Hi guys,

Just wondering which oil I should get based on my daily drive.

My daily commute is only 4.2 miles one way. (1/3 street, 1/3 freeway, 3 exits later, 1/3 street). Yes, so I'm usually in the slow lane since I'm against traffic and the flow is fast enough. I'm usually at my destination in under 10 min. so if it's cold, I don't think the car gets warmed enough by the time I get to work in the morning. Lately, i have been going home for lunch so it could be 16 miles in one day.

Car is a 2006 525i with 53K miles. This past year the car was driven for about 9K miles.

I'm debating on Castrol 0-30w European or Mobile 1 0-4w0 European. What do you guys recommend?

Thanks!

 

BMW recommends 5W-40 and 5W-30. Why do you want to go to 0W?

 

The castrol 0w-30 is a very thick 0 weight, it is on the border between 0w-30 and 5w-40. Both of those oils meet BMW Longlife specifications. I would choose Castrol over the Mobil, BMW recomends Castrol fluids, additionally, I have personally notice more oil consumption and higher than normal viscosity sheer down with mobil oils. However, I have yet to run Mobil in my E60, so I'm not sure how it will respond to my M54, but in my M3 and Audi S4, 0w-40 Mobil was not all that great.

 

I would strongly recommend getting an oil analysis done. with those short driving periods you're probably going to want to change the oil more often than 15k miles. either of the two LL-01 oils you mention will probably be fine but without a used oil analyis you're not going to know for sure.

 

http://www.bmwusa.com/Standard/Conte...ngineOils.aspx

either will work

 

the mobil 0w-40 is on the lighter end of the 40w scale, while the other oils are a heavier 30 weight. so they're about the same.

the first number "0w" is just the cold viscosity.

 

and that's what worries me since balbs doesn't drive that much. if he's not driving enough to warm up his car to the high viscosity, running a heavier oil could do damage overtime ya know?

 

How do you go abt getting an analysis ?

 

http://www.blackstone-labs.com/free-test-kits.php

 

That's not the way things would work. The oil is inherently thinner at higher temperatures, and if there were any extra protection from the scenario you describe, it would be the reverse/30 wt oil that would make sense. I don't really think there would be, but just for the record.

In any event, the Castrol Euro formula is a great oil, and for what he's doing his bigger issue, as someone else said, is drain interval. Short trips are murder on all components, not just the engine, as basically everything operates "cold". Think about more frequent tranny/diff, even coolant changes as well.