Is an Oil change every 24,000Km's unusual for 200K M54 engine?

[NaweedMustafa]

Hi all, i was running through the previous owners history and saw that he was changing the oil every 20-24k km's during his ownership. He owned the car from 149,000km's to 245,000 km's. he was doing roughly 13,000km's per year (similar to my usage). Ive read a lot that within 10,000km's is recommended for the longevity of the M54B30.

Did my first change 9,000km's after the previous owner, now im at 13,000km's since my first change so im debating if i should do it now or wait a bit longer.

Do let me know what you guys think

 

[Chris_D]

Well, at least the previous owner was following the BMW recommended interval.
The concensus amongst many as well as myself is that you will only benefit from conducting intermediate oil changes, especially for higher mileage cars (100k miles and above), as well as moving to a higher viscosity oil eg 5w30 to 5w40.
I had 285k miles out of an M52B25Tu engine and started intermediate oil changes at 100k miles.

My suggestion would be to go to 5W40 oil and change every 12,000 km.

Another top tip would be to invest in a Pela pump in order to suck the oil out of the block via the dipstick.
Means you don't have jack up the car or look for someone with a pit or a bridge as well as faffing around with the drain plug.
I usually recover exactly 6.5L and sometimes even a bit more when pumping it out!

 

[NaweedMustafa]

My suggestion would be to go to 5W40 oil and change every 12,000 km.

During his ownership (2016-20220, he did switch to 5W40. Should i still be worrying about that or it shouldnt be an issue? during his ownership the car was great. he also did a lot of preventive maintenance that ended up benefiting me after purchasing it at 245,000 Km's

 

[Chris_D]

My suggestion would be to go to 5W40 oil and change every 12,000 km.

During his ownership (2016-20220, he did switch to 5W40. Should i still be worrying about that or it shouldnt be an issue? during his ownership the car was great. he also did a lot of preventive maintenance that ended up benefiting me after purchasing it at 245,000 Km's

Absolutely NOTHING to worry about. It's a good preventive maintenance step.

 

[NaweedMustafa]

Cheers! I feel a lot more comfortable with 12-13k intervals with a 20 year old car. During the next service, i will also adjust the service interval indicator via coding. I enjoy the car way too much to be looking at the odometer, so i can see myself losing track of my km count haha

 

[Chris_D]

Cheers! I feel a lot more comfortable with 12-13k intervals with a 20 year old car. During the next service, i will also adjust the service interval indicator via coding. I enjoy the car way too much to be looking at the odometer, so i can see myself losing track of my km count haha

There's no real harm in that but I'd actually suggest leaving the oil reset until it coincides with the usual period as it also affects the other service interval indications. Just make a mental note or make a sticker indicating the next service due @ Xkm

 

[NaweedMustafa]

Aha, good to know. Thought it would be just for the oil only but indeed, i wouldnt want it to influence other indicators as well. thanks!

 

[Zedebee]

This is not definitive advice, but a useful guide to how the engine treats its oil. If the oil is golden, fluid and clean-looking, it’s probably OK. If the oil is darkening / black, or viscous and dirty looking it definitely needs a change regardless of mileage.

 

[smorris_12]

Unless you track a car or plan to keep it to a million miles, just follow the schedule. Failures of the reciprocating parts of modern engines are in the noise. Rust or something unrelated to oil will make a car worthless long before the bearings go.

 

[Chris_D]

Unless you track a car or plan to keep it to a million miles, just follow the schedule. Failures of the reciprocating parts of modern engines are in the noise. Rust or something unrelated to oil will make a car worthless long before the bearings go.

Pointless, incorrectly speculative and just downright bad advice.

 

[sars]

Unless you track a car or plan to keep it to a million miles, just follow the schedule. Failures of the reciprocating parts of modern engines are in the noise. Rust or something unrelated to oil will make a car worthless long before the bearings go.

Pointless, incorrectly speculative and just downright bad advice.

and your suggestion to increase the viscosity of the oil above the manufacturers recommendation is good advice? The question should have been how much oil is your car using? Some folks will increase the viscosity if they're using a litre of oil every few thousand miles, which may reduce the consumption but may actually reduce your engine life as the oil pump may not be sufficient to push the higher viscosity oil around correctly.

If his car is not using a lot of oil, keep to the recommended service intervals and keep an eye on the oil quality periodically.

 

[zriha]

It is unusual. M54 engine is an old design engine, and 10.000 km is something I applied in every car I owned. Fresh oil is fresh oil, no doubt of that. I see these crazy recommendations from the service manual, for instance, my Mini Cooper S with 2.0 turbo B48 engine is 30.000 km - are they really want to break the engine before the warranty ends?

There is no oil that can keep the viscosity at 30.000 km in a high-performance turbo engine, so yeah, I don't care what BMW tells me, I am changing every 10.000 km.

My Z4 is not going over 8.000 km per year, even less as it is a weekend car, so I am always changing oil every year, no matter if is it 5.000 km or 10.000 km.

 

[B21]

Unless you track a car or plan to keep it to a million miles, just follow the schedule. Failures of the reciprocating parts of modern engines are in the noise. Rust or something unrelated to oil will make a car worthless long before the bearings go.

Pointless, incorrectly speculative and just downright bad advice.

and your suggestion to increase the viscosity of the oil above the manufacturers recommendation is good advice? The question should have been how much oil is your car using? Some folks will increase the viscosity if they're using a litre of oil every few thousand miles, which may reduce the consumption but may actually reduce your engine life as the oil pump may not be sufficient to push the higher viscosity oil around correctly.

If his car is not using a lot of oil, keep to the recommended service intervals and keep an eye on the oil quality periodically.

I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stock on this one…

Much as I hate to endorse anything ChrisD says…

5w30 and 5w40 by definition will have broadly the same viscosity when cold..when hot the 40 will be thicker than the 30..but will be still much less viscous than cold 5w oil…

Moreover BMW state that for this engine 5W30 and 5W40 are recommended…

 

[Chris_D]

Unless you track a car or plan to keep it to a million miles, just follow the schedule. Failures of the reciprocating parts of modern engines are in the noise. Rust or something unrelated to oil will make a car worthless long before the bearings go.

Pointless, incorrectly speculative and just downright bad advice.

and your suggestion to increase the viscosity of the oil above the manufacturers recommendation is good advice? The question should have been how much oil is your car using? Some folks will increase the viscosity if they're using a litre of oil every few thousand miles, which may reduce the consumption but may actually reduce your engine life as the oil pump may not be sufficient to push the higher viscosity oil around correctly.

If his car is not using a lot of oil, keep to the recommended service intervals and keep an eye on the oil quality periodically.

Again, argumentative, speculative and poor advice that deviates from a long-held and widely accepted concensus.

Let's face it; there are a 1000 other dynamics/influencers that will affect the longevity of any engine but unless you go to the lengths of having your oil analysed to give a more accurate indication of the condition of your motor and whether it's still operating within design tolerances then the value of performing safe preventive maintenance and changing oil more frequently and to a slightly higher viscosity is far greater than the risk of 'sticking to the schedule'.
There are NO disbenefits to preventive maintenance.

 

[smorris_12]

<shrug> I've run several cars at well over the sorts of mileages average people run away from and oil related problems have never shown up compared to all the other things that kill cars.

Changing the oil more often on cars that will never be owned for more than a few years (the majority of people) and saying it proves anything is akin to the elephant scarer I bought. Works a treat, that.

As for "widely held consensus" I've never heard such bollox. The utter BS that gets repeated time and again in forums, whether long out of date in or based on nothing at all, is legion.

But what do I know. I'll get back to the 600cc Smart car engine that I'm rebuilding - noted for eating piston rings and valve stem oil seals at surprisingly low mileages. But not a problem that affects the 700cc. Which implies a design flaw.

 

[kis]

Sorry haven't read every response, but its based on mileage/age. Whichever comes sooner.

From the handbook:

Minimal use drivers who drive fewer than about 6200 miles or 10000km per year should nevertheless have the oil changed at least every 2 years since engine oil deteriorates over time regardless of use.

So that means a 2003 vehicle should have (as a minimum) 10x oil changes. More if you're doing the mileage to warrant.

 

[sars]

I don't have the actual manual to confirm, but my brief search on various oil sites gave a recommendation only of 5W30 and not 5W40 for the M54B30, whereas the N52B30 could use both, however the oils are not identical and only similar in lay terms: -
For 5w30 oil: Kinematic viscosity is between 9.3-12.5mm²/s and Dynamic viscosity is 2.9mPas.
For 5w40 oil: Kinematic viscosity is between 12.5-16.3mm²/s and Dynamic viscosity is 3.5mPas.
[ref]Chris_D[/ref], criticism of [ref]smorris_12[/ref], statement as bad advice seemed overtly aggressive (his normal modus operandi when someone disagrees) when he was advocating using a more viscous oil.

 

[Chris_D]

As for "widely held consensus" I've never heard such bollox. The utter BS that gets repeated time and again in forums, whether long out of date in or based on nothing at all, is legion.

You just keep doing you fella.

 

[Chris_D]

[ref]Chris_D[/ref], criticism of [ref]smorris_12[/ref], statement as bad advice seemed overtly aggressive (his normal modus operandi when someone disagrees) when he was advocating using a more viscous oil.

We can all swing our handbags around dear

As for "widely held consensus" I've never heard such bollox. The utter BS that gets repeated time and again in forums, whether long out of date in or based on nothing at all, is legion.

Anything to comment on here regarding 'overt aggressiveness'?
Thought not.
:roll:

 

[B21]

I don't have the actual manual to confirm, but my brief search on various oil sites gave a recommendation only of 5W30 and not 5W40 for the M54B30, whereas the N52B30 could use both, however the oils are not identical and only similar in lay terms: -
For 5w30 oil: Kinematic viscosity is between 9.3-12.5mm²/s and Dynamic viscosity is 2.9mPas.
For 5w40 oil: Kinematic viscosity is between 12.5-16.3mm²/s and Dynamic viscosity is 3.5mPas.
[ref]Chris_D[/ref], criticism of [ref]smorris_12[/ref], statement as bad advice seemed overtly aggressive (his normal modus operandi when someone disagrees) when he was advocating using a more viscous oil.

So in fact you can use both 5W 30 and 5W40 as 'broadly' they are similar when cold

BMW TIS states that Longlife 01 and 04 are suitable of which there are many entries for 5W 40 oils