[SLVSRFR]

Originally Posted by gulfstream69xr7

Your service advisor and sales person are giving you the BMW standard line. I have built dozens of engines and not a single one has ever consumed oil at that rate. My 121,000 mile Rover 4.6 V8 takes a qt every 3000 miles and those motors are notoriously bad. There is no possible way that a quart every 1000 miles is normal. That kind of oil consumption is a time bomb waiting to go off. BMW has been throwing this BS about the TT V8 for years.

“Oil consumption is normal on all engines,” BMW spokesman Hector Arellano-Belloc said in an e-mailed statement. “BMW vehicles have long intervals between oil changes (10,000 miles). BMW engines (excluding the BMW M) may consume up to one quart of engine oil per 750 miles under certain driving conditions.” He added that BMW’s M performance models may consume even more oil than that."

It's a BS excuse to not rebuild factory motors who's tolerances are too loose. I'd pressure the heck out of tem to replace the engine.

Exactly. Couldn't have said it any better.

[Takumi587]

Originally Posted by SLVSRFR

Honestly, 'reliability' is going to vary.

I have 87k HARD miles on my '11 550i and had the CCP done at 37k with no major issues whatsoever.

My buddy had a '14 535i that was lemon'd by BMW.

But in general, long term reliability depends on how you maintain the car.

Do you have the M Sport Suspension on your 550i? If you do I am curious if the ride has stayed relatively the same or has it gotten much harsher?

I know I drive my 535i hard at times but when I hit a bump or pothole you really feel them. I felt the M5 had a softer suspension now that I think about it. I just could not imagine myself driving an M5 daily in LA traffic/city.

[SLVSRFR]

Originally Posted by Takumi587

Do you have the M Sport Suspension on your 550i? If you do I am curious if the ride has stayed relatively the same or has it gotten much harsher?

I know I drive my 535i hard at times but when I hit a bump or pothole you really feel them. I felt the M5 had a softer suspension now that I think about it. I just could not imagine myself driving an M5 daily in LA traffic/city.

Ive been lowered on H&R Springs for the past 40k miles or so, and the ride quality has definitely become more degraded.

[visualguy]

Originally Posted by gulfstream69xr7

Your service advisor and sales person are giving you the BMW standard line. I have built dozens of engines and not a single one has ever consumed oil at that rate. My 121,000 mile Rover 4.6 V8 takes a qt every 3000 miles and those motors are notoriously bad. There is no possible way that a quart every 1000 miles is normal. That kind of oil consumption is a time bomb waiting to go off. BMW has been throwing this BS about the TT V8 for years.

“Oil consumption is normal on all engines,” BMW spokesman Hector Arellano-Belloc said in an e-mailed statement. “BMW vehicles have long intervals between oil changes (10,000 miles). BMW engines (excluding the BMW M) may consume up to one quart of engine oil per 750 miles under certain driving conditions.” He added that BMW’s M performance models may consume even more oil than that."

It's a BS excuse to not rebuild factory motors who's tolerances are too loose. I'd pressure the heck out of tem to replace the engine.

Not worth the hassle on a leased car in my opinion. I'm so glad I didn't buy the car.

By the way, I don't think the service advisors and my salesman were lying to me - it does seem to be a common problem (even reported by Consumer Reports if I remember correctly) The salesman definitely wasn't giving me the BMW standard line. He actually led me to a secluded area where he wouldn't be overheard, and told me that the BMW V8 engines are just bad. He gave me a few examples from his customers, and said his brother has a similar oil burning problem on his X5. My reaction was "now you're telling me..."

[Silent_308]

Originally Posted by visualguy

My service advisor at the dealership said that it is "normal" in the sense that it's very common with this engine. My salesman said the same thing.

Unfortunately, that is not true.. Yes, a turbo motor would consume oil, but not at the rate yours is. If you are putting oil in every 1k miles than you either have "bad valve seals" and you need to check the exhaust valves for oil, or your motor is either bleeding from a gasket, or you have bad oil control rings. Either way, you shouldn't be putting oil in like that... you should get some large white or brown construction paper, drive your car around till its nice and hot, get on the gas even... then put that paper down under the car, like putting news paper down for a dog, wait over night then check back the car out from over top of the paper.. check for leakage or drips. Otherwise get a good flashlight and start looking in that engine bay...

[visualguy]

Originally Posted by Silent_308

Unfortunately, that is not true.. Yes, a turbo motor would consume oil, but not at the rate yours is. If you are putting oil in every 1k miles than you either have "bad valve seals" and you need to check the exhaust valves for oil, or your motor is either bleeding from a gasket, or you have bad oil control rings. Either way, you shouldn't be putting oil in like that... you should get some large white or brown construction paper, drive your car around till its nice and hot, get on the gas even... then put that paper down under the car, like putting news paper down for a dog, wait over night then check back the car out from over top of the paper.. check for leakage or drips. Otherwise get a good flashlight and start looking in that engine bay...

There's no leak. The engine burns the oil. It has been burning oil since day 1 even before anything could wear out. Again, I've been told by two BMW dealerships that they see such oil consumption very frequently with the V8TT engines, and they even have a free top-off service for customers with these engines. They don't repair or replace these engines just because of this oil consumption which they consider normal for the V8TT.

[SLVSRFR]

Both dealerships you went to suck. My SA would not return the car to me if I was still burning oil at that rate.

[visualguy]

Originally Posted by SLVSRFR

Both dealerships you went to suck. My SA would not return the car to me if I was still burning oil at that rate.

I agree with the dealerships on this. The cure is worse than the disease in this case... What are they going to do? Replace the engine? There's no guarantee that the new one won't be burning oil - many of them do. Also, damage and screw ups during the replacement or repair can cause much worse headaches. It's like the salesman told me - just keep topping it off until the lease is done.

[bcw550ix]

Originally Posted by visualguy

I agree with the dealerships on this. The cure is worse than the disease in this case... What are they going to do? Replace the engine? There's no guarantee that the new one won't be burning oil - many of them do. Also, damage and screw ups during the replacement or repair can cause much worse headaches. It's like the salesman told me - just keep topping it off until the lease is done.

Pretty good lesson as to why one should never buy a used car without a warranty, the full service history, or both. Yikes.

[visualguy]

Originally Posted by bcw550ix

Pretty good lesson as to why one should never buy a used car without a warranty, the full service history, or both. Yikes.

I certainly wouldn't want to be the person buying my car as a "CPO" after my lease is done. Even with the warranty, it would be a nightmare if the buyer cares about the oil consumption, or the oil consumption causes other damage (to the catalytic converter or whatever). Service history doesn't actually tell you anything in cases like this - no service has ever been attempted to fix the problem.

My lesson is always to check the forums before buying a car, and if you see a lot of complaints about a certain model (such as the 550i), stay away from it.

[Boulder Bill]

Originally Posted by SLVSRFR

Exactly. Couldn't have said it any better.

Agree. My previous E39 540 burned some oil in the first 10,000 miles. My current 550 used a quart every 2,500 miles for the first 7,500 miles or so during break in.

But I'm at about 44,000 now, and it did not continue after that break in period.

I know what BMW says. But a quart of oil every 1,000 miles is ludicrous.

Bill

[Silent_308]

Originally Posted by visualguy

There's no leak. The engine burns the oil. It has been burning oil since day 1 even before anything could wear out. Again, I've been told by two BMW dealerships that they see such oil consumption very frequently with the V8TT engines, and they even have a free top-off service for customers with these engines. They don't repair or replace these engines just because of this oil consumption which they consider normal for the V8TT.

No car burns oil at that rate, break in period, possibly as the cylinder walls get smoothed out and the oils seals better. That oil has to be going somewhere, and if in the combustion chamber, its doing damage to the O2 sensors, exhaust valves, and CATs, all of which kill the performance of the vehicle, and shortens the aforementioned components life span. But hey, if BMW is cool with that, you should ask what kind of deal are they going to give you when the CATs start to fail, since its a known and excepted problem they refuse to research and fix.. Furthermore, I'd get those statements in writing from BMW, noting the issue and their fix "just keep adding oil"... But then again, if you don't plan on keeping the car... F'it, put the oil in till you get out of it...

[RSBro]

Originally Posted by MWPos

I read in this forum somewhere that we, in the US, we never really drive the 550i to its design potential, which means that we have issues, not necessarily problems, that BMW did not anticipate. My SA mentioned that the CCB for the 550i's motor was required due to our not getting oil moving through the motor the way it would at autobahn speeds. Not that the SA is always, or ever, correct, but that matched what I'd recently read.

The initial technical report about the N63 issues was actually very similar to this. They said most drivers in the US weren't using the engine enough over 3K revs. And considering what that engine is capable of, it's not really surprising and even though MPG suffers, it gets me to drive in Sport/manual mode much more often.

[MWPos]

Thank you! I did not remember the details...that sounds more like what I remember hearing.

[visualguy]

Originally Posted by RSBro

The initial technical report about the N63 issues was actually very similar to this. They said most drivers in the US weren't using the engine enough over 3K revs.

I read the same nonsense here. Not sure who was the source of this pearl of wisdom. Can't imagine it was a real engine expert.

Just for the heck of it, I switched to using sport mode for a couple of months after reading this, and was also doing a lot of manual downshifting. My oil consumption only got worse. I was getting 1,400 miles per 1qt before, and only 1,000 miles per 1qt when driving the engine more aggressively.

[RSBro]

Originally Posted by visualguy

I read the same nonsense here. Not sure who was the source of this pearl of wisdom. Can't imagine it was a real engine expert.

Just for the heck of it, I switched to using sport mode for a couple of months after reading this, and was also doing a lot of manual downshifting. My oil consumption only got worse. I was getting 1,400 miles per 1qt before, and only 1,000 miles per 1qt when driving the engine more aggressively.

It was from an car engineering website, so not like it was Gawker/Jezebel/Jalopnik (which I treat all the same for car advice). There was a whole technical article on it, not just BMWNA regurgitations IIRC.

I have actually had zero oil consumption issues since the CCP. If you still are, then I'd personally take it back and let them know it's not fixed. In the 2 years, 7 months of owning this car I've only had to 'top up' between service intervals twice. Not too bad.