strugglinauthor
Member
Scooba_Steve said:
Thx. I'll have a look on the Net.
It looks as though you know a lot more about oil than I do!
Oil Change
- Thread starter strugglinauthor
- Start date
Thx. I'll have a look on the Net.
It looks as though you know a lot more about oil than I do!
It's a no brainier IMO, keep the oil clean and give the engine the best chance you can, for the job the oil does it's virtually free.
My car says it does'nt need a change until 2017 or another 17000 miles, that's on a just run in new engine on it's original oil, seems crazy to me so I'll be doing my own oil and filter change in a few weeks, I'm old school so need it or not it's getting it.
My car says it does'nt need a change until 2017 or another 17000 miles, that's on a just run in new engine on it's original oil, seems crazy to me so I'll be doing my own oil and filter change in a few weeks, I'm old school so need it or not it's getting it.
I bought my car new in Sep 2013..At the time, the service interval was 2 years/18000 miles. I only do approx 4k per year, so did a bit of googling about this. Somewhere ( Can't remember where, said the service interval was going down to 16k/1 year. Anyway, got my first (2 year) service in Sep 2015, and the service indicator now shows Sep 16/16k, so obviously BMW have had a rethink......Bonus for me, as I paid £350 for 5 years service 
toonmal said:I bought my car new in Sep 2013..At the time, the service interval was 2 years/18000 miles. I only do approx 4k per year, so did a bit of googling about this. Somewhere ( Can't remember where, said the service interval was going down to 16k/1 year. Anyway, got my first (2 year) service in Sep 2015, and the service indicator now shows Sep 16/16k, so obviously BMW have had a rethink......Bonus for me, as I paid £350 for 5 years service
Your next service is brake fluid at 3 years. Oil is still 2 years. It used to be 2 years on both but BMW changed it to 2 years for oil and 3 years for the first brake fluid change and then thereafter it's every two years.
Actually quite a good little money spinner so you have to visit a dealer every year and instead of having a combined cost for oil and brake fluid after the service packs finished you have to pay out each year for each service and the associated labour charge of usually at least 1 hour per service.
Interesting the comments re oil changes annually. I've always thought every 2 years was fine unless you're tracking or travelling some serious Km's. As I'm only using the Z4 as a weekend/light use car I'm happy to change the oil and filter (myself) every 2 years, and use Castrol Edge Titanium 5w30 (it's BMW LL approved, which doesn't really matter anyway if you're changing it every 2 years. LL stands for Long Life, meant to last the long haul between BMW's joke of an oil change schedule).
stuartinzg
Active member
Not many people I have spoken to are aware of this...
I did a lot of reading regarding oil types and viscosity when investigating whether I would harm the engine using 5-40w rather than 30.
Regardless of that (we should stick to bmws recommended oil types for normal driving) there was a chap who provided oil samples post 20k km's and discovered that your typical 5-40w oil will degrade the extent that it now has a 5-20w viscosity. Interesting...so I carried on reading the report, hence came to the conclusion that this must be the reason high powered turbo cars have such short oil change intervals (evo-4k miles). The added heat created by the turbos means the oil degrades faster. Therefore if your engine works to very tight tolerances (which double vanos engines typically do) and you drive your car hard, you should really change the oil much more frequently.
Also, as a heads up, BMW recently lowered their 2 year service interval to 12 months and halved the mileage for many of their turbo engines.
Cheaper oil changed twice as often will always be better than expensive oil changed half as much.
Cheers
I did a lot of reading regarding oil types and viscosity when investigating whether I would harm the engine using 5-40w rather than 30.
Regardless of that (we should stick to bmws recommended oil types for normal driving) there was a chap who provided oil samples post 20k km's and discovered that your typical 5-40w oil will degrade the extent that it now has a 5-20w viscosity. Interesting...so I carried on reading the report, hence came to the conclusion that this must be the reason high powered turbo cars have such short oil change intervals (evo-4k miles). The added heat created by the turbos means the oil degrades faster. Therefore if your engine works to very tight tolerances (which double vanos engines typically do) and you drive your car hard, you should really change the oil much more frequently.
Also, as a heads up, BMW recently lowered their 2 year service interval to 12 months and halved the mileage for many of their turbo engines.
Cheaper oil changed twice as often will always be better than expensive oil changed half as much.
Cheers
toonmal said:Hi Angie4m, oil change included
I know that as I have a service inclusive. What I was pointing out was you advised you had an oil change at 2 years and had read somewhere that it was changing to each year and after your service it was showing as the following year (I assumed from your comment about BMW having s 'rethink' that you had incorrectly assume this was oil change) but I was pointing out that the next service is a brake fluid change at 3 years. Next oil service is 4 years and the last brake fluid will be at 5 years.
The service inclusive also includes some random and drawn out check of the car.
But I was also pointing out that on 'newer' cars for people without a service inclusive or after they reach over 5 years old if you decide to keep it then you have to have is serviced every year. One year for oil and brake fluid the next. If you get a brake fluid and oil change at BMW currently they have a combined service price with a labour time spend of 90 mins where as for an oil change or brake fluid by themselves is charged at a minimum 1 hour labour. As I said its s great money spinner for BMW. Don't have to offer a combined service cost, charge more for labour and get you in to find 'possible' issues that aren't really issues but if they tell you it might need attention soon i.e. Brakes and tyres are always a good one then they might get people to change them earlier than needed making them even more money.