Originally Posted By: nleksan
I am speaking only to my experiences, and to the cars I've seen and/or worked on.
The biggest issues are:
A) Extended OCI are economically WORSE based on the ever increasing chances of engine damage, especially in cars that aren't driven at length or driven hard, due to fuel and water dilution
B) Every single S54 rod bearing failure I've seen outside of the tracked cars (and every single owner who tracks their car KNOWS and prepares for that and a few other items), comes from cars that are running extended OCI's and most all barely ever get the oil to temp
The reason I advocate for ester and PAO oils is because, in my experience, they have held up better under immensely greater stresses than any Street car will see, they will not be the cause of sludge in an engine and actually are the easiest and likely safest way to clean a sludge engine, and because they have shown greatly reduced wear levels across the board, on parts that are making constant, significant metal to metal contact, including cam lobes and crank rod bearings and rod bearing journals.
Just because my track AND Street cars have benefited from them, it doesn't mean that the benefits are exclusive, and that a "regular" daily driver won't benefit.
In fact, since my friend has offered Redline at no charge over BMW Synthetic, every car that's switched has been a non-M (TWS still used for M), and at least 95 percent are DD's, as evidenced by the multiple changes per year (2-3). Yet, across the board costs of ownership have decreased for the owners, PCV systems are not going bad, VANOS failures are down, and dirty engines are cleaner. That's first hand experience from over a hundred samples, all running Redline (0w30 to 5w40) with OCI between 4500 and 8200 miles.
Keep in mind also that, well, how many mechanics who run their own small shops do you know that would advocate a change to an oil with the hopes that it would REDUCE the amount of work he sees for big issues, and therefore decreases the amount of money he makes? Sure, he has increased the total income specifically regarding oil changes, but this guy cares more about his customers than his wallet, and the COST for him to do a change with BMW SYN is a l ittle over half of what it is for him to do it with Redline, and he's only making about $20 or so for an oil change plus inspection (for an hour labor from a master mechanic, 20 bucks is about a third what they're worth). Sure, he makes it almost twice as often, but I promise that's pretty much irrelevant.
Also, like I said, these cars are not just daily driven, they're all out of warranty, with miles ranging from 75k or so up to 392,000 ('89 325iS manual, only had its original clutch changed out 40k ago!). They're all at the point where wear would be very likely to show itself.
I suggest reading the info that the society of automotive engineers published in their white papers and dnewton has so kindly included in his write ups on the home page of this site when it comes to oil change intervals in relation to wear.
I read your first paragraph and didn't even bother with the rest.
Your observations are nothing when compared to the S.A.E. And they don't agree with you,so suffice it to say your posts should come with a disclaimer reading "for entertainment use only"
