MMI Oil Display - What exactly does it display?

[_tones]

Hi,

A questions about the MMI oil display. The oil display on my MMI was close to Min so I took this to mean the oil was nearly empty (which i thought was weird since I have only covered around 5000 miles since last service, but the manual does says it can use 0.5L per 1,000 KM / ~621 Miles).

However, after filling with 1 litre, the bar is back to full? I've been reading around and some posts mention that the display is only for the top 1qt of oil in the tank and not the actual amount left in the tank?

This makes no sense to me as how are you actually supposed to know what is physically in the tank with no dipstick? The manual has no mention (from what I can see) that the display is not the actual reading of the oil levels in the tank. it just states 'Top up the engine oil if the bar in the oil level display is near the “min” mark'.

Can anyone definitely state what the display actually shows i.e was my tank nearly empty (in theory I could put more oil in) or was it just down 1qt?

Thanks,

[Guest 2]

You can retrofit a proper dipstick if you do a search ;)

[_tones]

Thanks, I'll take a look around. I wanted to know around the limits to make sure I have not overfilled and for future reference. It's annoying that they decided to take the dipstick out and not just have both options.

[SunnyBard]

The oil display on my MMI was close to Min so I took this to mean the oil was nearly empty

The min/max on the MMI are equivalent to the min/max marks on a dipstick

i.e when the MMI shows min it's not equivalent to taking the dipstick out and finding it doesn't touch the oil at all :aargh4:

[_tones]

ah, ok. Thanks for the clarification. I'm just not sure how much the difference between Min and Max is but at least I know it's not a tank. Makes more sense now as I expected to fill up a lot more than a litre when it read close to Min.

[SunnyBard]

I'm just not sure how much the difference between Min and Max is

I think it's 1 litre, if you go below min I understand you get a warning light (and/or message that says "add 1 litre of oil"), but I'd add it slowly say 250ml at a time and see how it changes the display