Oil recommendation for my BMW X3?

[TomX3]

Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Originally Posted By: TomX3
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
The 2016 bmw owners manual still calls for using LL-01 oil though.


Yep. It's just that Mobil 1 0w40 is no longer an LL01 approved oil so you can't use that.

But you can use it in a 2015 or a 2014 one that is still under warranty? Again, their explanation makes no sense to me. What has changed in November 2015? If BMW testing requirements have changed, then surely a wealthy corporation such as XOM can afford to have their flagship product retested.

We are not getting the full story here, I'm afraid.


If you have any BMW that is still under warranty even if it was produced before Nov 2015, to be compliant with the terms of the warranty as far I understand you need to use LL-01 approved oil. That means you can't use Mobil 1 0w40 anymore.

If your car was produced after Nov 2015 it seems that Mobil is saying to not use their oil.

They said that something with BMW's testing requirements has changed and that's a little vague but that sounds to me like the oil would no longer pass the test for approval. The specification I don't think changed, otherwise it would be a new spec. So maybe the way they test certain qualities of the oil has changed. This is just an example but maybe they came up with a new way to test HTHS and under the new test the oil doesn't meet spec but it did with the old test. It's probably not that, more likely something they're doing with the engine test. I don't know enough to make a more informed guess.

On the phone they didn't seem very forthcoming but they did say the oil hasn't changed. So something BMW is doing differently in approving oils has changed.

This is a major sidetrack from my original question. I decided to go with the BMW TwinPower Turbo 5W-30 Engine Oil for my oil change because it was the safe choice. It's the new BMW LL-01 oil that's made by shell. I was going to go with the PP Euro but the BMW oil wound up being cheaper. In the future I may try the PP Euro 5w40 because it's API SN while the BMW oil is API SL. Need to do some more research.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
I suppose this bmw drop could be similar.

Yep, but like you said, it still makes little sense. It's not like XOM was the factory fill anyhow. But, someone, somewhere must be mad. The data sheets didn't get yanked for no reason, either.

The last thing we need is one less LL-01 oil on the shelf. It's not like Shell is pushing to get theirs (whatever it might be) available on Walmart and Canadian Tire shelves. I'll keep an eye on the Castrol stuff. Wakefield has four options in Canada, aside from the OE Professional stuff.

 

[Leonardo629]

Is Porsche A40 spec more stringent than LL-01?

By the rule of deduction, if A40 is more stringent, and it is on the label, couldn't we all conclude XOM was telling the truth when they claim the formulation hasn't changed, it's merely a contractual issue with BMW.

 

[B320i]

With a late-model vehicle close or in warranty - using the BMW stuff (and ensuring receipts are kept) is by far the best option and basically leaves you without blame should there be issues with lubrication (spun bearings), sludging or any other lubrication issues.

Then comes the whole thing with "lemons," for example in Australia one should reasonably expect a vehicle to last a certain time, regardless of the warranty. If you can prove you did nothing that could compromise this even after the short manufacturers warranty - then it could entitle you to more should the vehicle be a "lemon" in some way.

The BMW (Shell, previously Castrol) oil is a pretty safe choice, and VOA as well as UOA both prove that the oil is more than capable of serving most of the BMW engines very well through their expected service life.
Its also hard to go wrong with the price that BMW charges for their stuff. People have said here it can be cheaper than the other well-known LongLife-01 products.

With an older, higher-miles vehicle, provided you stick to something that meets the long-drain/high-strength A3/B3 (or B4) spec, I think thats the most important. Thats not to say LongLife oils are irrelevant, rather, you can probably do well enough without it at higher miles - most oils today should greatly exceed say the API-SG (and CCMC rated) oils of 1993.
With that said, the BMW LongLife oil is a known constant and ought to eliminate issues with the oil lasting over the recommended drain interval.

 

[TomX3]

Maybe a mod can change the title of this thread to Mobil 1 0w40 no longer BMW LL-01 Approved since that's the bulk of the discussion.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: Leonardo629
By the rule of deduction, if A40 is more stringent, and it is on the label, couldn't we all conclude XOM was telling the truth when they claim the formulation hasn't changed, it's merely a contractual issue with BMW.

That would make sense. After all, if it were reformulated, and had to be recertified, I'd wonder why that wouldn't affect any of the other builder approvals that are there. Oh well, it's another things I guess we have to wait to work its way out through the wash.

Seeing is believing many times, and what we hear can be disingenuous. We've heard many XOM promises about the Chrysler spec and M1, to have none of them actually come to fruition, and then have it turn out that Mobil is miffed at Chrysler and has no intention of obtaining the certification for M1 itself.

 

[TomX3]

Originally Posted By: Leonardo629
Is Porsche A40 spec more stringent than LL-01?

By the rule of deduction, if A40 is more stringent, and it is on the label, couldn't we all conclude XOM was telling the truth when they claim the formulation hasn't changed, it's merely a contractual issue with BMW.


I've been trying to figure out what getting LL-01 approval actually entails. There's not much information but from what little I was able to find it seems that a big chunk of it is having the right ACEA certifications and HTHS >= 3.5. In addition BMW runs tests on actual BMW engines. A Porsche approval wouldn't be the same since they wouldn't be testing in BMW engines so it leaves out the biggest part that differentiates the BMW LL-01 approval.

The wording of the email I received from Mobil leads me to believe that it's not some contractual issue but rather the oil doesn't pass the new tests to qualify for approval. It would be interesting to know what the new testing procedures are that prevent approval.

This could have huge implications depending on the reason. Maybe it's that the engines used to check the oil have changed and M1 0w40 doesn't perform the same in those engines.Or worse, the tests have become more accurate and the oil can't pass them.

Think of old vending machines. How they identified coins was pretty simple. They pretty much checked size and weight. If someone put in the right sized slug the machine could recognize it as a quarter when it's not. As technology improved, slugs were able to be identified and ignored. While in the past you might have been able to get a candy bar with a couple of washers, that won't work these days. The scary question is: Was Mobil 1 0w40 ever really good enough to be a ll-01 oil?

 

[RooflessVW]

I'm certain it was, and that if they haven't changed the formulation, it still is for the N55, N54, N52, and everything prior.

BMW is just now rolling out their newest engines for the 2016/2017 model years.

 

[OVERKILL]

Mobil has a new 0w-40, Mobil 1 ESP 0w-40, PDS dated January 2016 (the product isn't even on their website) that has BMW LL-04 on it.

I'm guessing Mobil is re-jigging the product line a bit and you will see LL-01 show back up and probably a reformulation of the 0w-40 to boot, given the PDS for it is now absent.

 

[BrocLuno]

Originally Posted By: TomX3

I'm going out on a limb here as I sold my last Beemer a couple of years ago. But if you are only short tripping this thing a few times a week and then one road trip on the weekend, I'd be looking at shorter change intervals. The short trips contribute to oil degradation ... So I'd be changing at least once a year and maybe twice ...


I was thinking every 5k miles. Does that sound about right?

5K sounds just right to me

 

[MCompact]

We've owned my wife's truck since December 2005 and 16k miles; at 182k miles I suppose M1 0W-40 is performing okay- but I wouldn't want to draw any conclusions regarding long term reliability...

 

[TomX3]

Originally Posted By: BrocLuno
Originally Posted By: TomX3

I'm going out on a limb here as I sold my last Beemer a couple of years ago. But if you are only short tripping this thing a few times a week and then one road trip on the weekend, I'd be looking at shorter change intervals. The short trips contribute to oil degradation ... So I'd be changing at least once a year and maybe twice ...


I was thinking every 5k miles. Does that sound about right?

5K sounds just right to me

What about time wise? IS 5k or 12 months whichever comes first ok or should I be thinking more along the lines of 5k or 9mos? 6mos?

 

[wemay]

The more i read, the more important oci seems to be. With this constant change in the industry, how's the avg non-bitoger supposed to keep up when the only time they even think about oil is when it's actually time to empty/fill.

 

[MCompact]

Originally Posted By: wemay
The more i read, the more important oci seems to be. With this constant change in the industry, how's the avg non-bitoger supposed to keep up when the only time they even think about oil is when it's actually time to empty/fill.


Agreed, for some reason the M54 motor in my wife's truck is somewhat hard on its oil; the TBN is below 1.0 by 10,000 miles, yet the OLM wants to stretch out the OCI to 15,000 miles.
That said, a 5,000 mile OCI- for my wife's truck anyway-is simply a waste of quality synthetic oil.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: MCompact
Agreed, for some reason the M54 motor in my wife's truck is somewhat hard on its oil; the TBN is below 1.0 by 10,000 miles, yet the OLM wants to stretch out the OCI to 15,000 miles.
That said, a 5,000 mile OCI- for my wife's truck anyway-is simply a waste of quality synthetic oil.

Based on my experience, the M54 in my 530i does fine at 10K miles if there is lots of hwy miles. Under such conditions, when running GC, TBN was still above 4, in my case. But ever since my driving conditions changed significantly and I now do very short trips, it's a very different story. Based on UOA results, I've now cut my OCI down to 1 year, regardless how few miles I put on. Sometimes it's just 3-4K miles.

 

[B320i]

Originally Posted By: MCompact
Originally Posted By: wemay
The more i read, the more important oci seems to be. With this constant change in the industry, how's the avg non-bitoger supposed to keep up when the only time they even think about oil is when it's actually time to empty/fill.


Agreed, for some reason the M54 motor in my wife's truck is somewhat hard on its oil; the TBN is below 1.0 by 10,000 miles, yet the OLM wants to stretch out the OCI to 15,000 miles.
That said, a 5,000 mile OCI- for my wife's truck anyway-is simply a waste of quality synthetic oil.


The very early Service Indicator System actually accounted for the types of driving you did with the car (engine temperature, rev-range, cold-starts, mileage, fuel etc).
The later systems switched primarily to the fuel-based algorithm, and plus the OLM in the oil pan on later models - whose operation has been questioned by the BITOG community (and others) over time.
Thus the end result with newer cars it the Service Indicator is far less flexible for the OCI.
(Compared to my '93 BMW which will go 'somewhere' in the 7000-8000 mile range with its OLM).