Originally Posted By: dnsio
Originally Posted By: umungus1122
I'd just go with the cheapest oil there that has BMW LL-01, MB 229.5 approval if you want long drain.
Then Shell will be the oil. How long? I'm clocking 6200 miles every 6 months, 50/50 City and Highway.
That's the big question, how long?
You have already told us that you have 50ppm sulphur in your fuel, which is pretty good. Not sure if you have mentioned the car yet. But even if you did, you would still get a variety of answers.
Some people change their oil every 3,000 miles while other people run the Euro long life oils with big sumps and change every 20,000 miles.
So if you run a Euro long life oil, like the Shell Helix Ultra 5W40 mentioned (or equivalent with BMW LL-01 and MB 229.5) then I personally would have no problem running it 12,000 miles and change it once per year. I'm sure others will differ, but lots of people in Europe do 20,000 miles and 2 years, which is a bit much for me. But 12.000 miles seems OK to me on the best oils like you are considering.
A similar question was asked in another thread, and Joe who use to make oils for a living gave the following answer.
Originally Posted By: SonofJoe
In concept, there's nothing wrong with extended OCIs. You only have to look at what happens on commercial trucks, where 50,000+ mile OCIs are common, to conclude it must be technically possible.
There no absolute answer to the question because max OCI depends not only in the oil itself but how you drive, the prevailing climate, your vehicle, it's age, the relative size of the sump, etc , etc.
However if you have full synthetic oil with a very low Noack with a goodly amount of add pack (and not a lot of VII) and you live in a temperate climate and drive gently with a decent percentage of highway running, then I wouldn't worry too much about running out to a 12,000 mile oil drain. You would probably be good to go to 15,000 miles but there comes a point where the balance of risk to reward says, just change the oil.