leaking oil

[nusevad]

Originally Posted by chmura

Can someone with a 2011.5 M3 take a picture of their oil cap? Curious to see the redesigned one.

+1

[blittle887]

Originally Posted by chmura

Can someone with a 2011.5 M3 take a picture of their oil cap? Curious to see the redesigned one.

Here is my 2011.5 E90 M3, December 2010 build. Hope this helps you out.

[C00kedG00se]

Originally Posted by chmura

Can someone with a 2011.5 M3 take a picture of their oil cap? Curious to see the redesigned one.

Here are a couple more photos of a 2011.5 Oil Cap... In the first photo, you can even see the remnants of the oil dripping down. When I run the car really hard (i.e. Track Day), there is a significant amount of oil that leaks and pools around in the various crevices of the engine.

[m3cragg]

thats the cap I have now
it was changed by the dealer

thanks

[Voltigeur]

-

So I have ~ 21k miles and had my 2nd inter-service oil top up (+1 qt) warning. I always carry some oil so I fill her up. I carefully re-seat the cap. All seems good.

Did drive it hard next day and then when I next pop the hood I see that a fine spray of oil has escaped around the cap - pooled below and some bounced off the underside of the bonnet - onto the LHS arm, engine cover. Damn!

Guess I will pop into the dealer to see if I have a gasket issue on the cap and/or get a new one.

[Nfuego]

I just bought an '08 M3. I picked it up 7 hours from home (found a real bargain). While driving her home I played around with the controls and saw my oil level was fine. An hour later, I needed a quart. I noticed a lot of spray inside the engine compartment. I assumed the previous owner hadn't put the oil cap on properly, but after reading this thread, I see it probably wasn't his fault.

I added oil. Then took it to my local dealer/service Dept the next day. I paid for a non scheduled oil change since there was probably mixed brands and viscosities of oil in the car. They told me there were no leaks.

I parked it overnight last night over cardboard to see if there were new drips and found none.

Wondering if you fine folks who know a lot more than me about cars would recommend that I just buy a new filler cap. If so, what type?

[Stainless 45]

Had this exact same problem on my 2011- May build. Opened the cap to have a look inside and then reseated it, gasket probably got kinked. Pissed out about 1/2 quart in 25 miles of driving. Turned out to be a good thing since as I was cleaning it all up I noticed a loose bolt holding the A/C compressor on that someone had forgotten to tighten at the factory...

[mdosu]

see if Tischer can offer the older round oil cap.

[BPMSport]

put the cap on backwards, I've seen that somehow fix the issue on a few cars including mine..

[Twinbo]

Just picked my car up yesterday and during the inspection the oil cap was found to be leaking. Mike when you say backwards are you joking or do you mean upside down ie. the writing is upside down?

[JonnyBoost]

just had this happen to me the dealer did the oil change and put the cap on wrong lost what i think to be about half a quart or maybe a lil more i didn't even know but i smelled something odd and went to see and had oil in the engine bay didn't get any waring lights and i checked the oil like 4 times and it keep telling me i had full oil

how much oil do u think we can loose before it would case damage to the motor?and wouldn't the car let u know if u where dangerously low?

[cmk227]

Same thing happen to me. It was that the oil cap seal was not properly working. I think I was one of the service guys that did not close it correctly. Got a new cap for it. . The car was fine the next day.

[FVM3]

thats not normal

[BlackSaphr]

Flip over the rubber seal and oil it, mine is tight as the first day I got it now that I did that

[BPMSport]

Originally Posted by Twinbo

Just picked my car up yesterday and during the inspection the oil cap was found to be leaking. Mike when you say backwards are you joking or do you mean upside down ie. the writing is upside down?

Didn't think of that

Definitely not upside down. Just so the writing is facing away from you. I don't know how conclusive this is. Mine had residue come out a few times and when I turned it the other way there hasn't been a drop.

[Race_Doc11]

Happened to me every time I get the oil changed at the dealer. I even had oil leaked from the filter housing couple of times.Thanks for letting us know about lubing the gasket...

Originally Posted by elp_jc

Now you're talking . Typical problem. The oil cap on the M3 is crap, and if you don't oil the gasket a little bit (like a cartridge oil filter), it can bunch up and leak quite a bit, as you found out. Reason is the intake cam gear throws oil right at the cap, so it's imperative it's seating perfectly well. Nothing wrong with the cap if you take the precaution to lube the gasket before installation.

Unfortunately, this is another idiosyncrasy of the car most dealer techs don't know about. And no, it shouldn't be the case, but for those servicing their cars at dealerships, you need to check the oil cap before you leave. Good luck.