In January this year my partner took delivery of a new 1 Series BMW convertible. She is delighted with the car but was surprised when a few weeks ago, after only 4000 miles, the low oil warning came up. After checking, the car did indeed need a litre of oil and she therefore queried this with the BMW dealership that supplied the car. To her surprise they confirmed that she should expect the car to use a litre of oil approximately every 600 miles. We were both surprised at this and therefore wrote to BMW UK for its official advice.

The response included, "However, this oil usage is not just for the running in of the vehicle, this will remain the same for the duration of the vehicles lifetime. This is because our vehicles are designed to use more oil when the engine is running. This act extends the lifetime of the engine and improves fuel economy." Having driven BMW cars for many years covering hundreds of thousands of miles I can only recall adding oil on perhaps three occasions over 20 plus years. We would be interested in your comments.