[Chili Palmer]

My car has around 72,000 miles on it and multiple times when it has been to the dealer for service I've mentioned the amount of oil that I need to add between oil changes. I was always told that when it needs oil just bring it in and they'll top it off for me. The only problem is that the dealership I go to isn't real close to me so I just add the oil myself.

It used to be 3-4 quarts between oil changes then it got to every month then every 2 weeks. I took the car back to the dealer after I had added a quart and after they had it for a few days they said that they sealed the oil pans (there are two), and we should be fine and they added a quart and a half. A quart and a half? I just added a quart 2 days before I brought it in. I was told to put a thousand miles on it and bring it back in - in about a month. Well, that lasted about a week and a half. In 7 days and 540 miles the car registered that I was down 1 quart. I called and scheduled to bring my car in.

I got the call yesterday that they are going to replace all 32 valve guides. I asked about the piston rings - how about those? The techs don't think the rings are bad. Well, when you get on it at night you can see a smoke cloud in the lights behind me. If you do an oil analysis it'll tell you if there is fuel in the oil or excessive exhaust compounds related to too much blow-by. If that's the case it might be easier to install a new engine than tearing apart the top and bottom of this one. If the valve guides are bad I should get a smoke cloud when I start the car, which isn't the case - it's only when I get on it that's when I see the smoke cloud.

I'm waiting for a return call.

[Simple5]

That's pretty excessive. I know with the CCP they lowered the oil change interval due to the n63 burning some oil but 3-4 quarts in between intervals is a lot.

[Bmw doubles]

Check your oil filter housing. Common area for that mileage.

[Chili Palmer]

Got a call back from the service adviser saying that he called the tech line at BMW and they don't think that the bottom end of the engine will need to be redone, just the valve guides - and they do a lot of valve guides. Not real comforting, but at least they are doing something to stem the burning oil issue. I should get my car back in a week.

[RSBro]

Mine burns oil but nothing like that. They just give me an extra quart or two at every service interval to take care of it.

[sar67]

I, too, had a valve guide job done recently at 97k miles and the oil burning has slowed considerably. The job took 3 1/2 weeks to finish under the extended warranty! Since then, the engine and drive train lights had intermittantly gone on yielding the need to replace the mass air flow sensor just a few weeks later. Mine is the recall engine which started 12/2014 and which requires and gets dealer inspections every 10k and, if necessary, free lifetime repair to the twin turbos. New turbos were installed at 48k due to leakage which, fortunately, scared me into purchasing from the dealer an extended warranty.

These repairs and a horrific experience with the previous 2009 540i from 150k until the car finally died at 197k secondary air sensory system have diminished the enthusiasm for the V8. I am still a strong believe in the inline 6. Being a manual transmission driver, I understand that the new 5-series do NOT have manuals, so I will, likely, choose the 4-series coupe which DOES offer it.

Now, with 99k on the F10 car, (I drive about 28k per year!) my desire to keep it until at least 150k is greatly dampened. Excluding the 2009 car mentioned above, each BMW owned since 1984, one 3-series and several 5-series, had lasted to over 200k! Not any more.

If anyone has had similar experiences with the last two 5-series productions I would welcome your input.