Cannot measure oil

[Davidpingu]

This makes sense to me. Back in the old days when they had these things called a dipstick I was always told that the engine should be warm, the car on a level surface and that it should have been left to stand for around 20 mins before taking a reading.
The reason is if you try and take a reading straight away, oil is everywhere and might skew your result. Waiting 20 mins means the majority of the oil has found its way back to the oil pan.

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[TurtReynolds]

Wow thanks a ton for sharing, I don’t have temp readings setup on my JB4, and I never really noticed it could be temperature related but come to think of it the only time I could get a measurement was after a short drive.

I have returned the car the stock so the dealer can check it out and begin the process they have for oil consumption issues.

The service advisor let me know there is a new service bulletin coming out in March and it’s about this exact issue. I wonder if Toyota has come up with a plan to stop replacing these engines and actually fix the issues.

Funny you should mention the oil consumption. Friend of mine has a 2021 model and he had that exact issue. The thing was consuming about a quart every 300 miles.

Needless to say he was upset his brand new car had this issue.

After talking with Zach at CSG for a bit he suggested giving a higher weight oil such as 0w40 a try (which is what I am told a growing number of track guys have settled on, myself included as I track the car heavily.)

So I had him top off with the 0w40 Mobil 1 as he got low and wouldn't you know it? Issue gone. We did a whole drive to Tail of the Dragon and back from the Great Lakes area and he didn't burn a drop.

I believe he later changed it out to 0w40 entirely and he hasn't mentioned the issue since.

I initially ran 0w20, even on track just to get a baseline for my oil analysis with Blackstone and noticed wear metals in the samples when I got them back; which is honestly expected.

After changing to the 0w40 (I ran Motul 300v in both cases but have now switched to Redline as it's a bit more cost effective) the wear metals on the oil improved dramatically.

This is anecdotal observation of course; so I'm not about to say what has worked for myself and my compadre here will work for you; but it does appear to have some merit.

= = = =

As for the reading of the oil level itself, I've discovered you can literally just turn the car on after letting it cool down and just run the measurement right away.

I ran the measurements on my car in conjunction with reading the various oil level parameters via ECUTek and they seemed in the right neighborhood.

You can also pull data like this using a generic OBD module and BimmerLink. Bimmerlink is worth the price of admission to me as it lets me read all sorts of codes and reset service intervals at my discretion. It can even register a new battery in the car and toggle the Active Sound on and off like BimmerCode, which is made by the same developer.

 

[32bitsofGil]

It is the oil temperature.

Through repeated A-B testing under tons of scenarios I inevitably discovered that the oil measurement diagnostic fails to complete after the oil temperature reaches somewhere over 205 Fahrenheit.

I hope this helps someone who is also being driven insane by this.

Just got back from the dealer, the service advisor over there has me setup to record oil consumption, so I've got the tamper proof goo on my drain plug and oil cap.

They insisted (even calling an engineer specializing in the Supra) that the oil temperature is the main culprit behind the failing process to check the oil level. I was told that if the engine oil temp is above 90C then the test will fail. This is spot on with your testing and the service advisor confirmed this with the engineer that it would likely fail anything above that 200F mark.

What is wild is that I literally never had this issue before, I drove the piss out of the car and come to a stop many times to check the oil level while red hot on the engine. Why would it suddenly start malfunctioning when it's at those temps? One day it asks me to add a quart of oil and suddenly it can no longer measure a hot engine oil level? How am I supposed to follow the instructions in the manual and drive it for 30 minutes if it will guaranteed be too hot to measure after that drive?

Anyway I will have to go back to get my oil consumption measured, and I will hopefully have enough leverage to ask them to replace that sensor, since I am in danger of burning oil past the minimum since the sensor keeps malfunctioning.

 

[32bitsofGil]

I’d like to update that no matter if my engine is colder than 90C (after buying BimmerLink to measure it) I cannot measure the oil level. It still continues to malfunction.

Ive decided against bringing the Supra back to around Rock Toyota… I just don’t think they did the right thing sending me home with no reliable way to measure the oil, and a seal on my oil cap so I can’t add any. How am I supposed to know when the oil level is minimum if the sensor is still malfunctioning? Seems like the only conclusion here would be a blown engine when I inevitably burn oil past minimum level and the car has no idea, and can’t alert me.

 

[TurtReynolds]

I’d like to update that no matter if my engine is colder than 90C (after buying BimmerLink to measure it) I cannot measure the oil level. It still continues to malfunction.

Ive decided against bringing the Supra back to around Rock Toyota… I just don’t think they did the right thing sending me home with no reliable way to measure the oil, and a seal on my oil cap so I can’t add any. How am I supposed to know when the oil level is minimum if the sensor is still malfunctioning? Seems like the only conclusion here would be a blown engine when I inevitably burn oil past minimum level and the car has no idea, and can’t alert me.

Sorry it didn't work out.

As much as I know you don't want to keep playing that game, often then only way to the end in scenarios like this is through. Diligent documentation, following the process, and detailed history will go a long way when it comes time to get made whole by the manufacturer in many cases.

One thing to try here if you're feeling like it; drive it around and let it sit for like 20 minutes to let the oil drain back into the pan and then run the diagnostic after startup to see if it succeeds.

The other thing I'd be curious about is if there's any errors code showing in BimmerLink for your car.

You can also read the oil level via the sensors in BimmerLink, fortunately using the Engine Oil Level parameters; which are measured both filtered (normalized) and unfiltered (raw value from sensor) in milimeters of depth.

See if you can grab those values after the engine speed settles into a nice idle and I can go compare it to mine. Granted my car is on jackstands for winter storage; but it'll be at least a relative comparison.

At least then we can get an idea of where your oil level is currently and it gives you a way to keep an eye on it until the onboard diagnostic is fixed.

 

[32bitsofGil]

Sorry it didn't work out.

As much as I know you don't want to keep playing that game, often then only way to the end in scenarios like this is through. Diligent documentation, following the process, and detailed history will go a long way when it comes time to get made whole by the manufacturer in many cases.

One thing to try here if you're feeling like it; drive it around and let it sit for like 20 minutes to let the oil drain back into the pan and then run the diagnostic after startup to see if it succeeds.

The other thing I'd be curious about is if there's any errors code showing in BimmerLink for your car.

You can also read the oil level via the sensors in BimmerLink, fortunately using the Engine Oil Level parameters; which are measured both filtered (normalized) and unfiltered (raw value from sensor) in milimeters of depth.

See if you can grab those values after the engine speed settles into a nice idle and I can go compare it to mine. Granted my car is on jackstands for winter storage; but it'll be at least a relative comparison.

At least then we can get an idea of where your oil level is currently and it gives you a way to keep an eye on it until the onboard diagnostic is fixed.

For now I am using Bimmerlink to view raw sensor data. Can anyone tell me what the minimum level in mm is for this oil level? It is my understanding that the car tells you to add 1L of oil when it's only 500ml low on oil. But this sensor just spit out a value in mm telling you what it sees in the oil pan.

I was able to get the idrive system to measure the oil level ONE TIME today successfully for the first time in a week. This was after letting cool, then starting the engine and immediately measuring via the idrive menu. It completed, and I checked my Bimmerlink app to see that the temp was 75C on oil. I tried to run the test again, but it had crept past 80C at which point the test kept failing.

 

[pichachu-z]

I see, ok good luck man. Let's me know how it goes..

So just replaced my sensor yesterday and still not working I’m going to try disconnecting the battery

 

[32bitsofGil]

So just replaced my sensor yesterday and still not working I’m going to try disconnecting the battery

i just got back from the dealer this week. I had my sensor replaced and that didn’t resolve the issue. They had to replace the oil pump as well which required dropping the front sub frame. $2k of work under warranty.
It works fine now, jury still out on my oil consumption issues

 

[MisterEff]

This is happening to me now (2021 A91 with 16k miles). No oil consumption issues thus far.

I’ll try the suggestion @TurtReynolds had above.

 

[pichachu-z]

Replace my sensor that did nothing and still can’t check the oil I have two friends with Supra’s that can’t check it either

 

[Tsuekasa]

Something tells me this is more of a software issue. I can messure oil using bimmerlink only but through the idrive it stops at 21% everytime no matter what temperature.

I researched this issue thoroughly with other BMWs. It seems if there was really an issue with the Oil level sensor, the system would tell you somewhere plus i wouldn't be able to measure it in bimmerlink. I've seen in other BMWS that it's either the oil filter cap is missing its Oring that goes around the cap which is common when techs are not familiar with BMW oil cap filters and not torque down to spec

 

[32bitsofGil]

When I had mine serviced the tech wrote that they found the sensor seized in the oil pan. But they claimed that replacing just the oil sensor was not enough to fix the issues, they had to replace the oil pump as well.

 

[Davedaveee]

When I had mine serviced the tech wrote that they found the sensor seized in the oil pan. But they claimed that replacing just the oil sensor was not enough to fix the issues, they had to replace the oil pump as well.

Can you provide any update on this? Did this resolve your problem of not being able to scan your oil levels? Also did the tech explain the task of getting the oil pump replaced? Currently going through this right now with my Supra.

 

[domingo]

Got warranty fix because of it. They reprogram ECU and change oil/vacum pump.
Pump works well but only in minimum or maximum of their working pressure.
Dealer can't make it by himself and need engineer straight from Toyota.

Software update or oil sensor replacement do nothing. But they can measure oil by service computer.

 

[Davedaveee]

Thanks! Did they have to drop the subframe to get to the oil pump? It seems like a pretty big job and i'm stressing lol.

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