Redline Oil Bad for New Engines

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I agree with F1 Crazy about the BMW specing of M1 5w-30. At the time of that spec you had the 30 weight or had to go to 15w-50. Given what they use in Europe, I would stay with an A3 rated oil for your 2001. Considering both Castrol German and Mobil 1 0w-40 are LL-01 approved, I would use one of those two.

Cary
 
I'd stick with a A3 rated oil. Mobil will soon be releasing a 5w-40 that will meet that spec. and there 30wt oils are rumored to be A3 rated soon. I'd use Amsoil or GC right now.
 
I've owned cars in the past that said not to use synthetic until it was past break-in and I'm pretty sure I remember seeing that on synthetic oil bottles too, but this would be like, 15-20 years ago. Now a lot of cars come with syn from the factory, so I wouldn't worry about it. Since I'm still a little old-school, I change with dino oil at half the recommended interval the first time, then at the 5k recommended interval and every 5k after with synthetic.
 
quote:

Originally posted by ekrampitzjr:
If a recent car magazine article is correct, certain of its engines are known for catastrophically failing after nonapproved oil was installed.

I think you will find that BMW engines were blowing up with BMW spec'd oils. They then changed the spec in an attempt to mask engineering problems. This is discussed in depth in another thread.
Cheers
 
quote:

Originally posted by theguru:
I think you will find that BMW engines were blowing up with BMW spec'd oils. They then changed the spec in an attempt to mask engineering problems. This is discussed in depth in another thread.
Cheers


This is simply not true, failures are not oil related, change in the oil spec happened before the majority of the engines blew up. Please restrain yourself from posting this kind of misinformation, it only adds to the confusion.
 
I think if you read correctly that my point was that it wasn't oil related. The quote that I was reponding to was suggesting that the blown motors was from using non-BMW approved oils.
 
Change in oil viscosity wasn't there to mask a problem, it happened before problems surfaced. It doesn't look to me that BMW is trying to escape the liability and they do a right thing by performing a Service Action. It certainly took them way less time than Toyota to get the things straight...
 
quote:

I'm willing to bet if you ask Redline that they'll tell you their oil is not just for "nitrous V-tec Civics."

Umm, let's not forget...they are SELLING the stuff.
Maybe this thread should have been titled "Is RedLine the best break-in oil?" to get non-emotional responses.

If someone had a nitrous V-tec, what oil would be best...possibly RedLine. A BMW with 3000 miles on it...best oil is ~possibly~ BMW. Best interval...RTFM!
 
I don't know very much of BMW but if their factory does the same as porsche than that means the motors leave the plant already broken-in. Which is the reason why they run synthetic from the "factory". As far as rebuilt engines, that's different all together. If anyone here has rebuilt a motor before, they know that once you fire it up, usually it runs like crap but over the course of 20 min will steadily start running great. Anyone care to take a guess as to why that is? And also, the rev limited thing of not going over 5k or so has to do with valve guides. If you've ever felt a valve in a freshly rebuild head it's stubborn as **** . It takes about 1k or so miles before one can assume the valve is sliding freely in the guide without resistence, safely. If you have a warrentee, follow it, wait until afterwards to start experimenting. You wouldn't want to upset the accountants at bmw, that took a lot of time to figure out what's safe and what isn't in your warrantee, would you?
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[ November 16, 2003, 08:08 PM: Message edited by: MikeL ]
 
Thanks all for the input. Just busy reading and trying to make understand each response.....you guys sure are a bunch of oil nuts
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There is no way I was going to do the first oil change at 15,000 miles. I've come from the habit of changing the oil out every 5K miles, but now that I've come across BITOG, UOA's, etc will help me determine what works best. I also now know that while a particular oil may work great for one engine, it may not neccesarily be for the other, even if it calls for the same weight..

On the oil change service indicators, the average is around 15K miles when it prompts you for an oil change. Part of the reason I suspect why it is so long is to keep their cost down. BMW is obliged to give a free oil change at the 1 year interval during the 4 years covered under warranty.
 
Tsoa, He had 3200 miles on it before he changed the oil!!!! If it was not broken in by then it is never going to break in!!! How long do you think it takes to seat rings???? How long do think it takes for cam followers to wear in enough for break in to be done with????

Honda's OEM oil has an insane amount of molly in it compared to anything you can buy over the counter!! THe only oil with more moly then Honda break in oil is Redline. If memory serves me right Honda factory fill has something like 359ppm of molly in the oil and this was after something like 5000 miles in the crankcase so we know some of it was taken up by the engine!

The top ring is tapered and chromemoly plated. Their are simply not that many asperitys! The valve train componets are broken in in the first 20 minutes of runnings so all that is left is rings,timeing chains and oil pump. Guides and bearings simply wear out.

Their are quite a few people in the Automotive field that claim that you get the first 12-20 miles to get a good ring to cylinder wear pattern and that after that you are out of luck. I do not know that I subcribe to this belife but is surely does not require 15,000 mile, 10,000, or even 5000 miles. Now I want to be clear that I am not talking about trending down of wear metals. I am talking about the rings sealing properly and the acclerated wear particles ending. When an engine is breaking in you will see alot huge wear particles.By huge I am talking well over 20 microns like 40 microns and larger. Once breakin is finished the wear numbers may well be high for a while yet to come but the average size of the particles come to 20 microns and smaller. You would have to send in the oil filter and have them count the number of particles by size to really see this.

If their was any truth to synthetic oil causeing problems with breakin your most expensive Luxury and High Performance vechiles would not use synthetics as factory fill! We have all seen how well some non-synthetics do at preventing wear on this site. Heck Schaffers turns in better numbers then M1 in a lot of cases. Chevron Supreme has about the same additive package as M1 and has in some cases bested M1 as well.

I put synthetic in quite a few motors either at the 500 mile mark or after the 20 minute run in and never had a problem. Who here on this site has had an engine fail to breakin over the life of the engine because they ran synthetic in it after 3200 miles????
 
quote:

Originally posted by chefwong:
On the oil change service indicators, the average is around 15K miles when it prompts you for an oil change. Part of the reason I suspect why it is so long is to keep their cost down. BMW is obliged to give a free oil change at the 1 year interval during the 4 years covered under warranty.

It has more to do with ease of maintenance and environmental issues, cars in Europe don't come with free maintenance but still run extended intervals.

It's a good approach to establish your drain intervals based on UOAs. We've seen good reports after 15K miles but also really crappy ones after half of that mileage, it all depends on your driving conditions.
 
OT
Here in Oz the standard OCI is 10,000-15,000km for most vehicles. Few give free servicing now, but has been done in the past.

The standard warranty period for local cars is 3 years with the Hyundai giving 5 years. Interestingly BMW Oz standard warranty is 2 years with pay extra for 1 year extension.
 
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