My son just purchased a 2003 Mini w/manual transmission. 159k, 2 owners and no reported problems. Owner had all service records and is gathering them up for us for our records. Went to have the oil changed at our usual provider. Ran into the issue where the oil pressure light came on at idle. Quick research cleared up the problem as the center cage was stuck in the old filter. Replaced and back on the road.

This leads me to our concern. In article I found it showed the inside of the filter house to look like this:



However, this is what the one on his car looks like:



What is the difference in the two and potential problems if any? Has the oil filter housing likely been replaced in the past? We noticed it when we were inspecting for the Oil By-pass Valve spring and noticed it wasn't there and saw it was a completely different configuration.

Any advice for this new owner is appreciated.

 

I don't have an answer for you

but since you seem to understand computers

try SEARCH ..... I KNOW this has been discussed many many times.

 

Interesting, I typed the info in on search and came up with no answer.

 

There hasn't been much assistance offered yet, but I'll add my 2-cents here, and say that while my '04 m/c/s housing differs from yours, I do believe there still should be a spring at the bypass valve location indicated in the pic below.

Hopefully, someone with more knowledge of your particular housing will come along to confirm or deny this.

 

Pour your vin number into realoem.com and see if changes were made to the parts.


Ps edit, I hate autocorrect!

 

Part number on the side of the housing, I can see the revision levels, can you fnd 11 digits or 6 digits ?

 

So, that was my dad that posted this one morning. I, the actual owner, am just now finding this thread in doing the same research.


From the research I've done and what I understand maybe someone can tell me if I'm right or wrong:


It's not so much the housing as the oil CAP itself. The cap I have is the one with the plastic "Cage" (that can sometimes pop out) and spring as part of it. This cage was used as a support for the older all paper filters so they would not implode.


As filters got better, they now have their own cage on the inside that supports them. There is now a NEW FILTER CAP that does not have this cage attached, as they are now in the filters.


What I think happened is we got a NEW filter (plastic/rubber on top and bottom of the filter) and put it in with the OLD cap. At first the cage was left out, we went back and found it and put it in but it didn't help with the low oil pressure light at idle.


We ended up getting a different filter (Plastic/rubber on one end and just the paper on the other), replaced it yesterday, put the cage in it, and so far no light!


The issue now is, that cage is broken in places. Some of the plastic is chipped off and such. While it seems to be working now I would rather have non broken parts in my engine, duh! I've looked on RealOEM and there is a filter cap number that is listed as the primary (with no cage) the "supersedes" another filter cap (with the cage). I can buy the older one with the cage, albeit very hard to find and very expensive.


So the question is, am I right? Can I actually just buy the newer oil filter CAP that does NOT have the cage, replace it and the filter (again), and not have this issue? Or, should I dish out the money for the one with the cage and stick with what was there?

 

Hi, I have the same exact problem. I just took my filter out and have the same housing you do! Spring was loose inside the filter though and no cage to be seen (I believe it got thrown out by the BMW mechanic). Did you ever find an answer to your question? Did you end up replacing the oil filter cap with a new one? Or the entire housing? I think they installed a new filter, but I will check again tomorrow. Thanks in advance for any feedback!