Just so folks know: 15% low refers to a quart, not the total oil capacity, and a warning will pop up if you get to 100% (1 quart) low, you don’t have to pull up the electronic ‘dip stick’. Finally, SunnyAl you need to find out exactly the type of oil required for your car, BMW is VERY picky when it comes to oils that meet the factory specs.
You might find it down 15% when the oil is cold and it be at full when hot, this would be normal.
I agree that you can go 10k with the specified oil. I would suggest this though, when ever you are driving it hard, or are on a trip running at high speed, slow down to about 55-60 mph about three miles before any planned stops, like for gas, eats etc to let the oil cool down a little and the turbo bearing to cool down.
Read your owners manual carefully and you will find the BMW oil spec , then do a search for that spec and you will find a list of approved oils .
From a BMW website
The oils listed below meet BMW’s Long-life rating and are acceptable for use in BMW Passenger vehicles and SAVs in the US market with gasoline engines.
BMW Long-life rating LL-01 Approved Synthetic Oils for the US Market:
Castrol Syntec European Formula SAE 0W-30
Mobil 1 SAE 0W-40
Pennzoil Platinum European Formula Ultra SAE 5W-30
Valvoline SynPower SAE 5W-30
Use only oils with an API rating of SM or higher.
Where do people go to purchase European these blends? Why are the BMW engines so particular?
Is Kendall a good brand?
Someone should have given that engineer a dope slap. Even my lawn mower has a dip stick. Just IMHO but that would have been a deal breaker for me. I would guess their target market though is not people interested in cars though. I would have expected better from the Deutsch.
I thought long and hard about no oil dipstick, but was convinced by several respected repair shop owners and enthusists that the sensor method would be fine. It is not new technology.
BMW and the rest of the German automakers are developing their own oil ‘standards’, so if you have a VW you need to get the oil that meets VW’s standard. Why the auto industry couldn’t work with the carmakers to come up with universal standards is beyond me. Not just the Germans, though - GM has come up with an oil spec of its own…grrrr…
SunnyAl, some folks don’t deal with changes to systems that they are used to and depend on. I’m sure that BMW or any other major manufacturer would not make a change like this without thoroughly testing it. They like their paychecks as much as the rest of us do, and would not jeopardize them by installing some half-baked system that stands a good chance of failing. Oil Life Monitors are another system that get little respect in some circles, despite being in production cars for the last 35 years. On the other side, it is OK to be skeptical and wait for a while to see if the new systems work. It’s as much about personalities as it is about reasoning.
I dunno if it says in your manual, but I like to let my engine idle for a minute if I’ve ran my car hard, just so the oil can be run through the turbos and let them cool down a bit before shutting it off. My manual says to let it idle for 30 seconds or more after long highway trips or if it’s been ran hard
Just a few humorous (hopefully) remarks from me:
jtsanders states that a poor design would cause losses that would put them out of business. If Chris Bangle and i-drive didn’t run them out of business, nothing will!
Regarding the germans (especially VW) coming up with their own standards (which usually means “expensive oil”), if german engineering is so great, why the hell can’t their engines be happy on regular Castrol dino oil from Wally World like my Nissan is?! I, and others that I know, have run cars 200,000+ miles on whatever oil was on sale, and had to get rid of them because the rest of the car fell apart. The engine internals were still pretty good. None of these cars were anything exotic.
OK, I’m done with my rant. Just make sure you are reading the oil level and not the oil life gauge.
What are peoples’ definition of driving hard?? Is driving in hot weather fall under this definition?
Doubleclutch
I agree with you, but in regard to your question, “if german engineering is so great, why the hell can’t their engines be happy on regular Castrol dino oil from Wally World like my Nissan is?”, the answer is:
Those European-spec oils are necessary in order for their engines to tolerate the ridiculously long drain intervals that seem to have become the norm in Europe. While you and I would never go 15k between oil changes, apparently the OLM in a Beemer will not cue you to change the oil until somewhere around 15k, depending on driving conditions. US-spec oils would likely result in severe sludging before the Powertrain Warranty is over.
With the Euro-spec oils, you can apparently go 15k without filling the engine with sludge, but I wouldn’t want to bet the farm on these engines lasting for many years with 15k oil change intervals–no matter what type of oil is used. IMHO, it is just a matter of delaying problems from those ridiculous drain intervals by using the Euro-spec oil.
And, even if the necessary oil is relatively easy to find in Europe, the reality is that owners of Beemers and other Euro iron may have to search quite a bit to find Euro-spec oil in this country. Will they all be diligent enough to search for, and use, that oil? Hmmmm. I doubt it.
A certain percentage of these cars will wind up at quicky lube places that are very unlikely to stock the correct-spec oil. Even many indy mechanics may not stock the Euro-spec oil. The long-term result will not be pretty if the owners of these cars use the OLM as their guide, I can assure you.
Just as a politician is only interested in what happens in his city, state, or country during his term in office, car manufacturers seem to be interested only in what happens to their products during the period of the car’s warranty. By eliminating the requirement for things like valve lash adjustments, by claiming that their transmissions have “lifetime fluid”, and by specifying ridiculously long oil change intervals, the manufacturers can boast of low maintenance costs. And, when problems crop up with engines and transmissions a few years down the road, only the owner (probably the second owner, in the case of luxury cars) will be the one paying the price for this deferred maintenance, since the warranty ended long ago.
The engine in my new car also has a 7 quart oil capacity, but since I tend to keep my cars for at least 7 years, I am adhering to my usual 4,000 mile oil change interval. As mountainbike has said, the idea is to prolong the life of the engine, not the life of the motor oil!
The problem with relying on engineers, new technology, and factory recommendations is that the automotive roadside is littered with innumerable instances of good intentions gone wrong.
Just my humble opinion, but no way on Earth will I ever agree with a 10k-15k oil change regimen no matter what.
Many car owners will spend the few dollars they have at the tavern trying to forget about the 4 figure expense they’re now facing because of that policy.
And as I’ve mentioned before, of the engine repairs I’ve done my unscientific estimate is that about 85-90% of those problems were caused by not checking the oil, not changing it regularly, or by overheating it and refusing to stop.
Give the car makers credit though. They’ve managed to convince a lot of people that regular maintenance is a dirty word, or phrase as the case may be.
“Those European-spec oils are necessary in order for their engines to tolerate the ridiculously long drain intervals that seem to have become the norm in Europe.”
If I had one of those turbo beemers I would just use one of the popular synthetic oils
and change it every 5k/6 months.
Do that between the 15k changes at the dealer while the warranty is on.
To the folks complaining about lack of dipsticks: I hope you don’t plan on flying on an airliner in the future.
In the planes I used to fly, Boeing 727s and 720/707s, there were NO dipsticks for the oil for crews to check. The Flight Engineer had OIL Quantity gauges in front of him.
5 Gallons was Full oil in each of the JT8ds on the 727, Three was minimum, and below three was OK with the Captain’s permission.
I would have NO reservation about driving a car with an oil quantity gauge.
We DID have “dripsticks” to measure the amount of fuel in the fuel tanks, in the event of an inop fuel gauge. That’s a whole different chapter.
I would think planes have something equivalent to a dry sump system on a car,
which doesn’t use a crankcase dipstick.
The oil is stored in a reservoir separate from the engine.
Most cars are wet sump, a simpler, cheaper system.
VDCdriver, Good answer. I wouldn’t have thought of that. Like others here, I would never wait that long to change my oil. I usually go 4,000 miles or so.
tom418, I guess you have a point, but I imagine getting into the engines or oil reservoirs to check the oil on a 727 would be quite a project in itself. Popping the hood on a car and pulling the dripstick in the morning isn’t a big deal, and provides a very simple, failsafe way to check your oil and, FWIW, have a look at it.
circuitsmith, while ‘your’ BMW may run fine with the oil you suggest, if anything happens (like a bad turbo, which has been known to happen to them) during the warranty period you could be facing a major repair bill.
Regarding aircraft, planes of all types have been known to make “unintended landings” due to gauge errors.