Its probably normal and I am most likely as usual over reacting but I need someone to look at these pics and tell me if this is normal looking or not. Today when checking the oil I noticed that I was about a quarter of a quart low. So I opened to oil cap and was met with HUGE amounts of steam/oil vapors. When I looked into the oil fill area I noticed there was NO oil that I could see in there. Sure there was some coating some of the metal inside but I expected to see OIL not bare metal. Is that normal? Tried to get a good pic but not sure how well it shows what I am talking about

 

The oil stays at the bottom of the engine, with the engine shut off. You only put it in the oil fill at the top.

If the oil came to the oil fill cap there would be waaaay too much oil!

What you are seeing is normal.

Dave

 

Just really surprised me... I expected at most to see blackness inside the filler area or even the upper limit of the oil level or something... Seeing what looks to me like valve springs( Is that a valve spring in the upper part of the second photo or something else? ) with very little oil on em really shocked me.Figured it was normal though so I added my 1/4th a quart and called it done but I also wanted to ask just in case. I would much rather show my almost complete lack of mechanical apptitude than have to pay for a new engine cause I ran it with no oil.

 

Ummm, why mess with it for that little? I understand compulsive, but wow. Anyhoo, like DneprDave said it is normal and you will see this an any car with the filler on top of the lifters.
How many miles? If it is starting to use oil it probably needs to be changed.
YMMV

 

My car is brand new and has about 7k miles on it. It eats about a quarter quart of oil every 3k miles or so. Rather than just letting it go I am trying to keep a watch on it and top it up often in case it starts consuming larger volumes. Its not very compulsive to watch the oil level when you know it consumes oil... Compulsive would be checking it every day or something.... Also considering the 10-12k mileage that the car thinks it can go before an oil change that could burn as much as a quart of oil which is about 25% of the total oil... Thats probably not a good thing.

 

Probably right. The engine shouldn't use that much oil. You are correct in thinking a first oil change should be sooner. Mine started using it to the tune of a quart every couple thousand or so until I changed it and all that nonsince stopped.

BTW It was a tounge in cheek comment about the compulsive part, but she holds a little more than they admit to. I still wouldn't put 1/4 quart in but thats just me.

Cheers

 

Well with normal synthetics (dont want to get into a huge when to change discussion since its been done to death) 10k miles is pretty standard change interval and if my car consumed1 quart of oil in 3k miles and I was not checking it as often then I would be darn near completely outta oil... Takes me all of an extra 5 minutes to top it off once I have the hood open to check it so while a tad **** it wasnt that big a deal. Just didnt expect to see the insides of the engine like that was all... First time oil was added and the consumption was even pointed out to me a MINI tech did the filling and all so I didnt see the inside of the engine. Didnt know cars ate oil like that so I wasnt as on top of checking as I needed to be. Now I check more often but probably no as often as I should.

 

might be worth your time to look into a catch can and see if your getting a ton of it through the pcv system.

and i would bet some seafoam may give you one heck of a show if that is the case

if your not intune with those 2 things you can get tons of info through the search on here

 

I too have noticed a tremendous amount of smoke/steam coming out of the fill hole whenever I've removed that after it's been running any length of time (much more than any other car we've ever owned) and that was the case when the oil was completely full so I guess that part is totally normal. As for oil down in there, you should be able to see some accumulation in a couple of little depressions between the springs. In ours, even after the oil has been immediately changed and is so light you can barely see it on the dipstick, it is easy to see some much darker oil in those little depressions.

 

You said your car only has about 7k miles on it, so I would expect the oil consumption to drop off fairly rapidly now that your engine is broken-in. Both my wife's MINI and mine burned about 3/4 of a quart during the first 5,000 miles, but now they go 10,000 miles between oil changes without needing more than 1/4 quart of "top-off" oil during that interval.

 

That clean looking engine insides is a good thing, Martha.



Reading that funky dipstick accurately worries me more. Mine is down 1/2 qrt in the first 2,500 iles. If it gets down a quart in 5,000 then I will just change the oil. But topping off at 1/4 qrt when you can't really tell the exact level, not happening. Maybe at 1/2 qrt if I was worried, but if it's on that funky dipstick, it must be within specs.

A thread on oil consumption:

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...vel-turbo.html

 

Its normal