330ci drinking oil

[toastboy]

My 2001 330ci sport has slowly developed a taste for oil and is now at the point where I'm using a litre every 1000 miles. It's done just over 80k miles and was wondering if this is par for the course. There don't appear to be any leaks or smoke so where's it all going? Is this a sign of something expensive waiting to happen?

[Andrew D]

Could be to do with the viscosity of the oil that you're using. Mobil 1 is pretty thin, so it tends to find any leaks in the system and drain away.

[toastboy]

I'm using the new Castrol which is specifically for BMW's. Come to think of it the oil consumption seems to have got much worse since the formula changed. Coincidence?

[gaz1234]

i've had the same probs, was low, topped it up with Q8 BMW stuff and light came on so topped it up again, so far its ok. Same mileage as you.
Noticed the other day when i started it quite a bit of smoke coming ot of exhaust too!

[the_sheriff]

I've 2001 Z3 3.0l with the same M54 engine. It also uses a fair bit of oil, around 1l per 2000 miles and from what I've read this seems to be a common issue with this engine. BMW say the usage is well within normal tolerances.

Cheers

James

[minted_aye]

Stick to the BMW M3 E46 Oil you should be fine, had the same problem with my alpina b3 3.3