[proflex957]

http://www.autoblog.com/2015/07/02/c...-too-much-oil/

my 04 330 drinks it.

[nike001]

My 2004 330i ZHP I had drank a quart every 1,000 miles or so; M54's were notorious for it. Most M54's don't burn oil, but a lot still do.

[proflex957]

Originally Posted by nike001

My 2004 330i ZHP I had drank a quart every 1,000 miles or so; M54's were notorious for it. Most M54's don't burn oil, but a lot still do.

My '04 is a ZHP too. I thought I had an oil leak starting around 100K mi. because it used a quarter of oil every two or three months. Worse now that I have 135K mi on it. I go to Costco and get a case two or three times a year.

I think BMW's oil sump system has something to do with it. Probably the higher rev'ing engines too. But not clear which is the real reason BMW engines drink oil. Probably will unload my m235i for a m2. Wonder if it's still around the 100k mi. point where really drink it.

[moldcad]

To answer the original question of this thread "Hasn't this always been the case?" I must say no, it hasn't, and whether engines start to drink oil at some stage depends very much how they were broken-in. I must tell you that with the exception of 2-3 first cars in my 44 years of motoring, none of my cars needed even a spoon of additional oil between scheduled oil services. And those first 2-3 cars of mine coincidentally were "made in Poland" back in the communist and thankfully gone era, plus i was an inexperienced driver then....