Best oil for my needs/commute?

[Noobie]

My daily commute from Monday to Friday is a 7 mile trip in which the engine runs for about 25-45 minutes depending on traffic. Average speed is around 10-30KM/h.

On weekends i usually drive around 40 - 50 miles and in this case the engine runs for about 2-3 hours (Depends on traffic also).

Style of driving is light footed and 100% city driving.
I've kept an eye on the engine temperature (Coolant) and during both my daily commute and weekend drives it ranges anywhere from 80C° - 100C°.

The engine is a BMW N52K. (3.0 Inline 6 with 272HP)

My current options of "Good" oils are:
1. Mobil 1 0W-40 (Also other weights available such as 5w30, 10w30 etc.)
2. Shell Helix Ultra 5W-40 (HX6 and HX7 also available)
3. Castrol EDGE With SYNTEC 5w30 (All Castrol USA lineup is available such as GTX, SYNTEC etc.)
4. Pennzoil Platinum or Ultra (Forgot which one, i'll check it out when i get to the shop)

So my question is, what oil would best fit my needs?
I used to do OCI's of 12 months and i'm considering switching to 6 months due to the very hot climate during the whole year (Tropical area) and excessive idling due to traffic.

 

[crazyoildude]

those are all good oils but its hard to find bad oils, shop specs and price...
I will say i personally saw pennzoil ultra clean three engines and i was shocked!
I dont use pennzoil because their price is just too high but it is good oil..
we have mobil in our tanks now and that oil is great also my favorite was conoco but their price went up and my distributor offered us mobil at a good price and im happy

 

[abycat]

I am running pp in my car but if i had yours and pp met the specs i would strongly consider it. From personal experiance and a few great used oil analysis it should do well. i got a 4.4L jug for 25$ up here so that is pretty good i actually picked up 2. Im running another interval with it.

 

[crazyoildude]

i hope you are going to get the full benefits and change it not every 3000 miles but 7500 or 1 year

 

[Noobie]

If i changed it at 7500 miles it would be like 16 - 18 months before it would need a change.
I would prefer 12 months UCI's over that, considering the excessive idling due to stop & go traffic. (Basically 90% of the time i drive is stop & go)
The only oils that i listed that meet BMW LL-01 Specs (And others such as MB/Porsche/VW) are the Shell Helix Ultra and Mobil 1. (Not so sure about the Pennzoil still gotta check it)

 

[Noobie]

BUMP!

 

[Zeus103363]

Ever tried havoline ultra V? It meets BMW LL-04. The last time I was at the chevron distributer warehouse, I saw 3 pallets of the stuff. I herd the LL-04 was the European spec ( true PAO base oil) and the LL-01 was the US spec (GPIII Base oil). Dont know if this is true or not. I asked about the oil and he told me it was $5 bucks a quart. Not too expensive, but I bet it is like all chevrons products... got to hunt for a place to buy it. The local diet. near me are supper nice and great to deal with. I can email the salesman what I need and he puts it in his truck. I can stop by his house and pick up my oil. They send me a bill in the mail.

 

[fdcg27]

With the kind of driving you do, I can see why you'd need a 227 bhp BMW.
Not!
Anyway, Mobil 1 0W-40 is one oil that is widely available and meets the BMW cert for your car.
It would likely be fine for a year of your use, although a used oil analysis would help in confirming that.
Syntec 0w30 would also likely work well and is pretty widely available.
You don't tell us where you are, which is very useful to everyone, since there are some very suitable oils available to you outside of the US.

 

[Noobie]

Originally Posted By: fdcg27
With the kind of driving you do, I can see why you'd need a 227 bhp BMW.
Not!
You don't tell us where you are, which is very useful to everyone, since there are some very suitable oils available to you outside of the US.

Hahahaha, well i rarely get heavy footed simply because . . . i can't.

Regarding where i live, it's down here in south america where basically the whole year is summer.

Originally Posted By: Zeus103363
Ever tried havoline ultra V? It meets BMW LL-04.

I've seen Havoline stuff around but i have never taken them into consideration, might start looking to see what they have here.
I've researched quite a bit about the BMW LL-04 approval and according to what i read around the internet, it was created for low sulphur fuel (Europe) and for the new generation of diesels.
I guess our fuel here is not low sulphur otherwise they would've brought the BMW N53 engine. Instead they brought an updated N52 which is the N52K.

So any other recommendations on what oil i should use?

 

[Noobie]

Bump!

 

[dave1251]

Shell Helix Ultra or Mobil 1. The one that cost less and the one is easier for you to obtain. You really can not go wrong with good oils. I also known of people using 15W40 HDEO in engines requiring similar specs and the engine end up living for a very long time and still are going. So if for some reason you could not get the "high end" oils you posted, HDEO 15W40 is what I would use in a emergency.