Oil change mess at filter.

Over the last 9 years and 140,000 miles I’ve put on the car (purchased with 20k), I’ve done around 18 oil changes. Over the last 4-5 changes I’ve been having issues when removing the oil filter cap and oil leaking all over the place as soon as I unscrew it. I place towels around to minimize the mess, but I don’t recall having this issue over the years until recently. Maybe I did and I’m going senile. I’ve tried opening fast, slow, jacking up the passenger side, and draining first. Thoughts?

Perhaps related or coincidental, my oil temps have been running higher the past 2-3 years which I believe maybe related to the oil thermostat (changed coolant thermostat and sensor). I’m not sure if that could potentially cause oil to stay in the housing when the motor is off??

are you opening the front drain screw then the oil cap then letting it drain before opening the filter?

amrazM wrote

are you opening the front drain screw then the oil cap then letting it drain before opening the filter?

Yes, both the front sump and the main plug.

strange, is the inside of your oil filter cap broken? When you start to remove the cap, the lifting tip opens the port, allowing oil in the filter to drain down into the crankcase

Definitely not. Maybe I just need to loosen a few turns and let it sit, prior to unscrewing to the point oil starts flowing out???

when the oil is at temp it drains out of the filter housing with slow unscrewing.

Is it possible some of the oil is leaking from the filter area before you do the only change, but you only notice it when you are replacing the filter? If that's possible consider these two ideas:

BMW update the recommended torque on the oil filter "head cover" to 40 NM and no longer recommends the lower 25 NM they stamped on it. See this post here for more info.

The oil filter housing gaskets have a tendency to fail at 10+ years, check out this link here for more info.