Help! Oil loss in my Cooper Convertable - Dealer not helping!
Hi Everyone
I wonder if anyone can help me.
I have a 2004 Cooper convertible that I noticed was using a lot of oil. First thing was the difficulty changing gears, so I looked at my oil level and it was below minimum!
Rushed out (in another car!) and brought a 5L bottle of Castrol which set me back £50, so not very happy!
Have been keeping a close eye on my oil levels ever since and I have had to put in 4L of oil over the last 8 months.
Obviously not very happy at this, and also noticed that my lovely shiny exhaust pipe has been getting blacker & blacker and I have oil spots on my boot.
I take my poor mini into Di*k Lovett who look at her for over an hour and come back to me to say there is nothing wrong!! They know this as they have plugged in my mini and no faults codes came up. However, I kick up a bit of a fuss at this and they agree to do a "Oil Level Test". This involves them filling up my oil to maximum, me driving 1000 miles and going back in.
I've now completed 900 miles, and when I checked my oil this morning, it has already dropped to half way on my dipstick already.
Surely this is wrong??!!
Has anyone else had this, as my mini is not yet 3 years old and I'm not that rich to keep buying this amount of oil!!
Thanks for any advice anyone can give me, even if it's ammunition to have against Di*k Lovett!!
The dealer didn't say too much really, I think they must have guessed something was wrong due to the blackness of my (once) chrome exhaust!
I've got to wait until I complete the 1000 miles before going back, so was wondering if anyone else had the same problems or heard of anything similar!
At least with the oil drop I know I'm right and not imaging things!
The usual rule of thumb for oil use in a street car is: no more than 1000 miles per quart is allowable before a rebuild. If you are needing more than this, you have a problem. I would look for leaks first as heavy oil burning would be unusual in a car with less than 100,000 miles. Have someone drive your car while you follow for about 10 miles at various speeds. If you ever see any grey smoke that lingers in the air, you may have some leaking rings or valve guides. If you are burnign more than a quart per 1000, you will see smoke at some point. Do you sport the car at high rpm a lot?
I hope your cabrio is still under warranty? If so, then they really should do everything to make sure she is fixed. My July 2004 Cooper Cabrio consumes practically no oil at all. I only had to top up 1/2 litre before the first big service at 24000km......so even a quart for every 1000 miles seems like a lot of oil to me.
One thing I am concerned about is that the warranty/MOT is due in around 4 weeks, and I have a bad feeling that they may try and drag it out till after then!
It's true I am a bit (!) of a girl racer, but living in the countryside, with much wildlife jumping out (deer has been hit, as have foxes both damaging Mini!) I don't like booting it too hard!
Also with this whole "Oil Level Test" I have been driving extra carefully as I didn't want them to have any other excuses! He already asked me if I was doing lots of short journeys of less than 5 minutes!
I would say formally log with them that you are not happy and that there is a problem within the warranty period and that you expect as it has been reported in time that it should be covered if the solution is not found until later.
hi
lesson one
generate as much paperwork as possible, with dates, time and bills you may later need to prove "history" so go recorded delivery, or by hand with signature for receipt of letter
[courts love paperwork] a mileage log of typical week would be good as well
lesson two
ask them for paperwork IE you will want in writing from dealer and mini UK that this oil consumption is normal and acceptable [this will scare them into action]
no doubt there will be some launch publicity which will say how much testing in the Arctic and death valley etc, not much about weekly commute around swindon, ask for confirmation/data on how they arrive at figures for oil consumption and how that relates to your car
[ company toyota avensis 1.8 v v t getting new engine at moment 5yrs old excessive consumption 2ltrs per 1k, but as you know fleet clients get looked after]
"0.5 litre of oil required to top up to original level. In our opinion this is an acceptable consumption figure. However will contact MINI to confirm this and report back to you."
I have this in writing from them!
How on earth can a not quite 3 year old car use this amount of oil??!!
I've had a friend speak to his friend who works in a BMW garage, and apparently the guidelines from MINI is that 1 litre of oil consumption in 1000 miles is the highest acceptable level!
We have 4 Minis in our company (mine is my own private car) one of which has 160, 000 miles on the clock and has only ever been filled up with an extra 0.5 litres between oil services!!
So your saying it was well over the 0.5 litre level to return it to its recorded level? Therefore BMW MINI garage statement is completely inaccurate? Well then you have in writing that your car is performing correctly. Strange they would find that when you say you've found it different.
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