Finally decided to get my hands dirty and do an oil service myself. Went to Halfrauds and was quoted £40 for a filter...no thanks mate don't need a gold one, paper will do fine. Bought a full service kit from Ebay for £70 from Britpart (oil, air and pollen filters and 8 spark plugs).

Borrowed a Pela pump from my neighbour who swears by it and got down to it. After about 40 minutes i had only succeeded in getting 4.5 litres of oil out and was getting a bit peaved off with pump so decided i would chuck it and fill up with new oil and do another sump plug out change the next day.

Duly stuck 4.5litres of new oil back in and checked dip stick...no trace of any oil, put another 3 litres in and finally got level to where it should be. By my maths I was running about for who knows how long with about 3 litres of oil or so short and yet no oil warning lights.

Anybody got any thoughts on whether I could have done any damage and is there something i should be checking sensor wise to make sure all is well with oil level monitoring.

Rest assured i will be checking dip stick more frequently from now on.......oh and had to give pump back with humble apologies as it was nearly getting kicked up the street.

There is no oil level monitoring (on bmw 4.4 anyway), just oil pressure - by which time it will be too late. 

My 4.4 has an oil volume measuring device called a dip stik, anyone who does not use one regularly is one. letters not necessarily in the right order

On this note, I checked my oil today, on the stick. Then 5 minutes later I started her up and got STOP ENGINE! Oil Pressure! turned her off, checked the level again 3/4 full started her up and no warning. My heart can't take that again! 

My 4.4, BMW, has never had the oil topped up since I have owned it, nearly five years and coming up to 100,000 miles.

It is changed at the prescribed service interval but does not use any inbetween.

Ian