After my oil light came on in hard corner, I added a full 2 quarts to bring it back up to near-maximum, but I am concerned that it lost 1.5-2 quarts in six thousand miles. I've never had to add oil prior to this, and I still don't see spots on the garage floor or a smoke trail. Any ideas? I've heard about excessive consumption in Cooper S's, but I haven't found any reports of loss in the NA Coopers. My car only has 42k miles on it, and has been driven relatively conservatively since I bought it at 13k miles. I'll be checking the oil daily from now on to see if I can detect any loss over the next week.

Thanks for your help.

 

Oil consumption is typical on these Prince build engines.
Rule #1 - always make sure your level is up to par.
Rule #2 - use an LL-01 approved oil to reduce blow-by / burn / consumption issues.

- Erik

 

A qt every 3K miles is probably a little higher than average, but it is well within the normal and acceptable range. You might be surprised to know that Mini considers a quart every thousand to be acceptable on a brand new car. Oil consumption varies quite a bit from car to car and unless it is really high, is not typically a cause for concern. It is a nuisance to have to add it, but you pays your money and takes your chances.

You need to check your oil more often.

- Mark

 

If it just suddenly started using oil and you don't have a leak it could be a bad PVC valve which in these cars is part of the valve cover. On most cars you have little PVC valve somewhere that only costs about $5 to replace, in the Mini, not so cheap or easy but might take care of your oil consumption...

 

It turns out the valve cover gasket was leaking oil. Hopefully swapping that out will solve the problem, and I'll be checking the oil level at every fill-up from now on...