Hello people,
I've been a long time lurker but just registered.
I got the following situation in which i'd like to have a 2nd opinion on what would be best.
I'm living in the netherlands and i've got a 1992 bmw 325, with the m50 non vanos engine, runs like a champ.
Right now it's on about 365.000 kiometres, about uh 225K miles.
I've had it for the last 140.k my oc interval is at about 10k km, thats about 6k miles.
A friend of mine has a shop where i get the oil on good prices, which often was the simple total 9000 5w40, sometimes gulf formula G 5w40 or liqui moly
Your basic HC synthetic oil, the engine consumes nothing and runs fantastic.
But due to a change in his suppliers he no longer carries those oils and brands.
Now he's got less choices too and i can only give me special prices on Valvoline's 10w40 maxlife and 10w40 synpower... but real good prices:)
Now i've read good things about maxlife, but the full synthetic 5w40, not the semi synth 10w40.
I don't use the car daily, but when i do, i do drive pretty hard on it.
Mostly when i visit family which lives further away i easily drive a constant 140-150kph running the engine at 4k rpm for longer times.
And yearly i make a trip to the swiss alps, through germany... do a round at the nordschleife.
Would switching to a semy synth maxlife/synpower be a wise choice?
Or should i just pay extra and continue with the basic 5w40's?
usually i don't really put that much thought in it, cause i stick with the same grade but i do specifically get a max bmw LL-01 oil, NOT LL-04, with Porsche a40, mb 229.3 which i read are mostly good general specs.
The original manual only specs for API SG, 15w40, but i know not to get mid saps [censored].
Anyway long story short, will a semi synth be allright with this usage?
I actually started using 5w40 due to the allround climate, and the hydraulic lifters are pressurised earlier, less and less longer startup rattle, and here basicly no 10w40 is synthetic, not even grp3 hc, oh and a 5w30 mineral "dino" as you guys call it is just not sold here.
But i think synpower might be the only one, i know the grp4 pao's are the best but i figured any 5w40 grp3 hc would be better than a semi and good enough for this old engine spec.
Ps, prices for oil here are MUCH higher than in the states, 5 litre M1 0w40 is on average about 50 usd.
And i can get the valvoline stuff for 20 usd 5 litres, car needs 6.5L.
I know there are many other brands but this is specifically about the current options i'm given by my buddy's shop.
Last edited:
