523I Engine Oil Over Filling

[bailjoh]

I was driving the car and it was losing power. On reaching destination. I checked the engine oil and noticed it had been filled well over the correct level. THis was checked with engine cooled down. Also noticed that oil appeared to be coming from air filter on crank case. No other indicators of engine problem, exhaust ok, idles ok but loses power when driving. Can anyone advise what damage can be done by over filling or how to rectify the problem such as drain oil, replace filter.......................

[Guest DazH]

Hey John,

How long you had this motor mate? When was the last time it was serviced?

Too much oil can cause a range of different problems. The most obvious is excessive inhalation of oil into the cylinders/respiratory system which is what you are seeing from the air filter housing (You might hear people call this blow-by but, well... not exactly). Too much "blow-by" oil will clog the air filter causing the engine to... well... develop Asthma :blink: New air filter needed. The oil messes with the reading from the MAF so all of these respiratory components will need to be cleaned. No big deal, bit of carb cleaner from helfords and jobs a gooden.

As for what the oil does to the bottom end, it's much easier to walk through air then it is water. If you fill the sump up with oil to the point where the oil comes in contact with the crank-shaft, the crank has to turn(like what I said before "Walk") in oil. The engine has to work much harder to turn the crankshaft through the oil. You can also imagine the balancers on the crank shaft to be like a giant whisk frothing up the oil with loads of bubbles. Bubbly oil = Bad.

Oil getting into the cylinders by being inhaled via the crank case can mess up your catalitc converter. This = moneyz!

Basically...

- Needs a service. New air filter being VERY important here. DO NOT try to simply, drain the oil from the sump a little bit. Change the whole lot with a fresh new oil filter.
- Needs a good clean up! get all that oil out of the respiratory system (MAF, ICV etc... etc...). Carb cleaner to the rescue!

If you get stuck, either post some pics up here for us lot to look at and help or pay some garage gimp to do it all for ya! haha

Good luck,
Daz