[Littlebear]

Originally Posted by Sea-Tac

Its pretty straight forward just make sure you have the right o rings for the drain plug.

I find it very annoying to not have a dip stick. You just don't know if you are borderline low or borderline high....
After changing the oil you have to get the engine up to temp, & idle on a flat surface before the machine tells you if your fill is "OK".
What a drag.

Murf

[jsouth]

Originally Posted by Littlebear

I find it very annoying to not have a dip stick. You just don't know if you are borderline low or borderline high....
After changing the oil you have to get the engine up to temp, & idle on a flat surface before the machine tells you if your fill is "OK".
What a drag.

Murf

I felt the same way the first couple of oil changes. Now I'm comfortable putting in the specified amount of oil and calling it good. Following an oil change, I measure after driving home from work, and every time I measure it is fine.

[Billfitz]

+1, I drain the pan completely, then put in the 5 liters specified for my N20.

[yjoonee]

Wow, 6 years later, on 2nd F30... my thread is still alive!

I am going to do an engine oil change on my 2nd F30. Using 0W-40 this time. Anything new with changing oil for the N20? I didn't wanna go through 6 pages of posts.

[John in VA]

Originally Posted by yjoonee

Anything new with changing oil for the N20?

No.

[grdlaw]

I too will change the oil every 5,000 miles from now on. Before this incident I'll explain below, oil was changed every 10,000 miles. My 2015 328i xDrive had a little over 70,000 miles when I got a warning "Drivetrain Malfunction" and the car went into limp mode. I had it towed to the BMW dealer nearby and after inspection it was determined that the turbo charger had failed resulting in a total engine failure due to excessive oil leak and metal debris in the engine oil. The warranty had expired, but BMW agreed to pay for 40% of the parts. The turbo charger and engine were replaced for a total out of pocket cost of $12,500. The repairs and replacement took about 6 weeks and luckily I was provided loaner BMWs during that time. So with the new turbo charger and engine, the car is brand new. From now on, I'm changing the oil every 5,000 miles.

[Billfitz]

Originally Posted by yjoonee

I am going to do an engine oil change on my 2nd F30. Using 0W-40 this time.

Make sure your engine is OK with 0W-40. I believe it's approved for 2016 and newer. I know that my 2015 still specifies 5W-30. I know that the approved viscosity has changed since 2015 models but that it isn't retroactive.

[Sea-Tac]

Originally Posted by bcl0328

why does 15k scare you? i'm over 10k miles with original oil. these engines are meant for it, they were designed that way. times have changed.

You're exactly right.

Not only are engines designed for this interval, the synthetic oil used, not just in BMW's, but Audi's, Porsches, etc. is specifically designed to minimize thermal breakdown over longer periods of time thus longer change intervals.

Changing oil any sooner than recommended by BMW (unless you stress the engine on a continual basis) is foolish and to a degree environmentally irresponsible.

[jsouth]

For maybe ten years, I have been using synthetic oils in my vehicles. I run it for 10,000 miles, and don't even have a second thought about it.

However, I change the filter every 5,000 miles and top up with fresh oil to replace what was lost in the filter. I think this is safer for the engine for two reasons. First, filters are cheap (engines are not...). Second, a study I read shows that the small amount of top-up oil added tends to "revive" the synthetic oil in the sump. The study involved sending in oil every 1,000 miles for analysis, and the results support that finding.

[panekpl]

today i have done my own oil change.. went to the bmw dealer, got the oem oil/filter..

proceeded to drain oil out of my f30 ( i should have seen about 4.8L coming out of the engine) about 500ml came out... i am so schecked out right now..

i never seen any oil low warnings, car runs fine..

after adding 4.8L of new oil and ran oil level check its withing range. i am worried that it wont run for long.. its been 10k since last oil change.

[bavarianride]

Originally Posted by panekpl

today i have done my own oil change.. went to the bmw dealer, got the oem oil/filter..

proceeded to drain oil out of my f30 ( i should have seen about 4.8L coming out of the engine) about 500ml came out... i am so schecked out right now..

i never seen any oil low warnings, car runs fine..

after adding 4.8L of new oil and ran oil level check its withing range. i am worried that it wont run for long.. its been 10k since last oil change.

Do check if the correct fluid was drained, e.g. a poster in the other forum had similar experience, it turned out the drained fluid was from xDrive transfer case!

From your description of 500ml drained volume, there is a high possibility the wrong fluid was drained ....

Best of luck!

[panekpl]

Originally Posted by bavarianride

Do check if the correct fluid was drained, e.g. a poster in the other forum had similar experience, it turned out the drained fluid was from xDrive transfer case!

From your description of 500ml drained volume, there is a high possibility the wrong fluid was drained ....

Best of luck!

now that i looked closer, yes... good thing i havent driven it...

i have added 4.5L in the engine..thoguh. AND i ran the oil level check... it showed that its within its limits... (ran in 3 times) can someone explain that?

[bavarianride]

Originally Posted by panekpl

now that i looked closer, yes... good thing i havent driven it...

i have added 4.5L in the engine..thoguh. AND i ran the oil level check... it showed that its within its limits... (ran in 3 times) can someone explain that?

The oil check max/min just checks for under-fill, but not overfill.

Do not drive the car with emptied transfer case, and with 4.5L extra engine oil, it will end badly.

Just drain the engine oil first, then refill both transfer case and engine oil with correct amount.

[Patterson]

The thing about not having a dip stick is that if you take the car to a shop and have the oil changed, you can't verify by looking at the stick to see the nearly clear oil just after a change. Sure, the car can tell if there is enough oil in the engine, but no way to visually verify that new oil is in it.

Hopefully this wouldn't happen, but a shop could reset the counter and do nothing to your car when you leave it for an oil change and return it to you with the same oil. Nice and full just like it was when you left it off. Lol.

[Billfitz]

Originally Posted by Patterson

no way to visually verify that new oil is in it.

You can see the color of the oil looking through the oil filler cap.

[bavarianride]

Originally Posted by Billfitz

You can see the color of the oil looking through the oil filler cap.

Tried looking this morning, the only oil seen is on timing chain, and it is not much to judge the condition/color of oil.

[Billfitz]

Stick a rag down far enough to get some oil on it. Make sure it's a clean cotton rag so that no fibers end up in the crankcase. If you have an oil filter cap wrench you can pull the cap and examine the oil, but you probably don't have one if you're not doing your own oil and filter changes.

[bavarianride]

Originally Posted by Billfitz

Stick a rag down far enough to get some oil on it. Make sure it's a clean cotton rag so that no fibers end up in the crankcase. If you have an oil filter cap wrench you can pull the cap and examine the oil, but you probably don't have one if you're not doing your own oil and filter changes.

There is an old cap wrench at garage that does not fit BMW oil filter housing, but will stick a BMW dipstick from my old bimmer through the oil cap opening.

[Billfitz]

IMO the filter should be changed twice as often as the oil, so you should invest in a cap wrench. That's assuming you don't change the oil every 3,000. I change mine every 4,000, but for me that's yearly. I do the filter in the fall and spring. That's despite my doing very little winter driving, because winter is when oil gets the most contamination.

[bavarianride]

Originally Posted by Billfitz

IMO the filter should be changed twice as often as the oil, so you should invest in a cap wrench. That's assuming you don't change the oil every 3,000. I change mine every 4,000, but for me that's yearly. I do the filter in the fall and spring. That's despite my doing very little winter driving, because winter is when oil gets the most contamination.

Wow 4k is quite frequent, what oil is used in your car?

My OCI is around 7-8k, the dealer foreman said BMW (sturdy) filter + oil can last 13-15k miles.

That was also a thread(can't easily locate these days) of a Mini(?) owner that did frequent Blackstone, and showed that just a small amount of top off can revitalize the oil significantly, to the extent that Blackstone results were acceptable past 15k miles on same filter + oil!

[Billfitz]

I use MolyGen. 4k isn't frequent when that's a yearly interval, and 90% of my driving is in town short trips.

[bavarianride]

Originally Posted by jsouth

For maybe ten years, I have been using synthetic oils in my vehicles. I run it for 10,000 miles, and don't even have a second thought about it.

However, I change the filter every 5,000 miles and top up with fresh oil to replace what was lost in the filter. I think this is safer for the engine for two reasons. First, filters are cheap (engines are not...). Second, a study I read shows that the small amount of top-up oil added tends to "revive" the synthetic oil in the sump. The study involved sending in oil every 1,000 miles for analysis, and the results support that finding.

Is there a link to this study? I remember reading something similar, from a Mini(?) owner, that did regular blackstone plus top off. He might have done a filter in between 15k miles too.

Having said that, turbo longevity can be a reason for 7-8k OCI, except in CA(and other PZEV states), the turbo is covered 15 years and/or 150000 miles.