BMW X4 350D Engine oil over fill.
Discussion
I purchased from BMW a new X4 350D in March 2017.
It has just had its first service by BMW as previous to that, a 'service control' warning was stating that the oil level was too high and this, when mentioned, seemed to concern the Service Admin person.
I have not topped the oil level up, the car has only covered 8k miles in the 2 years.
After service, and the oil change, the level is correct but I was told I had not done sufficient long journeys and as a result the level was showing too high.
There is no dipstick to check oil quality or manually check level, it is all sealed and managed by sensors I guess.
How can I be certain that the problem is not a leak into the crankcase or down valve stems or via injectors?
By the time the warranty is up the problem may just be starting to cause real engine issues that may become very expensive.
What should I do, or have done, other than told BMW of my concerns in the Customer feedback report?
It has just had its first service by BMW as previous to that, a 'service control' warning was stating that the oil level was too high and this, when mentioned, seemed to concern the Service Admin person.
I have not topped the oil level up, the car has only covered 8k miles in the 2 years.
After service, and the oil change, the level is correct but I was told I had not done sufficient long journeys and as a result the level was showing too high.
There is no dipstick to check oil quality or manually check level, it is all sealed and managed by sensors I guess.
How can I be certain that the problem is not a leak into the crankcase or down valve stems or via injectors?
By the time the warranty is up the problem may just be starting to cause real engine issues that may become very expensive.
What should I do, or have done, other than told BMW of my concerns in the Customer feedback report?
This might be caused by failed DPF regeneration allowing fuel into the oil, increasing the oil level. 4k miles a year really isn't very many miles for an engine of this type - the DPF needs to regenerate itself on a semi regular basis and it does this on longer trips when the engine is at full operating temperature.
As annoying as it might sound, the dealer could be right here!
As annoying as it might sound, the dealer could be right here!
Fox- said:
Pericoloso said:
Diesel
8000 miles
2 years.
You bought the wrong engine.
To be fair to him he had no choice if he wanted an X4 - it was only offered with diesel engines.8000 miles
2 years.
You bought the wrong engine.
I agree that for a big diesel lump it is small miles!
I wanted a X4 for the shape, convenience and difference, my previous X3 was commonplace.
Many buy big engined cars, especially supercars and do few miles.
What you are saying is that the regen system needs longer journeys.
Every time I drive the car it does reach operating temperature, 10 to 25 miles is my norm.
Is the engine going to be at risk because of this?
What is the regen system and why should it increase the oil level?
Should I sell it and buy a Micra???
I wanted a X4 for the shape, convenience and difference, my previous X3 was commonplace.
Many buy big engined cars, especially supercars and do few miles.
What you are saying is that the regen system needs longer journeys.
Every time I drive the car it does reach operating temperature, 10 to 25 miles is my norm.
Is the engine going to be at risk because of this?
What is the regen system and why should it increase the oil level?
Should I sell it and buy a Micra???
Middlechild said:
I agree that for a big diesel lump it is small miles!
I wanted a X4 for the shape, convenience and difference, my previous X3 was commonplace.
Many buy big engined cars, especially supercars and do few miles.
What you are saying is that the regen system needs longer journeys.
Every time I drive the car it does reach operating temperature, 10 to 25 miles is my norm.
Is the engine going to be at risk because of this?
What is the regen system and why should it increase the oil level?
Should I sell it and buy a Micra???
Regent needs 30-40 minutes at a constant speed to complete.I wanted a X4 for the shape, convenience and difference, my previous X3 was commonplace.
Many buy big engined cars, especially supercars and do few miles.
What you are saying is that the regen system needs longer journeys.
Every time I drive the car it does reach operating temperature, 10 to 25 miles is my norm.
Is the engine going to be at risk because of this?
What is the regen system and why should it increase the oil level?
Should I sell it and buy a Micra???
The dealer sugggested 30 minutes at 70mph.
I’ve had exactly the same symptoms as you have on my 2011 X5 40d that’s just turned over 100k and I’ve had from new. An abnormally high and sustained period of short trips triggered it.
Thanks for the advice, living in East Anglia we don't do many long sustained trips, lucky if we hit 70 for 10 minutes!!!
Can anybody tell me please what is the REGEN System?
I thought it was regenerating the battery from braking and deceleration but that surely doesn't reflect on engine oil levels?
Can anybody tell me please what is the REGEN System?
I thought it was regenerating the battery from braking and deceleration but that surely doesn't reflect on engine oil levels?
The exhaust system has a Diesel Particulate filter (DPF) which captures small particles and over a short time they become full, but not blocked with particulates.
The system Regen is where the car artificially makes the DPF run very hot by injecting more fuel to burn off the particulates. As said this takes 30 to 45 minutes at a steady speed to do. What can happen is that the regen starts, and then you switch off the car. This repeats over and over and can lead to this excess fuel getting into the sump and making the oil level rise byt the diesel diluting the oil.
It does sound like you have the wrong vehicle for your needs if it is just 25 mile journeys each way.
The system Regen is where the car artificially makes the DPF run very hot by injecting more fuel to burn off the particulates. As said this takes 30 to 45 minutes at a steady speed to do. What can happen is that the regen starts, and then you switch off the car. This repeats over and over and can lead to this excess fuel getting into the sump and making the oil level rise byt the diesel diluting the oil.
It does sound like you have the wrong vehicle for your needs if it is just 25 mile journeys each way.
spaximus said:
The exhaust system has a Diesel Particulate filter (DPF) which captures small particles and over a short time they become full, but not blocked with particulates.
The system Regen is where the car artificially makes the DPF run very hot by injecting more fuel to burn off the particulates. As said this takes 30 to 45 minutes at a steady speed to do. What can happen is that the regen starts, and then you switch off the car. This repeats over and over and can lead to this excess fuel getting into the sump and making the oil level rise byt the diesel diluting the oil.
It does sound like you have the wrong vehicle for your needs if it is just 25 mile journeys each way.
30-45 minutes, are you sure? The system Regen is where the car artificially makes the DPF run very hot by injecting more fuel to burn off the particulates. As said this takes 30 to 45 minutes at a steady speed to do. What can happen is that the regen starts, and then you switch off the car. This repeats over and over and can lead to this excess fuel getting into the sump and making the oil level rise byt the diesel diluting the oil.
It does sound like you have the wrong vehicle for your needs if it is just 25 mile journeys each way.
Jag_NE said:
spaximus said:
The exhaust system has a Diesel Particulate filter (DPF) which captures small particles and over a short time they become full, but not blocked with particulates.
The system Regen is where the car artificially makes the DPF run very hot by injecting more fuel to burn off the particulates. As said this takes 30 to 45 minutes at a steady speed to do. What can happen is that the regen starts, and then you switch off the car. This repeats over and over and can lead to this excess fuel getting into the sump and making the oil level rise byt the diesel diluting the oil.
It does sound like you have the wrong vehicle for your needs if it is just 25 mile journeys each way.
30-45 minutes, are you sure? The system Regen is where the car artificially makes the DPF run very hot by injecting more fuel to burn off the particulates. As said this takes 30 to 45 minutes at a steady speed to do. What can happen is that the regen starts, and then you switch off the car. This repeats over and over and can lead to this excess fuel getting into the sump and making the oil level rise byt the diesel diluting the oil.
It does sound like you have the wrong vehicle for your needs if it is just 25 mile journeys each way.
Chrismawa said:
Im not sure if BMWs regen process is different but my A3 takes about 10 mins max of normal driving to regenerate.
Same (unsurprisingly) in wife's Tiguan. It can start within a couple of miles from cold too, and while on normal urban driving, so this business of having to take diesels for a 30 mile blast is nonsense.Chrismawa said:
Jag_NE said:
spaximus said:
The exhaust system has a Diesel Particulate filter (DPF) which captures small particles and over a short time they become full, but not blocked with particulates.
The system Regen is where the car artificially makes the DPF run very hot by injecting more fuel to burn off the particulates. As said this takes 30 to 45 minutes at a steady speed to do. What can happen is that the regen starts, and then you switch off the car. This repeats over and over and can lead to this excess fuel getting into the sump and making the oil level rise byt the diesel diluting the oil.
It does sound like you have the wrong vehicle for your needs if it is just 25 mile journeys each way.
30-45 minutes, are you sure? The system Regen is where the car artificially makes the DPF run very hot by injecting more fuel to burn off the particulates. As said this takes 30 to 45 minutes at a steady speed to do. What can happen is that the regen starts, and then you switch off the car. This repeats over and over and can lead to this excess fuel getting into the sump and making the oil level rise byt the diesel diluting the oil.
It does sound like you have the wrong vehicle for your needs if it is just 25 mile journeys each way.
although you've only done 8k miles, the condition of the oil will be pretty bad if you are only doing short journeys and this can clog the DPF but mostly cause other warning faults. You need to change your oil yearly, in your case, and for others about twice as regularly as the service schedule, I.e 18k intervals, require and oil change every 9k miles. It really does make a difference to DPF longevity and the overall reliability of your car.
Jerry Can said:
although you've only done 8k miles, the condition of the oil will be pretty bad if you are only doing short journeys and this can clog the DPF but mostly cause other warning faults. You need to change your oil yearly, in your case, and for others about twice as regularly as the service schedule, I.e 18k intervals, require and oil change every 9k miles. It really does make a difference to DPF longevity and the overall reliability of your car.
Absolutely agree. One of my diesels only does about 5K miles per annum (although not used for short journeys). The service schedule says every 20K or 2 years. Sod that, I’ll do it every 12 months or 10K miles, whichever comes first. I think the fewer miles you do, the more frequently you should change the oil. Right the you have an N57 engine you will have an oil dipstick (albeit unmarked) in the top right hand side of the engine bay (passenger side) which you can use to check the oil level manually.
It will be down to the type of miles you do. Technically speaking a DPF is regenerating all the time one is on a continuous (or passive) basis and one is periodic (or active) regen.
The oil level rising will be like others have said down to failed regen where diesel that is injected as part of an extra injection to heat the DPF during active regeneration is washed down into the sump.
This actually has two impacts - one the obvious rising level of oil (hence the oil level sensor in Idrive saying that the oil level is too high), but also reduced lubrication being provided by the oil as diesel won't make a good engine oil!
The specific requirements of an active regen for an N57 are above 38 mph for around 20 - 30 minutes with all these requirements met to carryout the regen:
The following conditions must be fulfilled for a regeneration:
The coolant temperature must be in excess of 75 °C
the exhaust-gas temperature before the diesel particle filter must be greater than 240 °C
there must be enough fuel (fuel reserve indicator light is not lit up). Whenever the reserve lamp lights up, the regeneration process is suspended.
no fault codes from the air mass system, exhaust emission system and sensors must be saved in the DDE
The fault codes 480A / 245700 (from F01) and 481A / 245800 (from F01) must display the status "currently not present"
Constant driving speed above about 60 km/h (approx. 38 mph). The optimum speed is about 100 km/h (approx. 60 mph).
Note the optimum speed, another common reason N57's fail to regen is because the one of the thermostats has failed meaning the coolant is too low. You can use the hidden menu in your dash to view live readout of such data like the oil temp and coolant temp should you wish to monitor them more closely (look on youtube for that).
Other regen information on Newtis which is a cool resource for BMW technical inside information - https://www.newtis.info/tisv2/a/en/f06-640d-cou_20...
This is for a 640D, but the engine is essentially the same (and so would anything else be that is N57 powered from this era).
As a final bit of information I would ignore the BMW Condition Based Servicing (CBS) and get the oil and filter changed every 10k as this will help minimise issues if doing shorter miles, but will also prevent the lubrication and unnecessary additional stress on components such as the timing chain.
In relation to your mileage it is less about the overall mileage as such (although you will be loosing out in terms of fuel costs), but the type of miles higher speeds with stable loads will help the periodic regens in terms of distance between them, but also the active regens washing diesel in to the engine oil.
It will be down to the type of miles you do. Technically speaking a DPF is regenerating all the time one is on a continuous (or passive) basis and one is periodic (or active) regen.
The oil level rising will be like others have said down to failed regen where diesel that is injected as part of an extra injection to heat the DPF during active regeneration is washed down into the sump.
This actually has two impacts - one the obvious rising level of oil (hence the oil level sensor in Idrive saying that the oil level is too high), but also reduced lubrication being provided by the oil as diesel won't make a good engine oil!
The specific requirements of an active regen for an N57 are above 38 mph for around 20 - 30 minutes with all these requirements met to carryout the regen:
The following conditions must be fulfilled for a regeneration:
The coolant temperature must be in excess of 75 °C
the exhaust-gas temperature before the diesel particle filter must be greater than 240 °C
there must be enough fuel (fuel reserve indicator light is not lit up). Whenever the reserve lamp lights up, the regeneration process is suspended.
no fault codes from the air mass system, exhaust emission system and sensors must be saved in the DDE
The fault codes 480A / 245700 (from F01) and 481A / 245800 (from F01) must display the status "currently not present"
Constant driving speed above about 60 km/h (approx. 38 mph). The optimum speed is about 100 km/h (approx. 60 mph).
Note the optimum speed, another common reason N57's fail to regen is because the one of the thermostats has failed meaning the coolant is too low. You can use the hidden menu in your dash to view live readout of such data like the oil temp and coolant temp should you wish to monitor them more closely (look on youtube for that).
Other regen information on Newtis which is a cool resource for BMW technical inside information - https://www.newtis.info/tisv2/a/en/f06-640d-cou_20...
This is for a 640D, but the engine is essentially the same (and so would anything else be that is N57 powered from this era).
As a final bit of information I would ignore the BMW Condition Based Servicing (CBS) and get the oil and filter changed every 10k as this will help minimise issues if doing shorter miles, but will also prevent the lubrication and unnecessary additional stress on components such as the timing chain.
In relation to your mileage it is less about the overall mileage as such (although you will be loosing out in terms of fuel costs), but the type of miles higher speeds with stable loads will help the periodic regens in terms of distance between them, but also the active regens washing diesel in to the engine oil.
Edited by Ninja59 on Sunday 17th March 16:46
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