MINI Cooper Forum banner

Ignoring the Oil Pressure warning ⚠️ ?

2K views 10 replies 4 participants last post by  mike1967 
#1 ·
Ok, firstly I am absolutely kicking myself for being so thick. Secondly I’m not at all mechanically minded so go easy on me please guys.

About 6 or 7 weeks ago I noticed the red oil pressure light on whilst cornering pretty hard on my ‘10 plate R57.

As the message disappeared after 30 secs or so and was not remaining as an error I didn’t think much about the issue.

Then the following day when over a particularly nasty speed bump the message came on again and has been intermittently coming on a few times on corners, bumps over the course of my 12 mile daily commute every day.

Stupidly I thought that as I checked the oil about 3months ago and as I have not seen a drop of oil on the drive it must be a faulty sensor or perhaps slightly low level of oil. Thought I would mention to garage when going in a few weeks for an AC repair. Also I’ve been used to driving other cars which would sense the oil level and warn before you need to top up. In fact I think in 20 yrs of committing I can only remember topping up one car with oil once so I am not used to checking oil levels on a weekly (?) basis. Hence my ignorant lack of concern.

So last night on a 50 mile round trip the car started to sound a bit off and perhaps power marginally down as well as the warning coming on a few times.

After I got home I finally looked at the dipstick and realised it was at the top of the lower triangle bit, ie probably what I imagine is ‘dangerously low’ (will check manual tonight).

Not pleasant reading when I finally looked online ! Basically I understand I may have knackered the engine.

Am now borrowing the wife’s car until I can put oil in the mini tomorrow . Given the car appears to have miraculously survived my recklessness do you think I should just put the oil in tomorrow and see how I go or do I go as drastic as forking out for the car to be towed to my garage 15 miles away?

Thanks , and yes I expect comments about being a dipstick.
 
See less See more
#2 ·
Add a quart and a half of oil, wait a minute. Start the engine. No matter what you do, the engine needs at least that much oil to be safe. In fact, I've been here before, and added 2 quarts.. since then, I know that if I get the oil engine light after one hard corner, I know I need to add at least half a quart if not more.
I would lean towards adding oil and starting the engine.
 
#3 ·
The low oil pressure warning light is effectively a light to let you know you've just wrecked your engine. Some people will have got away with it coming on a couple of times but realistically what you describe sounds like you haven't been as lucky. Oil is cheap though so there's nothing to lose by topping up and seeing what happens. hopefully you'll post back in a few hundred miles to say all is well.

In the event that all isn't well, you'll soon know as you'll start getting nasty noises from your engine or it'll seize. In your position I would be keeping my eye out for a 2nd hand engine and doing a little bit of research into garages local to you.
 
#4 ·
3 months hmmm yep have dealt with the aftermath many times very much the same chain of events, remember one guy he had a 12 months old audi v6 petrol tfsi engine done the same thing thought as a new car under 10k on it , trouble is this new low friction tech engines all use oil by design, expensive mistake for him aud would not honour the warranty as he run it low on oil and they could tell from past live data and faults codes stored ie a level of code storage dealer only can read, prince engines dont do well with oil light on for any amount of time damage will be done for sure how long the total end is away only time will tell
 
#6 ·
good luck hope it dont turn to bad
 
#7 ·
After adding 1.5 litres I drove the car for a few miles. Went pretty easy for first mile or so. Engine sounded ‘normal’ so I upped the pace a little and went round a roundabout fairly quickly and no warning message which would have definitely come on previously. So far so good but obviously I accept I may have damaged the engine and it might not come to light until some time later.
 
#8 ·
i check all i ever move or buy every time i move them until know what i have got ie all cars have different use or oil seems most makers are designing engines that burn oil my theory to this is to fool emission figures, ie all cars with filters in exhausts and pcv and egr systems all cause the oil to collect carbons this mostly ends up in the engine oil and does, trouble with a car that has a 24 month or 20.000 miles service interval is it impossible to get that amount of carbon in to the oil, so answer could be force people to add oil and use some of oil via pcv system to be burnt off etc, its funny on cars that have the pcv removed and egr and also run slightly thicker oil dont use as much oil,,, but 10k oil change sis by far best way to treat any car, also see the full mark as being the target and not a vague between the marks as many do, min mark is to low causes damage over time, you can buy 20 litre drums of good engine oil from euro parts £45 that 4 oil changes, time will tell
 
#10 ·
Ps. Didn’t know whether to post a separate post or whether the oil thing could be relevant, but also the stop start function stopped working around 8 months ago and had not worked since. Possibly started around same time I was also getting low battery charge warning messages which disappeared with the spring when I assume I was not draining the battery as fast (less use of lights than in winter, not using heated seats etc).
 
#11 ·
it needs ecu scanned with a good scanner ie cheap hand held things dont have the power to do a full job hence why some people come on here and say they scanned their car and no faults, when reality is are faults stored that cannot be seen without a good scan, best value for money is autocom cdp plus or wow wurth snooper i have both and both have good bits that add up to a fairly complete system as such, this all said while any codes are present start stop will not be available , flat battery or weak battery will cause same problems, allowing any battery to go totally flat at any point of its life is a bad thing to do, battery needs to be charged all the time or at worst above 11.2 volts. also if battery has been left flat first thing would be to code cars ecu to recognise it again
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top