E30 Zone

my mate has an e46 that is burning/using a lot of oil up. it is an 03 330ci sport. there is no oil on the driveway, and occas a bit of smoke from the engine bay on starting.....any ideas?

Crankcase breather valve may need changing
hth

Every e46 I've ever owned has had plastic paneling underneath the car which usually catches oil drops. The sump has a little door on the plastic paneling to access the sump nut. You'd have to open it from below and have a look to see if its collected any oil.

If there is smoke in engine bay, then you could have a leaking rocker cover gasket which could be dripping oil onto the exhaust manifold. I've never seen a leaking rocker cover gasket leak that much to worry about the oil level.

30 seconds under the bonnet should verify either of these possibilities.

it's normal for the 330 to use oil

thanks for the help guys, i will pass that on!

e30topless wrote:it's normal for the 330 to use oil

apparently 0.5 - 1l of oil per 1000 miles consumption isnt unusual for these engines

about 1 litre for 800 miles in mine........... no leaks/ smoke and a new ccv.

i had one also 1ltr oil per 1000 miles so was costing fortune in oil, so switched to some £12 per 5ltr same grade and it stopped using it!

Yes have owned 3 of these though usually high milers use th oil. My current 330ci uses hardly any. N fact it has not moved for the 3000 miles I have had the car.