Engine oil mystery

[bmw1racer]

I changed my oil and filter early March and when I got home yesterday I got a low oil indication on my dashboard. When I checked, the dashboard said I was low one quart. I know for a fact that after I changed my oil, I got an OK indication on my dashboard.

I checked the engine compartment, looking for signs of oil and found nothing. Under the car, I don't see any signs of leaks, even at the oil access panel/flap.

Am I burning oil? And if I was, wouldn't I have failed the smog test I had taken a week ago?

This is puzzling.

[mkeiser]

in my experience, oil level sensor is not very accurate immediately after an oil change. add a quart and monitor it.

[jdt10768]

top up, and monitor . .

[bmw1racer]

Thanks for your replies.

Topping and monitoring is exactly what I'm doing. Oddly, I've never encountered this in the past.

[blue135]

This happened to me once in 10 yrs of E88 ownership. Got the message about low oil after drive of around 150 mi. Checked and the system said I was a quart low. Since I drove the car in spurts, not daily, it sat for about 10 days. Checked again, and now the sensor was happy with the oil level. Never added any during the period when it was idle.

[N55e82Simon]

I’m in a similar situation but I’m confident it’s the sensor is on the way out. I keep getting the 1qt low (I always change my oil myself and at 5k intervals and it’s spot on) but then I will drive for a bit and it will go back to full. Sometimes I will drive and it stays in the ok for the entire trip and others it pops on at start up. Reason I bring this up is because it might actually not be low at all. You would have to drain and measure. But an extra quart won’t hurt anything as it seems to be common practice for the autox guys. Point being. Measure what comes out next time and it could too also be a failing sensor.

[zx10guy]

I'm banking on the oil level sensor. I had the same situation with my car. I did the recent oil change. All was fine then. I checked for any leaks and there were none. Depending on the angle and also just plain randomness, I would get the warning.

I was due for an oil change anyways. So I bought a new sensor, did oil change and sensor replacement. No issues since and that was about 3 years ago.

[bmw1racer]

Would the OBDII report any issues with the oil sensor?

[zx10guy]

Can't remember the timing but I had to replace the DMTL pump in my car twice. The oil level sensor went bad either before the first DMTL pump failure or the second. I didn't scan the DME with my scan tool when I replaced the oil level sensor. I did when the DMTL failures happened. There were no stored codes for the oil level sensor.

[bmw1racer]

This is one of those instances where a good ol' dipstick trumps electronics.

[zx10guy]

No argument from me with that. My new 2025 CX-5 has an engine oil dipstick. Just plain stupid to not have one.

Even though both my 2022 S1000RR and 2016 C650 Sport electronically monitor engine oil level, there's still the ability to visually verify oil level. The RR has the standard sight glass on a engine side case and the C650 has an actual dipstick. So many things I wish the management of BMW Motorrad would be making decisions over at the auto group.

[JimD]

My 2009 e88 would say I was over full of oil if I put in the 6 quarts it is supposed to hold. So I would fill it up to where it was on the edge of being over and call that good. It did this until it got over 100K miles. Now it wants the oil it is rated to hold.

This electronic oil level sensor is one of several really bad ideas that will prevent me from buying another BMW. It is not accurate or reliable and is there because somebody decided we are too stupid to use a dipstick. I use an oil extractor on my other vehicle but cannot on the bimmer because it lacks a dispstick. Just a bad idea all around.

Another really stupid idea is a speedometer that lies to you. It reads faster than you are really going and cannot be reprogrammed. I added the small digital speed indication into the area where the mpg and other things are indicated and you can remove the speed "correction" on that signal. But still, why have an instrument you intentionally lie with?

There are many good things about BMWs too but this really stupid stuff is just annoying and many other cars do not do this sort of nonsense.

[brake-fade]

I know I'm a bit late to the conversation, but how many miles had you driven between oil change and light coming on? I burn about a quart every 5k miles with half that at highway speeds with engine rpm around 3,300. It's been like that for years and no leaks. I put 7 quarts in at oil changes.