Advise on engine oil

Dhp507

///Member
motul X clean 5W 40 - R399 for 5L

a Real synthetic, none of those other oils mentioned come close
 

Bavs108

///Member
pambaram said:
Bavs108 said:
I get my oil from bmw... Castrol Magnatec 5w30... Around R75 per liter with discount the last time I bought. Never had a problem. I think Castrol may have changed their formula or something, because the new oils are green as opposed to golden.

I spoke to one of the service advisors at BMW and he mentioned that BMW will is experiencing sludge on there motors with Castrol.

He recommended shell helix is the way to go...

Most likely BMW will change as well

Never had a problem with sludge... My car is on 180k km now and the oil comes out as smooth as silk when servicing... But then again it's my daily drive and I do 120km per day so my oil changes are more frequent than usual.

AdiS said:
Bavs108 said:
I get my oil from bmw... Castrol Magnatec 5w30... Around R75 per liter with discount the last time I bought. Never had a problem. I think Castrol may have changed their formula or something, because the new oils are green as opposed to golden.

I think the green one is Magnatec Professional which is a fully synthetic, as opposed to ordinary magnatec that is not..

I never really noticed. I knew the old oil wasn't fully synthetic, but didn't know they changed to full synthetic with the new oil. I'll check when I get home, I always buy an extra bottle in case of emergency or for top ups.
 

Dr Evil

Active member
Magnatec professional is the new name for SLX which was the gold bottle.

I never had issues with the Castrol but I changed to the helix ultra mainly for the convenience of getting it anywhere

Sent from my S4 LTE using my finger
 

VeNoM_Ct

Member
pambaram said:
Bavs108 said:
I get my oil from bmw... Castrol Magnatec 5w30... Around R75 per liter with discount the last time I bought. Never had a problem. I think Castrol may have changed their formula or something, because the new oils are green as opposed to golden.

I spoke to one of the service advisors at BMW and he mentioned that BMW will is experiencing sludge on there motors with Castrol.

He recommended shell helix is the way to go...

Most likely BMW will change as well

Sludge is correct! castrol not so good... Toyota uses castrol too and they said castrol crap... it forms sludge
 

Iceman007

Active member
This is the latest and greatest on the market



Check the oil grading on back



I use Castrol all the years and no problems. People that have sludge problems are those that drive very short distances 5km and driving miss daisy.
 

Philip Foglar

///Member
Castrol causing sludge in my opinion is being blown out of proportion, if anything, it's the stupid lengthy service intervals (and assuming none are skipped) that causes the build up of sludge.

As I posted when I did the Vanos seals, here's what our E46 320i with the M54 motor looked like at 181k km. I bought the car with 150k km on the clock so I would think that it only had the typical Castrol SLX 5W-30 oil used since all services were at the agents.

IMG_6881_zps394eb2fd.jpg


I changed oil just after buying the car and used Castrol SLX 5W-30, and then again at the next service when it needed a dealer service, supplied them the oil and other service parts. From then onwards Castrol rebranded SLX as Castrol Magnatec Professional 5W-30 which I then used and oil changes have been every 10k km. Of course with the leaking valve cover gasket the oil was being topped up (same oil of course) every so often which helps of course.

I know that Castrol Magnatec 10W-40 which was used in early VW golofs/jetaas 1.9tdi and 1.8i turbo had problems with sludge - this oil was (is) not suited for turbo engines, so more a case of VW using the wrong stuff! I also think Toyota mostly used (not sure if they still do) Castrol 20W-50 which is apparently a "sludge" agent. Neither of these are BMW approved whereas Castrol Magnatec Professional 5W-30 is LL01.

Basically, I don't care which brand of oil is used, but more frequent oil changes is the way to go! Two years or 25k km is stupid long for any oil in my opinion! :thumbs:
 

pambaram

Active member
Philip Foglar said:
Castrol causing sludge in my opinion is being blown out of proportion, if anything, it's the stupid lengthy service intervals (and assuming none are skipped) that causes the build up of sludge.

As I posted when I did the Vanos seals, here's what our E46 320i with the M54 motor looked like at 181k km. I bought the car with 150k km on the clock so I would think that it only had the typical Castrol SLX 5W-30 oil used since all services were at the agents.

IMG_6881_zps394eb2fd.jpg


I changed oil just after buying the car and used Castrol SLX 5W-30, and then again at the next service when it needed a dealer service, supplied them the oil and other service parts. From then onwards Castrol rebranded SLX as Castrol Magnatec Professional 5W-30 which I then used and oil changes have been every 10k km. Of course with the leaking valve cover gasket the oil was being topped up (same oil of course) every so often which helps of course.

I know that Castrol Magnatec 10W-40 which was used in early VW golofs/jetaas 1.9tdi and 1.8i turbo had problems with sludge - this oil was (is) not suited for turbo engines, so more a case of VW using the wrong stuff! I also think Toyota mostly used (not sure if they still do) Castrol 20W-50 which is apparently a "sludge" agent. Neither of these are BMW approved whereas Castrol Magnatec Professional 5W-30 is LL01.

Basically, I don't care which brand of oil is used, but more frequent oil changes is the way to go! Two years or 25k km is stupid long for any oil in my opinion! :thumbs:

Morning Guys

This weekend I'll be doing my oil change :=):

Is it a good thing to use liqui moly proline engine flush before draining the old oil?
 

DieselFan

Honorary ///Member
I use an engine flush when changing oil.

One interesting thing I found about the liquimoly oils is toptec is used for cars with cats and the purple bottle, not even going to try get the name right. Is used for cars without cats and dpfs and is better for your car. But its not good for your cats.
 

Flash-Gordon

Honorary ///Member
Any oil will sludge if it's not changed regularly

25 - 30 k service intervals? Catch a wakey bmw :flyfun: There's the root cause of your sludge buildup :nonono:

Back to the point, Castrol 5w40 fully synthetic for me please :rollsmile:
 

pambaram

Active member
Howsit guys

I was driving back from Limpopo this after and my handbrake light came on in yellow
The light stayed on all the way back to JHB
Any ideas what could be wrong

Thanks guys
 

icechilli

///Member
I was reading the service board at a bmw dealer and Shell is gonna be an approved oil by beggining of 2015

Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk
 

Andy1GP

///Member
Flash-Gordon said:
Any oil will sludge if it's not changed regularly

25 - 30 k service intervals? Catch a wakey bmw :flyfun: There's the root cause of your sludge buildup :nonono:

Back to the point, Castrol 5w40 fully synthetic for me please :rollsmile:

I think you nailed it on the head.

I for one think it doesn't matter as much what oil you use compared to how frequently you service. The frequency outweighs the quality. To answer you original question the Shell is perfectly fine :thumbs:
 
Hi Guys

I recently bought 2011 BMW 320 I e90 , so im planning to change engine oil, I called BMW dealer and they told me that they sell R135 per litre.

can you please assist with any other oil recommendation ?
 

Clint@MMS AUTO

BMWFanatics Advertiser
Official Advertiser
Personally i'd use the Shell Helix. bmw switched over from Castrol to shell oils in 2015/2016? this was when they started putting the Shell logos on the DTM cars to promote the new partnership between BMW and Shell...
 
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