What about euro engines makes them have a different requirement?

[CarDoc66]

Extended drain intervals and timing chain wear requirements.

 

[edyvw]

Extended drain intervals and timing chain wear requirements.

Deposits, evaporation loss, HTHS etc.
MB229.3 and later 5, LL01 etc. are product of HP wars in Europe. In 90’s and beginning of 2000 speed limit was optional in many European countries, and we all know about Germany.
European manufacturers were using small turbo engines, especially diesels, since beginning of 90’s. Here people still discuss whether 2.0T engine is good enough, and I owned 1991 Opel Calibra 2.0T in 1998. It was called “Autobahn murderer.”
Oils had to lubricate properly these small, hp packed engines, and API couldn’t and didn’t want to deliver.

 

[CarDoc66]

Deposits, evaporation loss, HTHS etc.
MB229.3 and later 5, LL01 etc. are product of HP wars in Europe. In 90’s and beginning of 2000 speed limit was optional in many European countries, and we all know about Germany.
European manufacturers were using small turbo engines, especially diesels, since beginning of 90’s. Here people still discuss whether 2.0T engine is good enough, and I owned 1991 Opel Calibra 2.0T in 1998. It was called “Autobahn murderer.”
Oils had to lubricate properly these small, hp packed engines, and API couldn’t and didn’t want to deliver.

You’re correct, I forgot about DI intake deposits.

 

[barryh]

I recall renting a Fiat Uno in France in 1990. Three of us piled in and navigated the old part of Boudreaux every day for a week. It was a real eye opener. Europe is full of little ____ boxes. While the US fought against diminishing resources with CAFE, Europe kept on using small cars which were used on roads developed centuries ago in which each lane was the width of two horse’s asses.

Sadly the era of the small car is coming to an end as cars turn in to SUV's and become bigger heavier and wider except for those roads of course which are as narrow as ever.

Farcical as it seems, net zero is removing the choice of small cars available because over zealous EU emissions regs have made small cars too expensive to manufacture and sell at a profit. Ford has dropped the Fiesta and other manufacturers have signalled they will follow suit and delete the small cars in their range. Makes no sense to me that lower emission small cars are being legislated out of existence when they should actually be encouraged.

A good move in principle in my opinion is that France has said they will discourage excessively large and heavy cars in Paris by 3 times higher parking charges, the limits being 1600 Kg for ICE cars and 2000 Kg for EV's. You could argue if those limits and charges are fair and realistic but I like the principle of encouraging small car use in cities.

 

[350Rocket]

Partly true. CAFE oil and shortish OCI is one way of lowering emissions.
EU does longer OCI instead, less oil consumed. We dont drive as many miles per year in average, so many times its the month limit that hits first.

API 30 visc seems to be unnecessarily thin imo.


"The average American traveled 1.98 times more miles on the road each year than the average resident of France, 2.06 times more than the average German, and 2.23 times more than the average person in Great Britain.4 Residents of those countries often enjoy communities where more destinations can be accessed on foot, by public transportation, or by intercity rail."

I do land surveying and construction layout for work, in Canada but we're just like the US when it comes to this. An example of a typical day I might drive half an hour at 50mph to my first job in the morning , spend a couple hours there and then half an hour at 70mph to the office...get paperwork and more jobs...then drive 45 minutes at 70mph to another job in the opposite direction....spend an hour or 2 there and then drive another half an hour to 2 more jobs in the city on the way back, then back to the office and finally half an hour home again.
My olm is down to 0% at 5k miles or so. Probably an average of 15 engine starts a day and many heat cycles, plus some some amount of idling with AC or heat on.
Everything is spaced out around here. Sometimes my jobs are all close by in the city other days I might drive a couple hours north to one job for the day.

 

[Cary]

Some of my past rentals in Germany/EU. All of them hit their limiter when on the Autobahn and stuck there for a while

I used Sixt for the M cars and Europcar for the E200 and Opel Insignia diesel.

Also made these videos for a friend who never has experienced the Autobahn, yes I know it's not safe to do so:

Enterting the Autobahn to Vmax:

Entering the de-restricted part of Autobahn:

The G80 M3 is so quick it was almost anti-climatic hitting the speed limiter.

View attachment 202887

View attachment 202888

View attachment 202889

View attachment 202890

View attachment 202891

View attachment 202892

I think what a lot of people also don't understand about driving on the Autobahn is that is not just hop on and drive as fast as you want. While about 2/3 has no speed limit, the other 1/3 does and especially near cities (100-130 kph), there is a lot of jumping back and forth between the two with hard acceleration followed by hard braking. Also with the fuel prices and drops in fuel economy as you go faster, most people are driving 130-140kph (80-85 mph Merican) in the unregulated zones. Top speed is great, but really, that pull from 100-200kph is where the action is.

With modern transmissions, gearing, and turbos, European cars accelerate hard from a standstill. In the older cars there was a compromise between that dead stop acceleration and 100kph up acceleration. In my old BMW 535i (E34 with a M30 engine and 5 speed), 0-60 mph was on the order of 8 seconds and it would get demolished by Fox body 5.0 mustangs. That same car from 60mph up, would in turn pull away from those Mustangs.