LiquiMoly Race Tech GT1 10W-60 in BMW S54B32

[WellLubed]

What the general opinion on this? Castrol is no longer BMW's "official" oil, though TWS is still available directly from Castrol.. but is very expensive. I've read of many E39 M5 owners using LM 10W-60 and being happy with it. It's readily available from Amazon at a much better price than TWS. LM is not officially sanctioned for the M car engines by BMW, but LM claims to meet their spec. Any reason I should be concerned about switching to LM?

 

[Ramblejam]

My response would be that unless you can reasonably articulate as to why you believe a 60-weight product is ideal for your operating conditions, there are superior choices out there.

http://www.m5board.com/vbulletin/attachm..._aug2013_v2.pdf

Mobil 1 0w-40, and it's excellent availability/pricing @ Walmart immediately comes to mind.

 

[RoadRaceJosh]

Ramblejam,

The S54B32 engine used in the M/Motorsport cars has a design flaw. The rod bearings are too small and the original design was known to fail in 60k miles and some times fewer. The "fix" was to increase the bearing clearances and spec a 10W-60 oil. There is at least one shop that will sell you a modified crank with wider rod bearing journals and connecting rods to match. If one were to build an engine as so a 0W-40 would undoubtedly work very well.

As these cars are well past warranty I would have zero qualms running the LM.

 

[d00df00d]

to BITOG!

I've been in and out of this debate quite a bit, as has a friend of mine who owns an E46 M3 and is big on M3F. Here's the summary of what I've gathered.

TWS and the new Shell product are the only oils that BMW is willing to put its official weight behind for this engine.

Are there other products that should work? I'd be shocked if there weren't. Is LiquiMoly Race Tech GT1 10w-60 one of them? Probably.

The catch is, BMW isn't willing to officially say those other oils will work, and no one else has tested them the way BMW has tested the approved oils.

You're the only one who can decide how to weigh that against the mountains of anecdotes behind the non-approved oils. If it were my S54, I'd run TWS and nothing else. At the same time, I certainly understand wanting to look elsewhere. Good luck.

 

[WellLubed]

Thanks for all the replies. I suspect the only reason BMW doesn't endorse more than one oil is simply about money. They can probably wring more out of one company as an "exclusive" than by endorsing several. Or maybe it's all about testing, who knows. Josh's reply about the rod bearing issue is spot-on. I wouldn't feel comfortable at all running M1 0W-40 in this car, especially in the heat of the Sonoran desert, though I do run it in my M54-equipped ZHP and wouldn't run anything else. The fact that WallyMart now carries it locally in the 5-quart jugs at silly-cheap prices is icing on the cake.

I'll continue to run LM, and at some point, I should start sending oil samples in to Blackstone for analysis, to monitor rod bearing wear. The car is only at 58k miles and doesn't get driven particularly hard, so it will probably hold up a long time.

 

[SilverC6]

I can understand BMW using a familiar product like TWS in a critical application.

While a 10W-60 is a 10W-60 is a 10W-60, not all engine oils are alike.

I will always follow the TWS recommendation in my Z4M and any application where BMW requires it.

Risking an engine that produces that much HP/liter to another oil doesn't make good sense.

But Castrol TWS is available at O'Reilly for $12.99 a liter.

 

[ammolab]

Originally Posted By: WellLubed


I'll continue to run LM, and at some point, I should start sending oil samples in to Blackstone for analysis, to monitor rod bearing wear. The car is only at 58k miles and doesn't get driven particularly hard, so it will probably hold up a long time.


Now is the time to sample that oil! My S54 was at 60,000 miles, all on TWS when my first oil sample came back with 4 times the lead and copper as the "average". Rod bearings were shot. Car was not at all driven "hard".

 

[KenO]

Originally Posted By: WellLubed


I'll continue to run LM, and at some point, I should start sending oil samples in to Blackstone for analysis, to monitor rod bearing wear. The car is only at 58k miles and doesn't get driven particularly hard, so it will probably hold up a long time.



Thats also part of the problem with these engines, too many people are 'nice' to them, leading to excessive blowbye. They're a [censored] race motor put into a streetcar. They need to be warmed up gently, and then drive the living [censored] out of them once oil temps are where they need to be (which is rather quick, oil temps warm up to 160+ in summertime in just a few miles.


The shop I work for has a customer who owns an E46 M3 GTS3 car that we put together last fall, fresh rod bearings on an otherwise stock, ~100k+ motor, and has won literally every race he's been in. It's been running Redline 40wt race oil, Blackstone analysis has been great.