2008 BMW335i - Motul Xcess 8100 - 11,785 miles

[edyvw]

Originally Posted By: chrisri
8100 line of Motul oils are PAO based. However Motul 300V is Ester based.

Yeah, I was referring to regular Motul oils from 8100 series.

 

[Patman]

Originally Posted By: BMWTurboDzl
OP. Bravo for waiting until 50k miles! It's nice to see a UOA on a mature engine. I get so tired of seeing UOA's on young engines which are still wearing in.


Why? There's nothing wrong with doing UOAs on new engines and then continuing to do them for the life of the vehicle. It gives a good idea of how long it takes for the engine to fully break in and more data is always better than less data.

I find the oil life monitor in my wife's 2010 BMW 328i to be a little crazy. For instance, after resetting it, the monitor will tell you that you can go 24,000km until the next oil change. However, so far we've gone 6000 km and the monitor is telling us we can still go another 21,000km! At the rate that it's moving downwards, the monitor isn't going to signal an oil change until 48,000km has passed. That seems insane.

 

[BMWTurboDzl]

Originally Posted By: Patman
Originally Posted By: BMWTurboDzl
OP. Bravo for waiting until 50k miles! It's nice to see a UOA on a mature engine. I get so tired of seeing UOA's on young engines which are still wearing in.


Why? There's nothing wrong with doing UOAs on new engines and then continuing to do them for the life of the vehicle. It gives a good idea of how long it takes for the engine to fully break in and more data is always better than less data.

I find the oil life monitor in my wife's 2010 BMW 328i to be a little crazy. For instance, after resetting it, the monitor will tell you that you can go 24,000km until the next oil change. However, so far we've gone 6000 km and the monitor is telling us we can still go another 21,000km! At the rate that it's moving downwards, the monitor isn't going to signal an oil change until 48,000km has passed. That seems insane.
. The OLM for BMW doesn't tick mile for mile but serves as a general guide. BMW could've used dots or something else. Eventually the OLM will start dropping like a rock.

UOA's on young engines is for the most part useless because you haven't reached "normal". I see people using UOA's on young engines as justification to make all sorts of decisions regarding their choice of lubricant. Besides UOA's cost anywhere from 30-100% of the cost of the oil change itself.

 

[m6pwr]

^ agree with what TurboDzl said. Nothing wrong with doing uoa's over the life of the engine, but the uoa on the first drain of the factory fill is going to be an outlier, an aberration. You'll probably never going to have another uoa like it - - hopefully, because the wear metals are going to be way up, which is to be expected. It's the uoa's that come after that which will be useful in determining what is normal for your engine.

Sounds like you're on the european model - http://f30.bimmerpost.com/forums/showthread.php?t=894011.

I think it highly unlikely that your cbs computer together with the oil condition sensor in the sump is going to take your 328 to a 48k klm oil change.

Some folks have done uoa's to check on what's happening with the oil by drawing a sample through the dipstick tube for a uoa between drains. Unfortunately can't do that with f30's - - no dipstick tube.

One owner did do that on his 335d - - drew a sample through the dipstick tube for a uoa every 3k miles up until he drained the oil at 12k mi per cbs. He wanted to see if it was true that fresh oil took time to function as well as "aged oil" as reported - http://papers.sae.org/2007-01-4133/. His experiment showed that 40% of the total 12,000 mi iron wear on his 335d occurred during the first 3000 mi.



.

 

[nighamreuki]

Originally Posted By: m6pwr
Bravo! Thanks so much for posting - - and having the courage to take your bimmer all the way to the "insane" oem recommended oci.

I'm bookmarking your uoa and am going to have it bronzed so I can post it on all the forthcoming threads on various BMW forums that foretell of the horrible deaths that will surely follow for all who dare to do BMW's recommended oci.


easy there tiger, just b/c this sample was good doesn't mean you have to celebrate especially with 70% highway. maybe this car never sees 4K RPMs or short trips.
look at my results and tell me if you would want to run longer. for most people 15K interval is damaging to the engine, but saves BMW tons of money. Thats why we have oil analysis to see how engine is wearing under specific conditions so we could behave accordingly.

 

[MCompact]

The M54 in my son's X3 almost totally depletes the oil's additive pack by 10,000 miles- TBN is always 1.0 or less. M1 0W-40, M1 5W-40 TDT, RT6... it makes no difference.

 

[strongmad]

Originally Posted By: nighamreuki
Originally Posted By: m6pwr
Bravo! Thanks so much for posting - - and having the courage to take your bimmer all the way to the "insane" oem recommended oci.

I'm bookmarking your uoa and am going to have it bronzed so I can post it on all the forthcoming threads on various BMW forums that foretell of the horrible deaths that will surely follow for all who dare to do BMW's recommended oci.


easy there tiger, just b/c this sample was good doesn't mean you have to celebrate especially with 70% highway. maybe this car never sees 4K RPMs or short trips.
look at my results and tell me if you would want to run longer. for most people 15K interval is damaging to the engine, but saves BMW tons of money. Thats why we have oil analysis to see how engine is wearing under specific conditions so we could behave accordingly.


By the same token, just because your engine is showing more wear than you like, doesn't mean all BMW engines do.

You say that for most people 15k intervals are damaging to engines, but there isn't any proof to support that statement. You showed a less than optimal report, I have one that shows that the 15k/ 1 year oil change is fine in my car. Anecdotally, I haven't heard of any engines grenading due to following BMW's recommended OCI.

Furthermore there is a major difference between your engine and mine. Mine is the twin turbocharged variety, while yours is the NA variety. Conventional wisdom would say that my oil is under more stress than the oil in your engine. And for informations sake, my car sees > 4k RPM on a daily basis. Just yesterday I bounced it off the limiter in first and second thanks to a kindly gentleman in a C230 in the lane next to me that got under my skin.

But ultimately, its up to each owner to decide what to do, and a UOI is important tool in that regards. On one fact we do agree, making blanket statements on a single report isn't wise.

 

[steve20]

looking at the 2 UOAs--it appears the OP was using BMW LL oil--the oil you are supposed to use for a 15K oci. The other poster has Castrol 5-30 listed in his uoa. You can't ever expect garden variety off the shelf Castrol from Walmart to perform as well as a LL oil in extended service, if that is what he used
And congratulations to OP--it's the first UOA over 10K miles I've seen with insolubles at 0.1