Red Line 5w-40 7786 miles 2003 BMW 330Ci M54

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This is the same oil as my previous 5100 mile UOA with another 2600 miles of mostly highway miles. Houston-Indianapolis Saturday 06/06 and Indianapolis - Houston 06/13 about 1050 miles each day. Cruise control set to about 5 over speed limit with an occasional jump to 80-90mph passing. Oil temps about 100-110 over outside air temp. (62-97F)

I pulled about 1/2 a quart for the 5100 mile UOA - replaced it with Red Line 5w-40 (old formula). The oil was changed this time with fresh 5w-40 from Red Line (from Racer Parts Wholesale in Indianapolis).

The copper was only 4 ppm after almost 50% (2600+) more miles compared to the original 5100 mile UOA.
Code:


Date 5/5/05 10/5/05 3/6/06 6/6/06 3/7/07 6/7/07 3/8/08 9/8/08 10/8/08 6/4/09 6/14/09

oil mi 5011 5000 4300 5958 4514 5347 5017 3839 7250 5100 7786

Tot mi 21130 26100 31407 37365 41879 47226 52245 56084 63334 68400 71120



Make up 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.5

Oil BMW Castrol Castrol BMW Castrol Castrol Castrol Castrol Red line Red Line Red Line

Weight 5w-30 0w-30 0w-30 5w-30 0w-30 0w-30 0w-30 0w-30 5w-40 5w-40 5w-40



Filter BMW Mann BMW BMW Mann Mann Mann Mann Mann Mann Mann



AL 4 2 2 2 2 2 4 2 2 4 2

CHRO 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

IRON 9 7 6 4 8 6 11 9 7 7 9

COPPER 28 22 15 18 22 8 15 9 5 17 21

LEAD 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 1

TIN 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1

MOLY 124 19 4 104 16 4 3 2 3 149 207

NICKEL 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1

MANGA 3 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 3

SILVER 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

TITAN 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

POTASS 9 1 6 1 2 0 8 3 2 3 5

BORON 38 9 3 21 4 2 3 2 1 4 5

SILICON 5 3 3 3 3 2 4 3 4 6 7

SODIUM 2 4 3 5 3 3 4 2 3 9 12

CALCIUM 3446 2125 1704 2463 2702 2985 1864 1891 2452 2142 2574

MAGNE 18 311 455 83 129 147 448 551 86 30 36

PHOS 853 748 781 662 737 782 872 885 988 1032 1134

ZINC 1050 889 964 847 878 1001 1115 1087 1282 1228 1446

BARIUM 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0



SUS212 65.6 62.5 63.2 64.1 63.8 65.8 64.2 65.5 73.9 78.2 78.4

cSt100C 11.76 10.91 11.11 11.35 11.27 11.82 11.38 11.75 13.97 15.08 15.11

Flashpt 375 375 325 415 360 395 380 400 440 385 410

Fuel %
Antif% 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Water % 0 0 tr 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Insol % 0.3 0.3 0.2 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3

TBN 1.8 4 4.7 3.2 2.9 2.6 2.9 4.9 4 1.7 1.3





Blackstone comments - no oil cooler on the car-
Copper continues to increase, reading more than 3-times higher than universal averages, which
are based on 6,700 miles of oil use. Your oil was in use 1,086 miles longer, but copper is not a metal that
typically increases with miles of oil use. So it appears your M54 has a bushing that is wearing poorly. One
other source could be a crack in an oil cooler, if your car has one. Oil viscosity was in the 10W/40 range.
The TBN was 1.3, showing very little active additive. We suggest short (4K-mile range) oil changes. That
can help control accumulation of copper in the oil.
 
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What are the guesses out there for the cause of the sporadic copper readings? One poster speculated on your other post that copper went up with fuel in the oil. What could be the deal with the copper, is it a bushing like Blackstone speculated?
 
The 10/08 Redline #'s were good. I don't think it's the oil. Tbn was 4 for that sample. The last two it's dropped a lot. Different lab?
 
Thanks for the interesting info. The oil is shot. Low tbn even with a top up. 5k max oci. You ought to take Gary up on his offer.
 
All UOAs are from blackstone. The difference is mostly highway miles on the 10/08 and mostly short trips on the 06/04/09 UOAs. This UOA is the same oil as 06/04/09 with about 2600 more highway miles and there was very little change, 4 ppm copper, 2 iron....and AL went down from 4 to 2... surprised no one has mentioned that or is a 50% variation normal at such small ppm readings?
 
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Regarding the Al, I bet if you sent in exactly the same oil 5 times, you'd get different Al #s for each one, lets say from 1-5 ppm. The labs just aren't that precise from what I have seen. But by using the same lab consistently this noise can be minimized somewhat. I noticed this with Ca, P, and zinc too, where UOAs in the same run can increase in ppm.
 
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