[NaTuReB0Y]

What 15,000 miles oil change........................

my car says it's every 20,000+ miles oil change.................

come on people.......if you own BMW....wouldn't you recommend 15-20k miles oil change too......

or are you going to change everyone's oil for free at every 5k miles.....

i was brought up with the slogan "3,000 miles/3 month" oil change interval......

but i modified it to 5,000 miles for each oil change........

[mayno]

Originally Posted by NaTuReB0Y

What 15,000 miles oil change........................

my car says it's every 20,000+ miles oil change.................

come on people.......if you own BMW....wouldn't you recommend 15-20k miles oil change too......

or are you going to change everyone's oil for free at every 5k miles.....

i was brought up with the slogan "3,000 miles/3 month" oil change interval......

but i modified it to 5,000 miles for each oil change........

change your oil every 3K miles is so 80's and only applies to conventional oil.

5K miles...so you're basically saying that premium synth oil is only 1.6x better than conventional dino oil. I would say that it's at least 3X better which would be 9K miles.

[NaTuReB0Y]

5k miles oil change interval is only for me........I'm not recommending anything for anyone.

I like to keep my cars in top running shapes......If you want to run your vehicles to 9k or 20k miles......:rocks:

DIY with Synthetic oil and Filters for my vehicles -

Honda - $25
Lexus - $40
BMW - $45

[epiphone3]

As promised.

BMW E39 540i with valve cover off at 108,xxx miles. Had Synthetic oil changes every 7,500 miles according to the owner. His shit looks brand new and that's why I do my oil changes every 5000 miles. I like stuff to stay brand new.

[e.n335]

Thats how usual the engines of my cars looked like as well. It's very cheap to keep them in this condition: good oil and frequent changes. Behaving different is simply . I change oil every 6.500 miles and do 1 to 2 break-in oil changes.

BTW, it's the same with good gas. It contains additives to keep the engine clean ( as already mentioned somewhere ).

You can save more money by eating a couple of burgers ( uups ) less.

[epiphone3]

Originally Posted by eugen.niederreiter

Thats how usual the engines of my cars looked like as well. It's very cheap to keep them in this condition: good oil and frequent changes. Behaving different is simply . I change oil every 6.500 miles and do 1 to 2 break-in oil changes.

BTW, it's the same with good gas. It contains additives to keep the engine clean ( as already mentioned somewhere ).

You can save more money by eating a couple of burgers ( uups ) less.

Agreed.

[ShinyRedCar]

Originally Posted by epiphone3

As promised.

BMW E39 540i with valve cover off at 108,xxx miles...

Wow! That's a pretty compelling photo! Thanks for the follow-up!

[Richwm]

Originally Posted by epiphone3

To all of those suggesting this car was run on Dino oil.... I have seen a pics of 2001 330i with exactly the same type of sludge. THe pics came from a BMW Tech and the tech was able to confirm that the car had sythetic oil service everytime that the computer told the customer to... so like every 15,000 miles. Leaving oil that long leaves it extremely prone to sludge, especially in a hot running mill like a BMW.

Face it, you want an engine to run like new for ever? You're going to need more frequent oil changes than every 15,000 miles... 7,500 miles is a good interval as it combines long-life with avoidance of problems like this. On my PC at work, I have pics of an E39 540i where the owner changed the oil himself halfway between the scheduled service (7500 miles) and had the dealer do it at 15,000miles. His engine is CRAZY CLEAN and looks brand new when you take the valve cover off. I will try to post tomorrow if there is interst. Long and the short of it... new oil or new engine??

To Jon, if that kind of thing ever comes back you may need to suggest pulling the engine, doing appropriate disassembly, and soaking in carb cleaner/degreaser to get rid of the crap... I believe that Toyota has a procedure of this type for their V6 cars that had the huge sludge problems.

OH! And one more thing... those of you rocking the nice new twin turbo motor... if you think you can run oil temperatures of 230 degrees Farenheit and run oil 15,000 miles without sludge problems, I think you've got another thing coming. Any of you aware of what happened to the famous VW/Audi 1.8 Turbo engines from various Audi TT and VW Jetta/Golf/Passat? I will tell you... a bunch people had engine failures due to sludge building up and blocking oil passages and causing the motors to seaze. What did Audi/VW do? The shortened the oil service interal and made synthetic oil madatory. Yes, cars with Sythetic who ran to the scheduled interval also had problems. Excessive heat and long intervals causes sludge.

I agree I also have a 2001 330i with 138K miles on it the oil was changed every 7500 miles since it was new and when I pulled the valve cover last year it still looked new inside. I change the oil in my e90 every 5k but mostly because my oil sensor doesnt work and my dealer says it works fine.

[epiphone3]

Originally Posted by JGervasi

Wow! That's a pretty compelling photo! Thanks for the follow-up!

Any time! I keep that photo in my image bank for encouragement to keep up good maintenance practices!

[tctic]

The E90s actually have sensors to check the quality of the oil and adjusts the service indicator accordingly.

I have a hard time believing that BMW would approve the condition based service in their cars if a properly maintained car using synthetic would end up like that in the first post. I am sure BMW has done long term tests to see how the engine is like as well as the variance in quality of the oil over time with various oil change intervals. You may say BMW is doing this to save money on "Free Maintanance". But "Free Maintanance" is non-existent outside the Canada/USA but the cars still uses the same Condition Based Service indicators. So at the worse, maybe its not ideal to change exactly according to the condition based indictors but if you follow it, your engine should have adaquate protection.

[seven_227]

There is no such thing as "Free Maintanance" people have already paid for this maintanance when they bought their BMWs, the cost of these services is added to the price tag of the car. Here we can drop the "free maintanance" and save up to $3000 when buying a new BMW.

[e.n335]

Originally Posted by tctic

The E90s actually have sensors to check the quality of the oil and adjusts the service indicator accordingly.

I have a hard time believing that BMW would approve the condition based service in their cars if a properly maintained car using synthetic would end up like that in the first post. I am sure BMW has done long term tests to see how the engine is like as well as the variance in quality of the oil over time with various oil change intervals. You may say BMW is doing this to save money on "Free Maintanance". But "Free Maintanance" is non-existent outside the Canada/USA but the cars still uses the same Condition Based Service indicators. So at the worse, maybe its not ideal to change exactly according to the condition based indictors but if you follow it, your engine should have adaquate protection.

you know now what can happen. I have no idea why ppl resist to do really good things to their engines when it's that easy and that cheap. You are informed now and it's your engine. I completely disagree to the approach "BMW said this, so it has to be good". When you DIY we talk about $600 - $800 in a 3-4 year period. It's worth the money and the condition of the engine after that period.

[lawdude]

Originally Posted by seven_227

There is no such thing as "Free Maintanance" people have already paid for this maintanance when they bought their BMWs, the cost of these services is added to the price tag of the car. Here we can drop the "free maintanance" and save up to $3000 when buying a new BMW.

How much could we save if we dropped the "free warranty"?

[MikeCCrutchfield]

Originally Posted by grkm3

My tech even told me that 15k on these engines is crazzy.BMW made it 15k because they offer free oil changes and could give a rats ass about you after there warenty is up.

Interval is the same in Europe and they DON'T get free oil changes, so unless BMW made that decision based ENTIRELY on the US Market (talk about being conceited) that is NOT the reason.

BMW techs over here will tell you that you are babying the engine if you keep bringing it in for oil changes.

[Garrett]

Originally Posted by mayno

change your oil every 3K miles is so 80's and only applies to conventional oil.

5K miles...so you're basically saying that premium synth oil is only 1.6x better than conventional dino oil. I would say that it's at least 3X better which would be 9K miles.

The durability of the oil and what it collects are 2 different things. 100% pure synthetic oil can be used for 50,000 miles if sucked out of yoru engine and put threw high pressure filter to remove the debris.

It's not all about the "break-down" of the oil, but removing what the oil picks up from your engine.

Your first 2 oil changes are the most criticle. 2,ooo & 5,ooo and then every 7k after that is a good rule of thumb. You can do it yourself for about $50 bucks and let BMW do their gig around 14,ooo miles.

[seven_227]

Originally Posted by lawdude

How much could we save if we dropped the "free warranty"?

I dont think that free maintanance is an option were you are but its a chocie over here

[judec]

well, that free maintanance is not an option in the US. Anyway, I wouldnt complain too much about the price of it. Here in EU we dont even have it included in the price and have a price 50% higher like U. IMO thats the real reason of lower market saturation of 335i's over here - it's past the psychological limit of most of the customers. Darn...

[turbotko]

Okay, I'm not going to read this whole thread so maybe this has been mentioned.

I've seen this condition many many times on BMW engines. It is not from following the 15K service intervals. More than likely the crankcase ventilation system was not working for a lengthy period of time in the cars history causing the sludge buildup. That or the car was driven for short trips it's whole life or was severly overheated at one point.

I've seen many many cars go over the 15K service intervals (20-25K miles between services) and the engine was not sludged up. I just recently did a valve cover gasket on a 00 528i that had 300K miles on it, and was serviced exactly by the recommended service intervals (I know because I did every service on the car). That engine was clean as a whistle, not a hint of sludge.

Bottom line, something else happened to that engine that caused the sludge. As long as you follow the BMW recommended service intervals and mantain the car, you will not have any problems.

[Richwm]

Originally Posted by tctic

The E90s actually have sensors to check the quality of the oil and adjusts the service indicator accordingly.

I have a hard time believing that BMW would approve the condition based service in their cars if a properly maintained car using synthetic would end up like that in the first post. I am sure BMW has done long term tests to see how the engine is like as well as the variance in quality of the oil over time with various oil change intervals. You may say BMW is doing this to save money on "Free Maintanance". But "Free Maintanance" is non-existent outside the Canada/USA but the cars still uses the same Condition Based Service indicators. So at the worse, maybe its not ideal to change exactly according to the condition based indictors but if you follow it, your engine should have adaquate protection.

The oil quality is not checked, the oil change interval is determined by the amount of gas you use. If it checked the oil quality those of us that change the oil every 5000-7500 miles would never get a free oil change. Read below.

[epiphone3]

Originally Posted by tctic

The E90s actually have sensors to check the quality of the oil and adjusts the service indicator accordingly.

I have a hard time believing that BMW would approve the condition based service in their cars if a properly maintained car using synthetic would end up like that in the first post. I am sure BMW has done long term tests to see how the engine is like as well as the variance in quality of the oil over time with various oil change intervals. You may say BMW is doing this to save money on "Free Maintanance". But "Free Maintanance" is non-existent outside the Canada/USA but the cars still uses the same Condition Based Service indicators. So at the worse, maybe its not ideal to change exactly according to the condition based indictors but if you follow it, your engine should have adaquate protection.

wrong. Oil life in the BMW computer is based almost entirely off of measured fuel consumption.

[epiphone3]

Originally Posted by turbotko

Okay, I'm not going to read this whole thread so maybe this has been mentioned.

I've seen this condition many many times on BMW engines. It is not from following the 15K service intervals. More than likely the crankcase ventilation system was not working for a lengthy period of time in the cars history causing the sludge buildup. That or the car was driven for short trips it's whole life or was severly overheated at one point.

I've seen many many cars go over the 15K service intervals (20-25K miles between services) and the engine was not sludged up. I just recently did a valve cover gasket on a 00 528i that had 300K miles on it, and was serviced exactly by the recommended service intervals (I know because I did every service on the car). That engine was clean as a whistle, not a hint of sludge.

Bottom line, something else happened to that engine that caused the sludge. As long as you follow the BMW recommended service intervals and mantain the car, you will not have any problems.

this 528 was probably driven on the high way alot or regularily had long drives.

Bottom line is not that something else happened to the engine in the first post. It is actually that no one knows for sure what caused the sludge in the first place... however, what we do know is if you change your oil every 7,500 miles rather than the BMW recommended 15,000 miles, you will have an engine that looks brand new inside at 100K+ miles.

And by the way, I doubt that the crank case vent was blocked on the car in the original post as probably would have caused a gasket or seal to blow or other problems before the sludge... if the crank case breather got blocked, it was probably by a chunk of sludge.

[Insider]

Originally Posted by turbotko

Okay, I'm not going to read this whole thread so maybe this has been mentioned.

I've seen this condition many many times on BMW engines. It is not from following the 15K service intervals. More than likely the crankcase ventilation system was not working for a lengthy period of time in the cars history causing the sludge buildup. That or the car was driven for short trips it's whole life or was severly overheated at one point.

I've seen many many cars go over the 15K service intervals (20-25K miles between services) and the engine was not sludged up. I just recently did a valve cover gasket on a 00 528i that had 300K miles on it, and was serviced exactly by the recommended service intervals (I know because I did every service on the car). That engine was clean as a whistle, not a hint of sludge.

Bottom line, something else happened to that engine that caused the sludge. As long as you follow the BMW recommended service intervals and mantain the car, you will not have any problems.

+1