Serviced an E51 today, no oil showing on the dipstick at all, when I drained the oil and measured how much came out it was 1.05 litres. The owner said they could occasionally hear a knocking noise from the top end of the engine.
Took a pic of the oil that came out, this is it including what was in the oil filter...
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I didn't drive it before changing the oil. After the oil change it seems OK and drives OK, no smoke or nasty noises except the petrol injectors are a little noisy, the tickety noise goes away when running on LPG. It does seem a little down on power compared to average. The owner said it struggled to get up hills, it doesn't but they might be used to diesel torque, or it could have been related to the error codes for cam timing on both cylinder banks. I was at first concerned the cam related errors could have been related to a cat problem but I found that although it hasn't had front cats decored they're flowing equally and still working so they seem to be OK, so I think the cam timing related errors were probably due to the top end being starved of oil when booting it up hills. The owner also said it sometimes smelled of burning and the brakes were also questioned but I found although the pedal feels a bit soft at the top the brakes seem to work OK and don't seem to be binding but they do get unusually hot quickly when in use so there could still be something wrong with them but stripping brakes will need to wait for another day, only came in for oil change and LPG service. Saw no oil leaks on the engine.
