OEM BMW Oil
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Unless the iDrive is showing your oil at the minimum oil level and recommending you add oil, I would not add a full quart as you may overfill it which will cause it own error message.
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IMO if you're using top tier fuel, quality is a non-issue! And the "BMW says so" answer can be summed up as follows...........BMW recomends the oil and filter be changed every 15K CBS or 1-year. BMW also says transmission fluid and differential fluid is liftime fill. We all know everybody disputes these recommendation so lets agree to disagree with the LL-01 V. LL-04 recommendation. I'll be the guinea pig and use Lubro-Molly while resting comfortably at night!
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IMO if you're using top tier fuel, quality is a non-issue! And the "BMW says so" answer can be summed up as follows...........BMW recomends the oil and filter be changed every 15K CBS or 1-year. BMW also says transmission fluid and differential fluid is liftime fill. We all know everybody disputes these recommendation so lets agree to disagree with the LL-01 V. LL-04 recommendation. I'll be the guinea pig and use Lubro-Molly while resting comfortably at night!
It's your car and your money, you can do whatever you want of course...
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" Keith,
Thank you for your inquiry.
The Lubro Moly is perfectly safe for your car. The exact same engine in Europe uses the LL04 and we have been selling thousands of liters of it a year for the past few years as well as running it in our own vehicles. I believe the BMW US recommendation is based more on the fact that Castrol (the US oil suppler for BMW) doesn't have an LL04 oil available yet. LL04 is used everywhere else in world in the exact same engines.
The ethanol has nothing to do with it. If that were the case BMW wouldn't use it in South America, where ethanol blends are far higher content than they are here in some areas. When BMW USA needed an oil for the new diesels in the US market they made up a new formula and it's LL04. But of course diesel specific. I'm sure as soon as BMW's contract with Castrol for the 5W30 runs out for they will up the spec to LL04 here also."
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Also, I wanted to say that the oil level sensor is known to occasionally go bad as well (which sucks at rought 200 bucks + labor a piece, BTW). There are several threads about it on this forum, so if your oil level is showing some off the wall stuff, don't count the level sensor out