apples and Androids - just saying.

 

Well you are very incorrect with that statement.

In fact Porsche states for at least the 911, 996, Panamera, and Cayenne can use 1 liter per 1000 kilometers which relates to 1.056 quarts per 621.56 miles.

Which if you look at that is worse than 1 quart per 1000 miles.

Now if you dont believe me go ask any Porsche dealer and well also read the owners manual where it talks about oil consumption. They even put it in writing.

Now that is not to say that all Prosche's use that much oil but that it is acceptable to do so.

 

Actually, it does not say that. It does say that it is normal for oil to be consumed but it does not say anything about 1000 miles and 1 quart.

This is what is says in the 911 owners manual.

It is normal for engines to use oil, but 1 quart every 1000 miles is excessive. My wife's Subaru Forester Turbo is due for a change at 5K and has only burnt .5 quart. That, is normal....

 

New Porsche 987 and 997 onward since 2005 do not have dip sticks, only the in dash interval oil level reader.

The Porsche dealer also has verbally told me that 1 Qt per 1000 miles of oil consumption is within the specifications, (especially for their flat 6 boxster engine). My Mini dealer also echo that same statement.

 

Of course the dealers will state that, they don't want the repair bill.

 

That is true. And Mini does not want to pay for it as well.

So, even if we do not find that acceptable, there is not much we can do.

 

well actually it does not say what i stated it says it can use more than what i stated.

See these links:

911 - http://www.porscheownersmanuals.com/...Technical-data

Cayman - http://www.porscheownersmanuals.com/...Technical-data

Boxster - http://www.porscheownersmanuals.com/...Technical-data

Cayenne - http://www.porscheownersmanuals.com/...il-Consumption

Panamera - http://www.porscheownersmanuals.com/...il-Consumption


Yes it does say that in one part of the manual. but in another is does state that it can use up to 1.5 ltr per 1000 km or 1.6 qrts per 622 miles which is actually more than what i had originally stated.


And on your Subaru check this document (part of the online owners manual for a 2010 Forester) it states If the oil consumption rate seems abnormally high after break -in period, for example more than 1 quart per 1200 miles or 1 liter per 2000 km, contact your Subaru dealer. It is on page 11-8
http://techinfo.subaru.com/proxy/693...BE-Ball_12.pdf

 

Click on the link; your breather got gummed up ,now your carboning up your intake valves with your expensive oil.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...-and-more.html

 

Happy for ya, either way, I don't drink the koolaid and have never had a vehicle that burned oil like that. If I did, they would either be dropping in a new engine or buying it back. I have worked on various engines over the years and oil consumption at that level with no sign of a leak means one thing, bad rings.

 

Yup, the 911 carrera 3.2 I sold to buy the mini used about 1 quart every 700-800 miles which was good for a car of that age. That car only had 2 valves per cylinder too.

 

Thanks for correcting me - I was waiting for someone to do so as I have read the standard disclaimer. There's CYA and there's reality. The disclaimers on oil consumption published in a Mini manual or Porsche manual probably have more to do with lawyers than with reality.

Rather than risk starting another link war - I'll leave it at:

Anecdotal evidence gathered here and from 3 other Mini driving friends indicates that Minis have an above average appetite for oil and that the dipstick needs to be augmented by a dash guage. Period.

 

Here is my $.02. The MINI is a 1.6 Liter turnocharged or NA engine. The S makes (stock) 107HP per liter. If our cars were a big block V8 they would be making 600+ HP. These motors are very picky and I beleive that the recommended 0W-30 motor oil is the culprit of oil consuption. I see Oil temps of 230 degrees F on a regular basis. You are taking an exremely thin motor oil and making it even thinner at operating temps. My car get tracked a lot, and just generally driven hard on the autobahn. During track season I run Castrol 10W-30 for the high temps of racing, and in the winter I run 0W-30 to deal with the average below freezing temps. Running these weights I see very little to No oil consumption. On the subject of the dip stick: A german MINI tech put it the best i have heard yet "If the indicator peice is not covered in oil from top to bottom you are running low" see Image.



-Brian

 

Interesting, I also have an 01 Boxster S and a 03 Cayene S both of which I bought new so I have a lot of experience with both cars. Neither of the Porsches burn oil between oil changes (none - it's amazing) and both of our Mini Clubman's (S and JCW) need a quart of oil added every roughly 2K or 2.5K miles.

I also agree that the oil type and grade are relivent as are the driving habits of the owners. I, for example, always drive the Boxster hard but I also never drive the car in extreme weather - hot or cold. The Cayene on the other hand is driven in all weather but almost never driven what I would call hard. All cars are garaged in an attached garage - read never gets below freezing.

Our Clubman's are driven differently from each other as I drive the JCW's with gusto while my 17 year old Daughter drives her S with mostly caution - I hope :-). Interestingly both engins seem to burn oil at the same rate. I believe the JCW engine is build in Germany and the S engine is built in France suggesting it is more the design than who built the engines.

My bottom line reading through this thread is that 1 Qt. seems excessive given your cars relatively low mileage and add to this the fact that your problem just happened after a repair so it all adds up to me that the dealer inserted a oil burning flaw when he cracked the engine.

I am sure that all makes and models of cars have some variability in oil consumption and burning a Qt every 1000 miles is not a killer defect - but the risk is you forget to check the oil frequently enough and do some major damage. My wife, for one, never checks her oil - frankly the thought never enters her head so a car that burned this much oil for her would be a disaster waiting to happen as she would at some point simply run out of oil - likely far from home :-)

Just my 2 cents worth.