[aerobod]

Originally Posted by F87source

BITOG is full of oil enthusiasts and chemic engineers in the industry, they back their talking points up with data not unsubstantiated feelings about what BMW did with their engines.


That's the thing, it isn't back and white like you make it out to be. BMW isn't going to put in an oil that will grenade the engine during the warranty period but they're also trying to hit emissions as best as they can so the oil will not be as protective as a non FE oil which is only focused on protection. So the key focus is long term. Btw Porsche c20 is not as rigorous as Porsche a40, it's like comparing ll01fe vs ll01, but with an even bigger delta because a40 is one of the most if not the most stringent oil test.


So the end point is do you want to do everything possible to make the engine last as long as possible? Yes - ditch the FE oil for something with better protection, no - do whatever you want.


Either way I don't care anymore, this is a review thread not an oil thread.

The problem with BITOG is that there are a lot of chemical engineers who know little about automotive engineering. It is a bit like Civil Engineers designing an aircraft that would have 5x stress factors applied and would never get off the ground. Failure analysis and application to the expected design life of a product are critical to effective engineering. Lots of BITOG “what ifs” not backed up by actual failures (and this applies to general use of 0w20 oil, not just BMWs use of it).

I spent a couple of years in my career with some responsibility for product failure analysis and statistical modelling of lifespan. I see nothing in reported failures in the population of engines out there that indicates any shortening of lifespan due to 0w20 oils. Perhaps if you want a million km out of a car I would worry, 300,000km is the typical point that cars end up in the scrap yard at.

[F87source]

Originally Posted by aerobod

The problem with BITOG is that there are a lot of chemical engineers who know little about automotive engineering. It is a bit like Civil Engineers designing an aircraft that would have 5x stress factors applied and would never get off the ground. Failure analysis and application to the expected design life of a product are critical to effective engineering. Lots of BITOG “what ifs” not backed up by actual failures (and this applies to general use of 0w20 oil, not just BMWs use of it).

I spent a couple of years in my career with some responsibility for product failure analysis and statistical modelling of lifespan. I see nothing in reported failures in the population of engines out there that indicates any shortening of lifespan due to 0w20 oils. Perhaps if you want a million km out of a car I would worry, 300,000km is the typical point that cars end up in the scrap yard at.

The guys on BITOG have actual wear data from UOA what data do you have? And in the automotive industry wear is non intrusively determined by UOA, that's how it's done in F1 (the pinnacle of motorsports) as well so it's a very good metric. Some of these guys on BITOG worked with oil companies and manufacturers on creating oil certifications so they've seen the wear tests. Not sure how you can discredit any of this, if you think you know better please feel free to go over there and have a chat with them.

Also we are comparing wear produced from FE oils to non FE oils not 0w20 oils as a whole on every car.

And one last thing is BMW's tend to not have the greatest bearings on the world with some higher mileage cars requiring rod bearings well before 300,000 km. That's why you want to do your best to prevent wear as much as possible, you can't just pull data from a Honda not having any issues running 0w20 and extrapolate it back to a BMW.


Like I said before it's up to you how hard you want to make your car last.

[F87source]

Originally Posted by aerobod

The problem with BITOG is that there are a lot of chemical engineers who know little about automotive engineering.

I also wanted to add this is an extremely far stretched assumption, there are mechanical engineers on there too, and plenty of individuals actively working in the car manufacturers as well - some failure testing diesel engines that I have spoken to. This is literally the priemere oil forum in the world where all the experts go to discuss engine and automotive drive train wear and how to prevent it based on oil choice. Also when you go to specific oil and engine sections on BITOG the answers you get are based on specific engines and the UOA data of those engines, there are no parallels being drawn with irrelevant engines using the same oil you are getting relevant engine wear data.

You can't discuss wear sheerly on the mechanical side alone, you need to have chemical knowledge to discuss chemical properties and shear strength and how they behave.


So with all due respect it's hard to believe that you solely would be able to upend all the knowledge on an entire forum with a diverse amounts of engineering disciplines directly involved in the automotive industry itself.



So like I said before this is just muddling up my review thread, and my job isn't to convince you of what oil to use I'm just telling you what I know, whether you chose to use said oils are up to you.

[aerobod]

There are certainly knowledgeable people on BITOG, but there is a lot of conjecture and unsubstantiated info, too. To sort the useful info from the noise requires a much more rigourous approach, i.e. at a Tribology or relevant Automotive Engineering conference or through properly peer reviewed papers. A few UOAs reporting values that can’t be correlated in a controlled manner back to manufacturing processes and design parameters is pretty meaningless. There are also way too many fan-boys on there who believe their own thesis, but haven’t got the scientific rigour to back it up. Some good discussion starting point overall and some entertaining discussion, but certainly not a site for rigourous scientific proof. It is more Facebook for oil geeks than MIT.

Basically lots of conjecture, with little proof of actual failures or issues, what would be a lot more compelling are SAE, IMechE or similar papers on the subject of FE oils and related engine failures. I’m no expert in Tribology as applied to the Automotive Industry, but I’m perfectly capable of reading and understanding scientific or engineering papers that present a Tribology analysis and drawing my own conclusions, as the mathematics and analysis principles used are similar to what I have been trained in in the Aeronautical Engineering field.

BITOG is also only a tiny cross section of the industry anyway, with the majority of practicing engineers not represented. I would rate it’s overall sway on engineering practice outside of those who spend a lot of time on there as negligible.

[aerobod]

PS. Sorry we’ve both dragged this off your original review, but it did become an entertaining discussion.

[F87source]

Originally Posted by aerobod

There are certainly knowledgeable people on BITOG, but there is a lot of conjecture and unsubstantiated info, too. To sort the useful info from the noise requires a much more rigourous approach, i.e. at a Tribology or relevant Automotive Engineering conference or through properly peer reviewed papers. A few UOAs reporting values that can’t be correlated in a controlled manner back to manufacturing processes and design parameters is pretty meaningless. There are also way too many fan-boys on there who believe their own thesis, but haven’t got the scientific rigour to back it up. Some good discussion starting point overall and some entertaining discussion, but certainly not a site for rigourous scientific proof. It is more Facebook for oil geeks than MIT.

Basically lots of conjecture, with little proof of actual failures or issues, what would be a lot more compelling are SAE, IMechE or similar papers on the subject of FE oils and related engine failures. I’m no expert in Tribology as applied to the Automotive Industry, but I’m perfectly capable of reading and understanding scientific or engineering papers that present a Tribology analysis and drawing my own conclusions, as the mathematics and analysis principles used are similar to what I have been trained in in the Aeronautical Engineering field.

BITOG is also only a tiny cross section of the industry anyway, with the majority of practicing engineers not represented. I would rate it’s overall sway on engineering practice outside of those who spend a lot of time on there as negligible.

The thing is not everything can be peer reviewed and tested with controls and statistically significant sample sizes - as a researcher I've done alot of research and participated in publications and it's strenuous and insanely time consuming work to do one experiment (and this doesn't even account for how hard it is to get funding). However, just because it's not peer reviewed doesn't mean the data is garbage. Patterns can still be observed and implications and causations can be formed, you just can create a statistically accurate conclusion. For example you can observe a bolt keeps stripping if you apply too much torque and it happens on every bolt of the same size you test. You can imply that if you exceed the torque specs the bolt will strip, you can't say the exact torque that it'll occur and you can't explain the exact mechanism of this process of all bolts of the same size and material without peer reviewed research. But that doesn't prohibit you from saying it will strip above the manufacture torque specs.


This is what guys on BITOG can see through UOA's, there is alot more wear metal produced when using an FE oil vs. a non FE oil, they've even tested factory weight vs. a 5w40 oil permitted by ll01 standards. And this is consistent across multiple users with different driving styles, and different modifications from stock to modified, from daily driven to track use. There are hundreds of analysis done, and an implication can be made that non FE oils - especially those 5w40's with Porsche a40, mb229.5 and ll01, out perform FE oils of factory weight when it comes to wear protection.


So they may not be able to put specific values and numbers to it without controls and large sample sizes like peer reviewed research can provide but they can absolutely draw conclusions. Then they can back it up with years of field knowledge in the oil formulation industry. There is an abundance of data that shows this correlation so it is increasingly irrefutable what the data shows.


So like I said before if you want to do everything possible to prevent wear then consider moving away from the FE oils. And move to something with more strenuous certifications: Porsche a40, mb229.5, ll01 - which were developed by the expertise of the engineers of these automotive giants to prevent as much wear as possible (and in the case of Porsche a40 the wear test and requirements for the oil to not break down is insane - with a multiple hour Nurburgring run, if 0w20 Fe oils could tolerate this level of stress it would have Porsche a40 certifications but it can't. Again it comes down to the question do you want to do everything possible to stop wear?)

[aerobod]

I will stay with 0w20, as is the norm now with most mainstream cars (with the Japanese tending towards 0w16), until there is any defendable data with full disclosure of test methods, history, any important raw data and full data analytics with calculations disclosed, for review to validate the conclusions.

The probability that a certified/professional engineer in one of the car or oil manufacturers has not determined that 0w20 doesn’t work for decent engine life is pretty low, if it was a problem with stock engines designed to use that oil spec. Bearing in mind the number of manufacturer test cells with engines being run through a full lifespan to hit effectively 300,000km or more in less than a year, plus the test mules that are run pretty hard, it is unlikely this would not be obvious.

If it was a problem, with Xw20 oils being used now for the best part of this century in automotive applications, there would have been a significant number of peer reviewed papers discussing any significant problems. When I was choosing between staying in Aerospace R&D or moving into Automotive R&D, the two car manufacturer research centres I toured had engineers producing plenty of published research papers, as was the case for the Aeronautical org I worked for. When I moved into R&D in the computer industry we published internal papers (due to the proprietary nature of the research), so I have a hard time understanding why no one would do that in this case, if there was something to “uncover”.

I just see no plausibility that an ethical engineer or group of them (which are very much the majority in my experience), would not have published a paper if there was a problem and elevated their career prospects.

[aerobod]

Thought I would take a quick look through the UK classifieds on motors.co.uk for 1.5 litre B38 engined cars, as it was the first modular B-series engine on the market and using a 0w20 oil (in both BMW and Mini). Dozens with mileage above 100,000 miles (160,000km) and the highest mileage at 165,000 miles (265,000km). Couldn’t see any indication of engine changes, normally in the UK this would be disclosed as the vehicle V5C logbook would show a mismatch between the original engine number and a replacement one.

[MarcoZandrini]

I've browsed several German BMW forums looking for posts about oil for the B58 engine. Almost all posters use either a 0Wxx or a 5Wxx oil where "XX" is either "30" or even "40." Me? I've narrowed my oil selection down to a Group 4 oil with a 5W30 viscosity range. Ravenol VMP 5W30 seems to be the likely oil.

https://www.ravenolamerica.com/passe...vmp-sae-5w-30/

[F87source]

Originally Posted by MarcoZandrini

I've browsed several German BMW forums looking for posts about oil for the B58 engine. Almost all posters use either a 0Wxx or a 5Wxx oil where "XX" is either "30" or even "40." Me? I've narrowed my oil selection down to a Group 4 oil with a 5W30 viscosity range. Ravenol VMP 5W30 seems to be the likely oil.

https://www.ravenolamerica.com/passe...vmp-sae-5w-30/

Are you still under warranty? If so I'd get an ll01 oil not ll04, and with ll01 you get the timing chain test which I would be interested in since the timing chain on the b58 is in the back.


Also ravenol is good, but it's kind of expensive for what you're getting. If I were you I would get oil at Walmart - before you judge this you must know where you get oil is irrelevant vs. what oil you get. Because Walmart sells some oils that far exceed the boutique oils in terms of performance. So I would get something like Pennzoil platinum euro 5w40 (Quaker state euro 5w40 is the same oil but rebadged, because shell owns both Quaker state and Pennzoil). This is a very very good oil, specs are phenomenal and UOA's are great as well.


Another option is motul xcess gen 2 5w40 (must be the newly formulated gen 2) and this is a very good oil as well.



So I'd consider these two oils first, if you don't care about ll01 and want a heavy Pao oil then Castrol edge 0w30 or 0w40 from Walmart is absolutely exceptional. It has Porsche a40 and mb229.5, it doesn't have ll01 because the high paos makes it easily oxidizable thus it can't past the super stringent oxidation test ll01 has.

[MarcoZandrini]

Originally Posted by F87source

Are you still under warranty? If so I'd get an ll01 oil not ll04, and with ll01 you get the timing chain test which I would be interested in since the timing chain on the b58 is in the back.


Also ravenol is good, but it's kind of expensive for what you're getting. If I were you I would get oil at Walmart - before you judge this you must know where you get oil is irrelevant vs. what oil you get. Because Walmart sells some oils that far exceed the boutique oils in terms of performance. So I would get something like Pennzoil platinum euro 5w40 (Quaker state euro 5w40 is the same oil but rebadged, because shell owns both Quaker state and Pennzoil). This is a very very good oil, specs are phenomenal and UOA's are great as well.


Another option is motul xcess gen 2 5w40 (must be the newly formulated gen 2) and this is a very good oil as well. And it's PAO base stock.



So I'd consider these two oils first, if you don't care about ll01 and want a heavy Pao oil then Castrol edge 0w30 or 0w40 from Walmart is absolutely exceptional. It has Porsche a40 and mb229.5, it doesn't have ll01 because the high paos makes it easily oxidizable thus it can't past the super stringent oxidation test ll01 has.

The warranty expired last September. The Ravenol VMP is an LL04 oil. LL04 is the same as LL01 except it's mid-SAPS. LL-1 is full SAPS. And it's base stock is PAO.