[jh_f30]

My car has over 116k miles on it. I'm wanting to keep a closer eye on my oil level, due to some minor leaks and the propensity for high mileage/tuned engines to burn some oil, but the iDrive oil measurement system is pretty annoying. Engine too cold, won't scan. Engine too hot, won't scan. The temperature range is annoyingly narrow where you basically have to specifically warm up the engine to just the right temp, then stop and scan. Even then, sometimes it seems like it only scans if it feels like it.

Anyways, I have Bimmerlink, and there's a sensor reading for raw oil level measured in millimeters. So I'm thinking this can be used for on the fly oil level measurements. The only question is, what's the baseline? Because it's a live data feed, you can see the oil level increase on acceleration and decrease during braking. At idle, at temp mine sits at around 60mm. I'll try to get iDrive to do a scan and see what the corresponding oil level in mm's is.

I know not having a dipstick is a sore point for most of us, but this might be a good alternative to trying to work with the finicky OEM oil level measurement tool in iDrive. I will update as I get more data.

[jh_f30]

Looks like I have good timing. Went out to my car, hooked up Bimmerlink, checked the raw oil level sensor, read 53mm. Brought the oil temp up to 150F (minimum for iDrive to read is 65C) and ran the oil measurement tool. Lo and behold, I was low. Like, substantially low. System advised me to add a quart, so I did.

After a few seconds, Bimmerlink showed the oil level at 74mm. Ran the iDrive measurement again and it showed full. After driving for about 20 minutes, it was about the same. So for what it's worth, it seems that 70-75mm is considered max oil level. If you're down to 60mm or less, you're probably low and should probably add a half quart at a time until you get to 70-75mm.

Notes: This is for my car, which is a 2013 335i RWD. Not sure if it's the same across the board for all models, so ymmv. Also, my reading of 74mm was on a mostly level surface, possibly with a VERY slight incline.

[Billfitz]

Bimmerlink has the advantage of giving detailed and comprehensive results, but the data it reveals is sourced from the same sensors used by iDrive.

[Eschmacher]

Neat! Just going off the measurement number would be a LOT easier than having to run the measurement a few times after an oil change >_>