[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by Richwm

I am glad they fixed it for you, I hope my dealer can do the same for me. I am 4k miles from the next indicated Oil change and about 700 miles from 200k miles.

All you have to be is 300,000 KM on the clock and the oil change notification can be deleted from the CBS.

[hassmaschine]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

The BMW paperwork from February 2016, which the Service Manager wouldn't give me a copy of, explicitly stated, and he explicitly made me read, stated that if the Kombi (instrument cluster) is replaced or reprogrammed, the routine to remove the oil change notification from the CBS would have to be redone.

I intend to write a very strongly written letter to BMW that me, nor none of us, should have to pay for deletion of the CBS past due notification.

Right, the kombi sends the notification - but it doesn't calculate the cbs or even track it. The dME does that, and merely communicates it to the cluster to show the notification. What BMW is doing is making it ignore the CBS altogether..

[Richwm]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

All you have to be is 300,000 KM on the clock and the oil change notification can be deleted from the CBS.

I changed the oil at 188,629 and again at 194,716 but I don't remember if I reset the CBS I usally do it every two oil changes currently the CBS shows 8000 until the next oil change so I think I reset mine at 194,716 when I changed the oil so maybe my car is not acting the same as yours. Have you ever changed the oil level sensor? I changed mine at 87k. I will reset mine at my next oil change and see what happens.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by Richwm

I changed the oil at 188,629 and again at 194,716 but I don't remember if I reset the CBS I usally do it every two oil changes currently the CBS shows 8000 until the next oil change so I think I reset mine at 194,716 when I changed the oil so maybe my car is not acting the same as yours. Have you ever changed the oil level sensor? I changed mine at 87k. I will reset mine at my next oil change and see what happens.

Yes, I replaced the sensor; that's what started this whole thing.

[Richwm]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

Yes, I replaced the sensor; that's what started this whole thing.

Well that that theory is a bust. I always reset the oil CBS with turn signal stock how do you do it?

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by Richwm

Well that that theory is a bust. I always reset the oil CBS with turn signal stock how do you do it?

I reset it with the stalk for a few years until I bought the BT scan tool. Then at the first oil change past 186K the BT tool would not reset the CBS for the oil function, so I went back to using the stalk, which only rest the OCI to 9,000 miles vs. the 17,000 it normally would. At 221K the stalk would only reset the CBS to zero (0). Now I'll not have to reset it ever again . I change the oil at 10K intervals now.

[freon480]

hmm i wonder if this can be done with out going to the dealer with tool32 on winfkp.

[Barrique_Red]

Tonight I have found, and read through, this whole thread. WOW! I can't believe it. I have 68K to go before the 186K point, and now I am thinking about selling my car just so I don't have to deal with the issue(s). I will probably feel different tomorrow, but who knows. I am about to spend some money and time doing a starter replacement, cabin and engine air filters, and trunk and hood struts/lifts. Changed the oil and filter today, which I do once per year (about 12-15K miles per year).

Are you saying that you were charged $100 to get the CBS programmed to ignore the oil change notification?


Edited for spelling.

[pruettfan]

Originally Posted by Barrique_Red

Tonight I have found, and read through, this whole thread. WOW! I can't believe it. I have 68K to go before the 186K point, and now I am thinking about selling my car just so I don't have to deal with the issue(s). I will probably feel different tomorrow, but who knows. I am about to spend some money and time doing a starter replacement, cabin and engine air filters, and trunk and hood struts/lifts. Changed the oil and filter today, which I do once per year (about 12-15K miles per year).

Are you saying that you were charged $100 to get the CBS programmed to ignore the oil change notification?


Edited for spelling.

I have 215,500 on my 330i and this is really not an issue for me at all. Once I got to 186,000 miles I just went to oil changes every 10,000 miles or 12 months and don't bother resetting the oil life monitor. It really isn't much of an issue, just a mild annoyance. Certainly not a reason to get rid of the car if your otherwise happy. If you can do simple car work and don't mind doing it these cars do well for many miles. Those who ride in and drive my car cannot believe it has as many miles as it does. This week it officially became my 17 year old daughters first car and I am renting a car until my M2 arrives. I hope she can get good year or so out of it then we will send it on to its next owner.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by Barrique_Red

Tonight I have found, and read through, this whole thread. WOW! I can't believe it. I have 68K to go before the 186K point, and now I am thinking about selling my car just so I don't have to deal with the issue(s). I will probably feel different tomorrow, but who knows. I am about to spend some money and time doing a starter replacement, cabin and engine air filters, and trunk and hood struts/lifts. Changed the oil and filter today, which I do once per year (about 12-15K miles per year).

Are you saying that you were charged $100 to get the CBS programmed to ignore the oil change notification?


Edited for spelling.

Yes. I found the problem for BMW that whatever fix they thought they had at the time didn't work. BMW opened a PUMA case because of it. BMW finally got the software changed. Then they charged me $100 diagnostics fee to get my car corrected.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by pruettfan

I have 215,500 on my 330i and this is really not an issue for me at all. Once I got to 186,000 miles I just went to oil changes every 10,000 miles or 12 months and don't bother resetting the oil life monitor. It really isn't much of an issue, just a mild annoyance. Certainly not a reason to get rid of the car if your otherwise happy. If you can do simple car work and don't mind doing it these cars do well for many miles. Those who ride in and drive my car cannot believe it has as many miles as it does. This week it officially became my 17 year old daughters first car and I am renting a car until my M2 arrives. I hope she can get good year or so out of it then we will send it on to its next owner.

I disagree. I think it is a safety issue because you learn to ignore the warning chime and notification upon engine start, which can lead you to ignore other more serious issues with the car. Secondly, the first priority notification is always the past-due oil change when there might be other maintenance items or problems that one has to delve into the service and/or status menus to find. For instance I set my inspection notification to remind me one month in advance that the car was due for the annual safety inspection. I've missed it every time since the OCI notification issue because I learned to ignore any notification chime. I've almost run out of gas because I ignored the chime.

[feuer]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

I disagree. I think it is a safety issue because you learn to ignore the warning chime and notification upon engine start, which can lead you to ignore other more serious issues with the car. Secondly, the first priority notification is always the past-due oil change when there might be other maintenance items or problems that one has to delve into the service and/or status menus to find. For instance I set my inspection notification to remind me one month in advance that the car was due for the annual safety inspection. I've missed it every time since the OCI notification issue because I learned to ignore any notification chime. I've almost run out of gas because I ignored the chime.

Safety issue? I have respect for you taking the car upwards of 300.000 miles but that remark I find super silly. Sorry.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by feuer

Safety issue? I have respect for you taking the car upwards of 300.000 miles but that remark I find super silly. Sorry.

Okay, to each his own. Until you have to live with it you don't understand.

[feuer]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

Okay, to each his own. Until you have to live with it you don't understand.

I have, and yes, each is own, nothing personal, but if this impose safety issue to someone then they should not be driving the car at all. Can not be a safety issue because driver only relied on this OCI reminder or ignore something else because of it. It would be a failure on the driver not the equipment and I would not spin it the other way around. Sorry.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by feuer

I have, and yes, each is own, nothing personal, but if this impose safety issue to someone then they should not be driving the car at all. Can not be a safety issue because driver only relied on this OCI reminder or ignore something else because of it. It would be a failure on the driver not the equipment and I would not spin it the other way around. Sorry.

I took no offense to your comment. Like I've said previously, I almost ran out of gas once because I learned to ignore the initial start up warning chime. It was one of those days where I was getting low on fuel but had meetings to make and saved the refueling for after work. When I parked I was below the 31-mile warning threshold. So at the end a of busy day I forgot about the low fuel condition. Luckily I finally noticed the fuel situation and fueled up (on fumes). But had the OCI condition not existed, the low fuel notification would have come up and saved me some angst. This from someone who is highly keen and aware of his automotive status at all times. A college student... it may be an issue. Run out of fuel at the wrong time in the wrong place is my point. Maybe missing the low coolant warning, low washer fluid etc. I see it as a safety issue.

[feuer]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

I took no offense to your comment. Like I've said previously, I almost ran out of gas once because I learned to ignore the initial start up warning chime. It was one of those days where I was getting low on fuel but had meetings to make and saved the refueling for after work. When I parked I was below the 31-mile warning threshold. So at the end a of busy day I forgot about the low fuel condition. Luckily I finally noticed the fuel situation and fueled up (on fumes). But had the OCI condition not existed, the low fuel notification would have come up and saved me some angst. This from someone who is highly keen and aware of his automotive status at all times. A college student... it may be an issue. Run out of fuel at the wrong time in the wrong place is my point. Maybe missing the low coolant warning, low washer fluid etc. I see it as a safety issue.

I'm a service writer and had a driver who ran out of fuel because the gauge was stuck on full and never occur to them that you can not drive the car left and right for 4 weeks and do not fill up with gas. So, reminder or no reminder is always the driver, realistically. This is like continuing to drive on a flat tire because you learn to ignore the inaccurate OCI reminder. Would you? I don't think so unless completely clueless and should not be driving at all.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by feuer

I'm a service writer and had a driver who ran out of fuel because the gauge was stuck on full and never occur to them that you can not drive the car left and right for 4 weeks and do not fill up with gas. So, reminder or no reminder is always the driver, realistically. This is like continuing to drive on a flat tire because you learn to ignore the inaccurate OCI reminder. Would you? I don't think so unless completely clueless and should not be driving at all.

The point I am trying to make is the warning at initial start, not a dynamic operational situation. An incorrectly operating OCI reminder is not going to obfuscate a FTM warning since that is a dynamic situation where the FTM will continue to report a low pressure situation. The point is is one comes to rely on the accuracy of the initial warning and the learns to ignore it. So BMW by purposefully disabling the warning system and making it report a false condition, makes the system pointless in the first place. And dear friend, most drivers are clueless, which is why BMW developed the system in the first place. BMW then makes it obsolete.

[Barrique_Red]

I realize this may (or may not) be an issue for me as a driver/owner and that for me it probably won't be much more than an inconvenience (having read this thread and being skilled enough to do most if not all of my own car work).

But my other concern is, how the heck would I sell a car to someone if it is constantly saying the oil is low and that it needs an oil change?

Does that mean I can only sell it to another (BMW) gear head?

How are people dealing with this today?

How does the seller convince the buyer that BMW (a global car company in operation for 100 years) made a boo-boo and actually designed the electronic dipstick (the only dipstick the car has) to stop working after 200,000 miles?

Alternatively would I, as a buyer, buy a vehicle from someone where the vehicle's computer is saying it is low on oil and needs an oil change - even immediately after it had an oil change?

It would be different if one could at least check the oil with a physical dipstick, and I am not getting any warm fuzzies about my car being worth anything to anyone but me (and maybe F 3 0) once I reach the point where the OCI and oil level indicators stop working correctly.

This is something like the 10th car I have owned and driven since 1982 (maybe more, I lost count), and I can tell you that wherever those previous 9 cars are in this world: I can walk up to them insert a rod into the engine via the dipstick tube and tell instantly if it has enough oil.

I remember telling my father (started driving in the 1950's) that my car didn't have a mechanical dipstick. Of course he chuckled and rolled his eyes. But I was rather comfortable with it, knowing I could check the oil as I was driving and without a rag. BUT had I known that it was only going to operate until a certain mileage, I am not sure I would have even bought this car (I am the 2nd owner).

[pruettfan]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

I disagree. I think it is a safety issue because you learn to ignore the warning chime and notification upon engine start, which can lead you to ignore other more serious issues with the car. Secondly, the first priority notification is always the past-due oil change when there might be other maintenance items or problems that one has to delve into the service and/or status menus to find. For instance I set my inspection notification to remind me one month in advance that the car was due for the annual safety inspection. I've missed it every time since the OCI notification issue because I learned to ignore any notification chime. I've almost run out of gas because I ignored the chime.

I haven't had an issue with any chimes or alerts at all. My oil measurement seems to me pretty accurate (I measure what comes out when I change the oil). For my car the oil life monitor always shows it has between 8,000 and 12,000 miles of oil life and it never shows it as due for an oil change. I suspect that is because I never reset it after about 180,000 miles because you had identified this as an issue. Don't get me wrong I find the whole thing irritating and even wrote an email to corporate about it a while back. The post I was responding to was a a guy who was going to dump his car over this issue, I don't think it is an issue to get rid of a car over but it is unacceptable for any manufacture to not anticipate a car being used for over 180,000 miles these days.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by Barrique_Red

I realize this may (or may not) be an issue for me as a driver/owner and that for me it probably won't be much more than an inconvenience (having read this thread and being skilled enough to do most if not all of my own car work).

But my other concern is, how the heck would I sell a car to someone if it is constantly saying the oil is low and that it needs an oil change?

Does that mean I can only sell it to another (BMW) gear head?

How are people dealing with this today?

How does the seller convince the buyer that BMW (a global car company in operation for 100 years) made a boo-boo and actually designed the electronic dipstick (the only dipstick the car has) to stop working after 200,000 miles?

Alternatively would I, as a buyer, buy a vehicle from someone where the vehicle's computer is saying it is low on oil and needs an oil change - even immediately after it had an oil change?

It would be different if one could at least check the oil with a physical dipstick, and I am not getting any warm fuzzies about my car being worth anything to anyone but me (and maybe F 3 0) once I reach the point where the OCI and oil level indicators stop working correctly.

This is something like the 10th car I have owned and driven since 1982 (maybe more, I lost count), and I can tell you that wherever those previous 9 cars are in this world: I can walk up to them insert a rod into the engine via the dipstick tube and tell instantly if it has enough oil.

I remember telling my father (started driving in the 1950's) that my car didn't have a mechanical dipstick. Of course he chuckled and rolled his eyes. But I was rather comfortable with it, knowing I could check the oil as I was driving and without a rag. BUT had I known that it was only going to operate until a certain mileage, I am not sure I would have even bought this car (I am the 2nd owner).

I'm not sure you've read all of the thread or not; I wouldn't blame you if you didn't since its up to 7 or 8 pages now. But the issue is not that the e-dipstick doesn't work, because it does still report the oil level. A few years ago I started to suspect the e-dipstick was not reporting the correct oil level in the engine because the oil consumption seemed to drastically change after the oil change at 221,000 miles. My concern was, was taking the oil quality data out of the oil life algorithm causing the CBS software to report an incorrect oil level. I recorded oil consumption for a while by making notes when the e-dipstick showed a 1/4-quart drop in oil level. It seemed consistent and I measured the oil dump quantity at a few oil changes and found the e-dipstick was accurate. So I'm convinced at this point the e-dipstick remains accurate after the oil quality data goes defunct. Being that I do all my own oil changes and always put 7 quarts (now liters since BMW switched to selling its oil in 1L bottles) in the engine I know how much oil the engine starts with and keep an eye on the level. Now I end up adding in 1 liter of oil between 10,000 oil changes. I have no concern the engine will run low on oil.

But as I've stated from the beginning, this whole thing is just stupid. We'll never know why BMW designed the car this way. And I made all the same points to BMW you did about trying to sell a car with a faulty OCI monitor system. And being that BMW used to tout the quality level of its cars was so good that there was a second and third tier ownership market it supported through BMW Mobile Tradition, so doesn't make any sense to have this software programming in the the CBS. That said, I've never really had a concern about selling my car since I never planned to sell it anyway; and if I did, it would be without any real concern about the price.

At this point all I give a shit about is the car doesn't chime anymore about the past due oil change. I'd like my hundred bucks back since I feel this wasn't a wear issue that I should have to pay for. With this engineering faux pas along with the way the several F30s I've driven drive, BMW has in my opinion lost its mission and thus its purpose for me. Sad because I've had a connection with the brand since the mid 1970's and been an owner since 1988.

And I'll note (if BMW NA really reads this Forum) that I didn't dump the OCI issue on the internet until late December 2013 a good 4 months after discovering the issue in August 2013. I gave BMW a chance to rectify it, but the customer service treatment was so bad I gave up and posted about it with this Thread.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by pruettfan

I haven't had an issue with any chimes or alerts at all. My oil measurement seems to me pretty accurate (I measure what comes out when I change the oil). For my car the oil life monitor always shows it has between 8,000 and 12,000 miles of oil life and it never shows it as due for an oil change. I suspect that is because I never reset it after about 180,000 miles because you had identified this as an issue. Don't get me wrong I find the whole thing irritating and even wrote an email to corporate about it a while back. The post I was responding to was a a guy who was going to dump his car over this issue, I don't think it is an issue to get rid of a car over but it is unacceptable for any manufacture to not anticipate a car being used for over 180,000 miles these days.

You're welcome

[Barrique_Red]

Thanks!
I did read the whole thread, cover to cover, and I thought the oil level was not working after 186,000 because of this post on page 6 (emphasis mine):

Originally Posted by Marko97

Efthreeoh, I have the exact same issue. I own a 2006 325I with 223,000 miles. When I changed my oil at 219,000, the reset worked; however, the interval was only 1400 miles as opposed to the 15,000. When the oil level dropped to a quart, I added one and the levels never changed. I tried to reset the oil indicator and it would not reset. The clock circle flashed; however, it always went back to the -1000 miles that was showing I was over due. I was able to reset the service; however, not oil. I changed the oil yesterday and added the seven quarts and a new filter; however, the Oil level still shows a quart low.

I appreciate all of your thoughts and input on this, I do. I am with you on probably never selling, or caring about the price much if I do, but I wonder how low that price would be or at least how much effort I would need to go through in order to convince a buyer that this issue is not really an issue, for this model car.

One question I also have is, Does this affect any model year besides 2006?

Thanks again!