I got this message 3 weeks ago with only about 4300 miles. And my dealer added one quart as the iDrive recommended. Just yesterday I got "Engine oil at minimum level" again in just 3 weeks with less than 1k additional miles! It's like my car is drinking the oil. Called the dealer and made the appt on Monday. Have you guys seen this? What was the problem?

 

Either the dealer did not add enough oil OR your car has a serious problem

Get it checked out right away

 

Thanks. I made the appt already. Things are getting really frustrating now... ...

 

Pheesh... you could have used some of the extra oil in my engine! Mine was overfilled by the dealer... wonder if they put your oil into mine...


On a serious note... I havent heard of a car drinking that much oil that fast... how are you measuring the oil? The iDrive? Try measuing the oil After the car is driven and cooled for about 15 mins... Thats the optimal temp for reading engine oil level.

 

I've had this problem since I got my car. I now buy a case of oil and keep a quart in my trunk at all times. I've asked the dealer and they never know why. Minor problem compared to my other ones...

 

This is actually a warning. It popped out while I was driving, so I wouldn't know if it didn't pop out. After it popped out, I checked through iDrive and comfirmed it. The funny thing is the service menu in iDrive still says I am 11000 miles from the next oil change.

 

Thats awful strange for a 525xi, did you get under the car and look for oil spills, I gotta tell you, sometimes the old ways are the best..... the good old dipstick, it never lies. A trip to the dealer is wise, make sure they give you an honest answer. Good luck my friend.

 

I've been plagued with this same problem in my 2006 530xi for over a month now. When I first received the "minimum level" warning at around 4800 miles, I immediately pulled the car over to a parking lot, turned the car off and back on, and the warning went away. I watched it for a few days after and noticed that the oil level started off at the maximum level about 5 minutes into my drive, and dropped to the minimum level when the engine had completely warmed up after about another 5 to 10 minutes. I'd be curious to hear if you or anyone else get the same symptoms.

There's no dipstick in the 2006 engine to validate it the old fashioned way, so I contacted my local BMW service center to look into it. The SA suspected the oil sensor, but instead of replacing it he updated my software to CIP 19.02 (no real connection, although the upgrade forced a replacement of the CCC and lamp control module due to failures during the update process, also causing me a two-week delay before I finally got the car back) and topped the engine off with 1/3 quart of oil. The minimum oil level warning message resumed the day after I picked it up from the service center, so I took the car into another service center to see if they would have any better luck diagnosing it. They checked everything over and couldn't find anything wrong, but they did open up a PUMA with BMW NA. I have a call into the SA to see if he has heard anything yet. If he has, I'll post it here.

BTW - I decided to add another 5 oz of synthetic oil myself, and this has reduced the frequency of "minimum level" warning messages, although they haven't gone completely away.

 

Yikes... Now I feel much better having an old fashion dipstick. Having the iDrive oil level meter is nice... but its even nicer to have a dipstick for redundancy... Hope you guys get your problem resolved...

 

It seems more like a faulty level sensor or software issue since the level in iDrive changes after the engince gets to full warm up. At 5 minutes into the drive the oil has already been pumped in all areas of the engine, so the level should not change in another 10 minutes. So it may be the sensor of software. Since there is no dipstick to confirm the oil level I would not keep adding oil if I were in your place (you may overfill the engine if the true problem is the sensor).