What ACEA A3 oil would you recommend for '98 BMW M3?

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TLK

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Feb 21, 2005
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Silicon Valley
The owner's manual is quite useless and in general I don't find much consensus on BMW bboards. The car probably got 20w50 dino before me, and I've tried Redline and M1 (currently M1 15w50).

I live in the SF Bay Area, so it's not too cold, not blazing hot for very long, some days in the 90's and 100's during the summer.

I know to select an ACEA A3 and/or BMW LL-01 rated oil, which has been my guideline, but I still don't get which elixer and of what viscosity would be best for my situation.

I've yet to see German Castrol on the shelves of any nearby store (there is AZ, but out of my way) and WalMart is just down the street (hence M1). I had Redline 10w30 until last summer's hot temps and I found that the engine seemed to warm up much more slowly according to the water temp gauge on the dash (reached midpoint/needle straight after longer time driving the same route and speeds), which I wasn't happy about because of the peculiarity of the E36 M3 3.2L engine which is that it's a bit rough when the engine has cooled off completely (thought by many to be a software bug, but installing the fix can limit top end performance).

Also this engine seems to consume a quart of M1 15w50 about every 1000-2000 miles so far.

I've thought about dropping to M1 0w40 or trying Redline in a xxW40 but concerned about engine wear when running hard. Like a lot of people the car gets short trips to work and back but also some harder highway and backroad runs.

Any advice?
 
Personally I think that the 15W-50 is much thicker than you need.

I would be looking for a good 5W-40 synthetic like Mobil-1 "Truck" or one of the A3 rated 10W-30 synthetics from any of the major brands.

John
 
M1 0w40 is A3 and BMW Longlife 01 approved. M1 EP 10w40 and 15w50 is A3 rated. No info on M1 T&SUV 5w40, although I can't see it not being usuable.
 
Before I found out where you live, I thought to myself, "Someone has to have mentioned GC," but oh well.

Do you have an oil pressure guage reading directly from the block? If not, than I think it only proper that the taken assumption is that a "regular" weight oil wouldn't provide ample pressure to protect the engine in such operating conditions. I'll admit to doing it, and will even go as far as to think 5w-40 would be something to consider, only that you mentioned it has been run on 20w-50 (for how long?). I'm not really sure what to make for changes with such oil history without having some sort of known baseline.

Just my 2-cents.
 
Id say either M1 0w-40, GC (which I know you cant get, but keep your hoes up), M1 T&SUV 5w-40, or rotella Syn 5w-40.

JMH
 
There's nothing wrong with just using the BMW synthetic oil you can get from the dealer. It's a heavy 5W30 that meets the BMW specs, even though it's group III and is no longer a bargain at $4.29 or so a quart at the Mountain View dealer.

I don't know about the S52 engine, but the M52 2.8L in my '97 328i shows low wear with almost any oil I've thrown at it--Delo 400, Chevron Supreme 10W40 (wouldn't personally recommend it because it shears down to 30wt. quickly), Castrol 0W30 GC. It seems to run best with GC--smoother, better gas mileage. I haven't tried M1 15W50, and maybe that's better suited for the higher performance S52 especially if you take it on the track. I know that one of the local BMW mechanical gurus in the Bay Area, Bill Arnold, recommends and uses it.

Regarding your concern with oil consumption, does using M1 make it worse? I believe the S-engines have a greater propensity for consuming oil than the regular BMW engines. A quart every 1,500 miles doesn't seem too alarming. You could always try the AutoRx treatment. It helped on my '95 525iT (noticeably smoother, quieter), but didn't seem to do much on the '97.
 
If you want to try the famous German Castrol 0W-30 I have seen it in some of the Silicon Valley AutoZones. Some sold it off at $1/quart clearance prices while others still have it in stock for ~$5/quart.

There is a whole section here on BITOG dedicated to that oil.

John
 
It seems that oil consumption went up a bit on the S52 when I switched to the M1 15w50.

I'm feeling less inclined towards using the M1 0w40 (even though it's the only other M1 with ACEA A3 and BMW LL-01) because I keep reading on this board that it shears down rather too quickly.

Nope, I have no oil pressure or oil temp gauge currently but sure would like to install them.

I've seen the GC forum, and thanks for the tip that it in fact could be had in this area. Does anyone know what kind of HTHS numbers GC has and if it will hold up under hard use?

Can anybody give me a basic explanation of why I often hear recommendations to continue an established oil regimen on an older car? For instance, I've heard a few times that if a car was run on 20w50 dino, it might be best to continue on with that.
 
Forgot to mention, 70K miles on the engine. Exact details unknown, but probably 20w50 dino is mostly what it got for most of that.
 
TLK, I get the impression you haven't run the M1 15W-50 for too long? At 70K your engine is pretty new. The M1 may be doing some cleaning out, resulting in a bit higher consumption for the short term. I might continue to run it and see if it improves. I bet it will.

Give it a couple of short oci's and forget the 20W-50 dino.

[ March 18, 2005, 04:08 PM: Message edited by: haley10 ]
 
quote:
Originally posted by TLK:
The owner's manual is quite useless and in general I don't find much consensus on BMW bboards. The car probably got 20w50 dino before me, and I've tried Redline and M1 (currently M1 15w50).

I live in the SF Bay Area, so it's not too cold, not blazing hot for very long, some days in the 90's and 100's during the summer.

I know to select an ACEA A3 and/or BMW LL-01 rated oil, which has been my guideline, but I still don't get which elixer and of what viscosity would be best for my situation.

I've yet to see German Castrol on the shelves of any nearby store (there is AZ, but out of my way) and WalMart is just down the street (hence M1). I had Redline 10w30 until last summer's hot temps and I found that the engine seemed to warm up much more slowly according to the water temp gauge on the dash (reached midpoint/needle straight after longer time driving the same route and speeds), which I wasn't happy about because of the peculiarity of the E36 M3 3.2L engine which is that it's a bit rough when the engine has cooled off completely (thought by many to be a software bug, but installing the fix can limit top end performance).

Also this engine seems to consume a quart of M1 15w50 about every 1000-2000 miles so far.

I've thought about dropping to M1 0w40 or trying Redline in a xxW40 but concerned about engine wear when running hard. Like a lot of people the car gets short trips to work and back but also some harder highway and backroad runs.

Any advice?
Click to expand...
Valvoline Maxlife Synth 5w-30 is also BMW LL-02 and ACEA A3 rated.
 
quote:
Does anyone know what kind of HTHS numbers GC has and if it will hold up under hard use?
Click to expand...
0W-30 Castrol Syntec has an HT/HS viscosity of 3.5 cP. "GC" Syntec has been shown to be very shear stable.

If this were my car I would do an Auto-Rx cleaning with a "Dino" API CI-4/SL 15W-40 motor oil. After that I would give either Castrol Syntec 5W-50 or Mobil 1 15W-50 a try.

quote:
The M1 may be doing some cleaning out, resulting in a bit higher consumption for the short term. I might continue to run it and see if it improves. I bet it will.
Click to expand...
I agree with haley10. If you are consuming oil with Mobil 1 15W-50 then you are probably going to use more oil when you switch to a 0W-30 motor oil.

[ March 19, 2005, 12:51 AM: Message edited by: Sin City ]
 
Mobil1 0w-40 BMW LL-01
Castrol Formula R 0w-40 BMW LL-01
Motul X-cess 5w-40 BMW LL-01
Fuchs 5w-30 BMW LL-04(New generation BMW oil)
 
M1 dropped the non-EP 15w50, and I'm a bit afraid that the M1 15w50 EP may not be good for my catalytic convertor, given that the engine is consuming oil at this rate.
 
I would not worry about cat issues. It might not burn 15w-50 EP too badly anyway. Some loss could be leaks, afterall.
 
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