I took my car (2003 325Ci) to a local shop for an oil change*. Not a Jiffy-Lube-type place, but a real mechanic. I walked around town for half an hour, then returned, paid, and drove off. Looking at the invoice while stopped at a light a few miles away, I noticed that I was billed for eight quarts of oil. That's funny, I thought. I could swear I've read that the capacity was 6.5 quarts.
I called the shop and asked what the story was. They said to bring the car back. I did, and when I got there the technician who worked on my car said that, after putting in 6.5 quarts and pre-oiling the new filter, the dipstick still read low, so he added more. He said they've noticed that the newer BMW I6's take more oil than the manual states, and that they recently had an X5 3.0 that did the same thing. I didn't exactly buy that, but I didn't say anything.
After the engine had been off for five minutes, we checked the dipstick. It showed a slight overfill, maybe 1-2 mm over the "Full" mark. While obviously not ideal, that seemed fine to me, so I thanked them and left.
I'm wondering what was going on here. Does this story make sense to anyone? I doubt they put the full eight quarts in, probably something like 7.2 and just billed for the whole bottle, but it still seems odd. Is it normal for the engine to take more than 6.5 quarts? Should I be worried about damage from overfilling?
Is there any chance the dipstick is inaccurate? I remember reading something about the plastic thingy on the end coming loose and sliding around, but that story was on E46Fanatics, so I'm not entirely confident in its accuracy.
* Yeah, I know I could do it myself. Take it easy.
I called the shop and asked what the story was. They said to bring the car back. I did, and when I got there the technician who worked on my car said that, after putting in 6.5 quarts and pre-oiling the new filter, the dipstick still read low, so he added more. He said they've noticed that the newer BMW I6's take more oil than the manual states, and that they recently had an X5 3.0 that did the same thing. I didn't exactly buy that, but I didn't say anything.
After the engine had been off for five minutes, we checked the dipstick. It showed a slight overfill, maybe 1-2 mm over the "Full" mark. While obviously not ideal, that seemed fine to me, so I thanked them and left.
I'm wondering what was going on here. Does this story make sense to anyone? I doubt they put the full eight quarts in, probably something like 7.2 and just billed for the whole bottle, but it still seems odd. Is it normal for the engine to take more than 6.5 quarts? Should I be worried about damage from overfilling?
Is there any chance the dipstick is inaccurate? I remember reading something about the plastic thingy on the end coming loose and sliding around, but that story was on E46Fanatics, so I'm not entirely confident in its accuracy.
* Yeah, I know I could do it myself. Take it easy.