|
The electronic oil dipstick is a cruel mistress. I once had it drop from 3/4 all the way to "add a quart asap" on my way to a track weekend!! I barely got to a dealership before they closed to pick up more oil, otherwise I probably wouldn't have been able to run that event. Needless to say, I now carry spare oil to said events.
The short version is that it's prone to jump around (up or down), measure incorrectly even when you tell it to check again, and generally aggravate you. And since there's no dipstick shaft, if you overfill the car, you can't get extra oil out with a fluid extractor, instead you have to get it out from the bottom.
So because of all that, techs will often play it safe and fill slightly below max. I deal with that by asking my SA for a couple quarts of oil to keep (which he gives me for free under Ultimate Service) and I add a quarter-quart LESS than what the car wants. So if you're at half, add a quarter-quart, and even if that only takes it to 3/4 full, leave it alone. BMW doesn't tell you this, but I've found that if you want it to actually acknowledge oil level changes, you have to tell it to remeasure after having driven 5 miles and while the car is stopped and idling on a level surface -- and even then sometimes it won't register on the first attempt. But that's probably why it jumped up for you after a while, it hadn't accurately remeasured until then.
And don't worry, your car will start consuming oil soon enough. I go through a quarter-quart or so every few thousand miles and every 1-2 track days.
|