[MaxL]

Originally Posted by KSERGEI-BY

Let me remind you old recommendation for the european bmw dealers: 10kkms or once a year, synthetic only. So 15 kmiles change helps selling new cars and killing engines in same time.

I do change every 10kkms or once a year in my bmw and my jeep

That is not true - BMWs in Europe change oil at 25K km which is about 18K miles. It's been that way for at least 15 years, and I drove BMWs with over 250k KM on the original engine with that maintenance. 10K km is for third-world countries and extreme conditions.

It is an amazing topic - BMW spent a ton on engineering to extend service intervals to save their customers' time, money and to be more green (oil is not perfectly recycled), and got the opposite result, at least with a sub-segment of oil-change fanatics.

Those bashing BMW recommendations - have you sent oil for testing? Do you understand how oil degradation works? Do you know that it is possible to extend oil change interval by 2x by simply increasing the volume of oil an engine holds by 2x, because synthetic oil does not break down from time and only gets broken down by engine work, and it takes twice as much work (or mileage) to break down twice as much oil? So the fact that recommended interval for one car is X km or miles means nothing for other cars - it is possible to design an engine for any oil change interval. Your Jeep or Kia can still require 3K miles oil changes, even with the same oil as another car, but that means nothing for another car. So how the heck can you pull these frequency recommendations out of your behinds and think that they actually have any validity?

And I am not a BMW fanboy - mine is getting traded-in in few weeks, and I do not see any car in their line up that would interest me in near future.

[EvenKeel]

Originally Posted by dreamspeed

Well, the good thing is that BMW is admitting (kinda) that they were WRONG.

Anyone that has read the "old school maintenance schedule" or has remedial car knowledge/common sense knows that BMW greatly increased their service intervals after they implemented the "free" maintenance program even though there was no engineering improvement in the fluids or engine tech to warrant such a change

BMW isn't implying jack $hit....people on the forum are drawing their own conclusions.

[111R]

Maybe leasers don't care, but I have always wondered why any owner would leave oil in an engine for 15K+ miles, especially on a car like a BMW. This change to shorter intervals (on basically the same engines many of us have), reinforces the belief that the earlier 15K+ change intervals were too long. Also suggests that BMW may have been having some complaints about engine damage that they traced to the long drain intervals.

This guy nails it, as I keep my cars for 10-15 years and thought that the recommended intervals were a bit long. I have had oil analysis done and for my engine and driving conditions (turbocharged + lots of city/suburban driving), the shortened intervals I've used are vindicated by the results. Those of you who drive more highway miles will have no problem extending your intervals.

[Longwong]

I think 10-15 is extremely reasonable for your average bmw driver with modern bmw oil or TWS in the m3. For those that know they drive their car much harder than it just makes sense that one would change it more frequently as clearly bmw caters overall to the person who is not driving the crap out of the car like many of us!

I do 7500 and view anymore frequently as a total waste and I pound on my car. My car also holds nearly 10qts of tws so a lot of oil. I have never burned an ounce.

Either way the best solution would have been more accurate CBS instruments so for those driving the car harder then the oil change interval would pop up more like 7500 and those that cruise around at low rpms all year can go 15k and everywhere in between.

[CirrusSR22]

Originally Posted by EvenKeel

BMW isn't implying jack $hit....people on the forum are drawing their own conclusions.

Why are they doing it then? Just to be nice? That only leaves one option left.

[Remonster]

Originally Posted by MikeTerp

Maybe leasers don't care...

You're absolutely right that leasers don't care, why should we? BMW can raise the service interval to 2 billion miles for all I care. If the motor blows in the 3 years I have the car, it's covered under warranty, and if it blows after I return the lease, that's fine with me.

If you plan to keep your car, an oil change is so cheap and simple that you'd be crazy not to do it. I always thought I was going to keep my 2011 135i so I did an oil and filter change half way between the 15k changes that BMW paid for.

[Fanis]

I have been changing oil every 10-12.000 kms (~ 6-7.000 miles) in all my BMW's, so no news for me. Probably, I was right, doing so.

My car has the code 8KA, which is oil change every 30.000kms/24 months.

[acsoup123]

1) Raise your hand if you had to top off with a quart or more of oil before your vehicle called for a full scheduled oil change.
2) Raise your hand if you stopped by the dealer and had them top off the engine oil for free.
3) Raise your other hand if you purchased your own oil (thus making your "free maintenance" not so free, and technically a marketing liability)

IMO, Still the bean counters at work here, not engineers... This decision was likely driven by a combo of less hassle for customers stopping by for a free top off quart, then only several k miles later coming back for full change, thus in essence "wasting" the extra quart the dealer topped off only a few miles before, only to drain all of it and fill with fresh oil.

I wouldn't worry about pre 2014 engines, we just get the added "fun" of having to top off the engine oil more frequently.

[Ash83]

All their lineup will be turbo charged, 15K is nuts for NA even 10K is nuts for TC cars.

[epiphone3]

I'm still surprised no one else has jumped on the new automatic gearbox oil changes limited only to certain models.

[ska///235i]

Come on BMW, when you going to tell us that your lifetime fluids are only 50k miles

[Never Convicted]

Originally Posted by acsoup123

1) Raise your hand if you had to top off with a quart or more of oil before your vehicle called for a full scheduled oil change.
2) Raise your hand if you stopped by the dealer and had them top off the engine oil for free.
3) Raise your other hand if you purchased your own oil (thus making your "free maintenance" not so free, and technically a marketing liability)

IMO, Still the bean counters at work here, not engineers... This decision was likely driven by a combo of less hassle for customers stopping by for a free top off quart, then only several k miles later coming back for full change, thus in essence "wasting" the extra quart the dealer topped off only a few miles before, only to drain all of it and fill with fresh oil.

I wouldn't worry about pre 2014 engines, we just get the added "fun" of having to top off the engine oil more frequently.

You go to the dealership to get a free quart of oil? Ummmm....no...never done that. But then i don't even use coupons at the supermarket, so my bad.

[Weaselboy]

Originally Posted by CirrusSR22

Why are they doing it then? Just to be nice? That only leaves one option left.

I have a theory.

I have not seen it mentioned yet in this thread, but BMW allows a free annual "low mileage" oil change. This is for cars that are not driven enough in a year to trigger the condition based service (CBS) change at around 15,000 miles (or more). I suspect this change was done to simplify things and end all the confusion surrounding the low mileage annual oil changes vs. CBS changes.

Let's use me as an example. I had a 2012 335i (F30) I bought new in April 2012. In April 2013 the car had 14,600 miles on it and CBS still showed a change was not due for another 2,500 miles. I don't use the car a lot, but when I do it tends to be long trips, so the CBS intervals are usually very long for me.

So in April 2013, I took it in and got my free low mileage annual oil change and the car was returned still showing a CBS change due in about 2,500 miles like it should.

Fast forward to now. I turned the car in at the dealer yesterday (2014 335i is on the way ) and the car had 17,027 miles on it. The CBS warning was popping up showing an oil change due in 400 miles. Had I not traded in the car I would have gotten that change done this week. The dealer would have done the change and reset the CBS back to 15,000 miles / 24 months.

So in my example, BMW paid for an oil change in April 2013 at 14,600 miles, then would have done another change three months later at 17,400 miles because CBS called for it.

Had I kept the car, this cycle would have repeated next year. I would have gotten an annual low mileage change in July 2014, then CBS probably would go off for another change around November or so.

I have owned one E90 and two E92s... and with all three this has been the pattern. I always ended up with the annual change, then three to five months later the CBS change.

I always end up with two oil changes per calendar year after the first year passes.

So with this new CBS interval of 10,000 miles / 12 months, BMW will potentially be doing slightly fewer oil changes on some owners cars and at the same time ending all this confusion about the "low mileage" annual oil changes.

[acsoup123]

Originally Posted by Never Convicted

You go to the dealership to get a free quart of oil? Ummmm....no...never done that. But then i don't even use coupons at the supermarket, so my bad.

I have had to buy one quart of oil, the other times that I needed top up, I just swung by the nearest dealer (live in Chicago area, there are many around) and they have no problem adding a quart for free...give it a try!

I hate coupons.

[jphughan]

Originally Posted by Never Convicted

You go to the dealership to get a free quart of oil? Ummmm....no...never done that. But then i don't even use coupons at the supermarket, so my bad.

I hate coupons too, but I definitely get free quarts of oil, it's covered under Ultimate Service if the car needs top-ups. I just call up my SA when my M3 says to add a quart of oil and he tells me to swing by anytime to pick up two. I keep the spare in the garage and bring it to track days, and considering Castrol TWS 10W-60 is ~$15-18/bottle and hard to find, why wouldn't I take the free oil? I wish I'd had that spare on the Friday night I was driving 300 miles to a track event and my car spontaneously said I needed to add a quart of oil (even though it said 3/4 full when I left my house....) I barely made it to the BMW dealership before closing so I didn't miss my track time the following day.

[johnofcross]

Getting away from the oil change interval discussion, but what about current F30s? Can we just bring it in the dealer and let them follow the new intervals? If not, what can we do to make them follow it, if even possible? If they do 10K, Not sure I'll spend the extra money to do changes every 7.5K. If not, I'll do changes every 7.5K

[jphughan]

^ Don't get your hopes up. My car was the first production month BWM lengthened the brake fluid interval from 2 years to 3 years even though the brakes and fluid are exactly the same.

Your best bet is to continue paying for the halfway oil changes at the 7500-mile mark as you've been doing and I do myself. Someone asked about changing the VO to configure their car for the new interval. I doubt that would work without a software update since the older software probably wouldn't see that as a valid code, and even if a sufficiently new software revision were installed, it may reject that code based on the actual production month of the car.

[Remonster]

Originally Posted by acsoup123

I have had to buy one quart of oil, the other times that I needed top up, I just swung by the nearest dealer (live in Chicago area, there are many around) and they have no problem adding a quart for free...give it a try!

I hate coupons.

Wait, your dealer is still adding quarts / topping off for free? Maybe it's just my dealer being cheap, they told me it was a new BMW policy!

[jphughan]

You know, it actually could be that the 10K interval is the result of bean counters for the reasons stated above, especially given the annual oil change policy as well. I got an oil change when I hit the 1-year mark even though I was only 2000 miles shy of the mileage mark, and apparently BMW's policy for time-based oil changes is that they do NOT reset the service indicator, so 2000 miles later I got yet another free oil change due to mileage.

As for the free oil between changes, in the 20K miles I've driven my car, I've gotten 5 free liters of TWS 10W-60 outside of the regular oil changes, 4 from my SA and 1 from another dealer when I ran out on the way to a track day. I didn't end up having to use all of that in my car though; some spilled while in a Ziploc in my track bag (I hate that the caps don't reseal tightly). I don't know if that's BMW policy or simply a dealer courtesy, but that's been my experience -- though I imagine it would be considered Ultimate Service since the car is saying it needs oil, and oil is covered by Ultimate Service. Although just in case it was a dealer courtesy, I did buy my SA a bottle of JW Black Label for Christmas last year.

[fullrev]

13k - 15k interval is fine. stop with the false conclusions.

i've seen plenty of high mileage vehicles

[edwinm3]

I've always done mine every 7500 miles

[Imola.ZHP]

Who cares?

Damn, some people will complain about anything.

10k and 15k are too long, I always did mine inbetween (7500) back in the day, and now at 5k that I'm on my own.

A petition or a complaint won't do you any good, OCI's are "recommended." You can change the oil as often as you want!