My manual NA used 1/2 quart during breakin and none during the next 20k including autocrossing. 7k oil changes. My N18 manual Roadster S used 1/4 quart during breakin and none for 2000 more miles. 600 miles later including WOT/maximum rev shifts for practice and eight autocross runs it is down 1/3rd quart.

 

funny I just changed mine and 2qrts out and 4qrts in.
WTF! happened to the other 2qrts? Crazy!
I have 43,000 miles 09' S
Catch can in the wrks after the change for sure

 

My wife has an 08 Justa auto with 55K miles. I change the oil with Mobil 1 and OEM filter every 10K miles. The last oil change saw about 2-3 quarts come out the engine. About 1-2K miles before that oil change the car threw a low oil light, so I poured in a quart.

 

FWIW that is not a low oil light. It is a low oil pressure light. When you see it you are doing damage to the engine. The dip stick is there to check oil level. Do it every week or so. I'd advise you to change the oil & filter every 5,000 miles. Oil is cheaper than engines.

 

My 2008 S is driven freeway 45 miles per workday, then suburban on weekends. 82,300 miles on odometer. Driven normally. Haven't been keeping track, but oil use is an extra 1-2 quarts or so between changes. On last bottle of a 6 pack of Mobil1 5/30 I bought at Costco 2-3 years ago. Dealer changes oil always. Now at 33 MPG if that matters. Sorry - wrong forum, I just realized. Comment moved to another forum.

 

My 2008 Justa started using oil around 40k to the pace of a quart per 2000 mi. Now at 90k it's using a quart about every 1500 mi. A fellow Justa owner in the area reports a quart every 750 miles and that's an N16 engine.
Both these cars have been pampered, so it's just something that either the N12 or N16 engines are susceptible to.
Any other updates from recent Justa engines?

 

I have 154000 miles. In 3000 miles I don't use a drop. Go beyond that and it starts drinking some. in 4000 miles it will be down 1/2 qt. At 4500 miles it is down a qt. I usually change the oil every 3000 miles, so if I go beyond I know to check it.

 

im surprised how much consumption I'm hearing of on these cars. are you guys using oem oil?

 

Im using Lubro Moly 5W-40 fully synthetic. I just filled mine with 2 liters of oil and it barely inched over the minimum. 2013 with 50k miles

Im used to V8s and V12s and never had I seen an engine consume that much oil

 

interesting... I'm driving a '13, 28k miles or so I can't remember.. not a drop of oil usage and I drive it pretty hard. that said I change oil pretty frequently.


for you guys consuming oil, I'd really do a UOA and see what's coming up.


https://r56hs.com/2016/08/23/mini-uoa-6/

 

kyoo- UOA? Oil analysis? Would that be of help, possibly?

I've used Royal Purple or Castrol, 5w 30, most of Mini's life. As mentioned, it's a qt. every 1500mi. or so now with super gentle driving, mostly scenic highways. I'm happy to feed her oil, but it must mean that something inside is breaking down. Rings,valves ?

 

I bought my 07 Cooper in December of 2007. It had 137 miles on it. It now has 194,340 I have changed the oil and filter every 3000 miles. It used zero oil up to the time I hit 175,000. I am now adding 1 pint midway between oil changes. I plan to continue using it as my daily driver for another year. At that time it will have about 220,000 miles.

 

My 2012 R56 N16 Justa automatic, goes thru about one quart of Mobil 1 5W30 every 750 miles or do. I always carry a couple "spare" quarts in the back. Level gets checked weekly when home and daily on road trips.

 

if consuming it could possibly give an indication of what is wrong

that is a LOT of oil being consumed. abnormally so.

 

 

My Base 2009 with 89K uses about a quart every 3000 miles otherwise runs fine.

 

We are now at 75,000 miles on our 08 N12 & not using any oil between changes. We still do our oil changes at 5,000 miles. I'm very happy with how our MINI is running.

Edit.... We are now at 86,000 miles & still have no oil usage on our little N12 Clubman.

 

N12 at 65k miles, I'd say about a quart every 3k miles.

 

My 2010 Cooper (non-S) has used about a quart of oil every 1,000 miles since I bought it new. Really quite annoying since I change the Mobil 1 5W-30 oil every 6,000 miles.

Which means that in the period in-between oil changes I'm putting in as much oil as an oil change. There are no leaks.

 

My N12 engine now uses a quart every 600 to 700 miles, in its late middle age (105,000). There is another R55 N 12 in town that uses a quart every 900.
I have to add over half a quart with every gas tank fill up.

If I idle for a long time (rarely happens) and then accelerate, I get a massive cloud of light smoke, otherwise no visible exhaust.

My suspicions lie in the CCV system, which is a source of oil loss on the Beemer files forums. Some informed Mini mechanics doubt that a bad CCV could cause so much oil to vanish, however. Small amount only, he says.

There is a test for a bad CCV I'm going to do, putting a balloon over my dipstick tube with a running engine to see if it inflates. I'm not sure why, but some Beemer folks say it's diagnostic.

I could buy a new valve cover with CCV built in for $350 and pay another
$200-ish to install it, but is this worth it if my oil loss is from other causes too?

I have a DDM cold air intake which might be related to the issue since my consumption went up the same year I installed it.
On road trips my engine light goes on after a few hours at 70 mph :-(

I have no visible leaks and I've done oil changes well under 5000 miles since Mini was new, usually Royal Purple or Mini's OEM.

I'm hoping someone has a similar problem solved or can diagnose a likely culprit here. I love the car and want to dive it onwards.

 

Could be your vacuum pump. Know problem with these Mini's. The vacuum pump has an outer and an inner o-ring seal. If the inner one fails oil can be sucked right out of your engine through the pump.

 

... and then to where? Does it go into the air intake?
I wonder if all this oil is being combusted and putting a strain on the plugs, valves and catalytic converter.

Anyway, thanks for the tip. I'll see if there's a way to check it out.

 

The consumption is coming from the valve seals. That is why the cloud happens after idling. I am at 174000 miles and that is my issue. I'm going to replace my valve seals and do my timing chain and idler at the same time. I was wondering where my oil was going and the cloud after idling for 10 min was my clue that the valve seals were the cause. I switched to 0w40 Moly as well.

 

Stepdaughters 09 justa starting burning oil. Replaced valve cover (that has integrated in PCV which fail ) and oil burning stopped.

 

2011 non-S Cooper.

I took over oil changes from 43k miles to present day (102k miles). Around the 70k mile mark I noticed I was missing oil when draining for oil changes. Presently mine goes through about 1 quart per 3k miles.

There's never been a drip under my car or anywhere on my engine so it's not leaking. I have also never seen any clouds of smoke come from my exhaust.

I use Mobil 1 0W40 European oil and change it every 7k miles.