From castrol tws to liqui moly??? Who made the switch???

[MikeeM3]

Im about to switch from castrol to liqui moly oil as of my next oil change (150$ saving in total).

Who here made the switch??

Is it gonna potentially affect my engine if for 69k miles car has been oiled with castrol??

Thanks
Mike

[CIFUM3]

You should do some search on here!
Plenty have and no issues. I'm on M1 0-40 and supercharged

[E46XITOE92M3]

Why whould you switch your oil

[MikeeM3]

Originally Posted by E46XITOE92M3

Why whould you switch your oil

because some people are running moly in their BMW over here !!

cost of liqui moly= 50$/5L
cost of castrol at the dealer= 30$/L

[VictorH]

I've done it, no issues, no problems, no significant oil consumption. I'm at 86,000 miles.

[MikeeM3]

Originally Posted by VictorH

I've done it, no issues, no problems, no significant oil consumption. I'm at 86,000 miles.

Thanks I might be the next one to do the switch

[///Mobbin]

I'm about to change my oil as well and noticed ECS Tuning has decent pricing on a Castrol TWS oil change kit. Does anyone know who sells a kit with Liqui Moly for comparison?

[kaede]

Originally Posted by MikeeM3

because some people are running moly in their BMW over here !!

cost of liqui moly= 50$/5L
cost of castrol at the dealer= 30$/L

Never buy from stealership... source it online. (im also quite surprised that stealership still supplies TWS when they have already switched to that non-sense "twin turbo power 10w60" forumlated by Shell instead.

As mentioned though, do a search on the forum. Many here prefer and have switched to M1 0w40. Liqui Moly 10w60 seems to be a quality oil but is even heavier/thicker than the Castrol eventhough they are rated at the same weigh (10w60). In Ontario where you are in the summer time i don't see a problem, but when it starts to get cold tbh i think the M1 0w40 will server better.

Also depends on your driving habits and conditions, and whether or not you do some HPDE/ autox etc.

I do 100% M1 0w40 in the colder months, and switch to mix of M1 0w40 with TWS 10w60 (around 6L M1 and rest Castrol)in the summer months here in Vancouver.

Cheers!

[kaede]

Originally Posted by ///Mobbin

I'm about to change my oil as well and noticed ECS Tuning has decent pricing on a Castrol TWS oil change kit. Does anyone know who sells a kit with Liqui Moly for comparison?

Nope, never came across a Liqui Moly kit, but best probably is to source the oil and buy filters in bulk (ebay or some online merchants), you will save money for sure. Cheers!

[MikeeM3]

Originally Posted by kaede

Never buy from stealership... source it online. (im also quite surprised that stealership still supplies TWS when they have already switched to that non-sense "twin turbo power 10w60" forumlated by Shell instead.

As mentioned though, do a search on the forum. Many here prefer and have switched to M1 0w40. Liqui Moly 10w60 seems to be a quality oil but is even heavier/thicker than the Castrol eventhough they are rated at the same weigh (10w60). In Ontario where you are in the summer time i don't see a problem, but when it starts to get cold tbh i think the M1 0w40 will server better.

Also depends on your driving habits and conditions, and whether or not you do some HPDE/ autox etc.

I do 100% M1 0w40 in the colder months, and switch to mix of M1 0w40 with TWS 10w60 (around 6L M1 and rest Castrol)in the summer months here in Vancouver.

Cheers!

i dont track the car !! Its my weekend car but i do like to do some high speed rolls once and a while haha

car will be stored for the winter so i might try the M1 0w40 on my next oil change !! My father did the switch last month on his e90m3 and he said its all good

[E46XITOE92M3]

is it better quality or just cheaper I'm curious i use BMW M Twinpower Synthetic Oil - 10w-60 ?

[dparm]

Originally Posted by E46XITOE92M3

is it better quality or just cheaper I'm curious i use BMW M Twinpower Synthetic Oil - 10w-60 ?

It's of equivalent quality (from BMW's perspective) to the Castrol TWS, hence the OEM certification. You can use it with confidence.

BMW has changed suppliers from Castrol to Shell/Pennzoil.

[Doc Oc]

Switching to an even thicker oil isn't a great idea IMO. Its not talked about a lot on here but 5w40 is a good alternative.

[dparm]

Originally Posted by Doc Oc

Switching to an even thicker oil isn't a great idea IMO. Its not talked about a lot on here but 5w40 is a good alternative.

IIRC the Shell (Pennzoil) oil has HTHSV of 5.4, which is basically the same as TWS.

[Doc Oc]

Originally Posted by dparm

IIRC the Shell (Pennzoil) oil has HTHSV of 5.4, which is basically the same as TWS.

I was talking about LM. Looks like it is almost 10% thicker than tws...

[dparm]

Originally Posted by Doc Oc

I was talking about LM. Looks like it is almost 10% thicker than tws...

Is the HTHSV being published now? A lot of manufacturers don't put that on the spec sheet, but you can sometimes get it by asking. I bet it's pretty close to TWS's 5.4.

[Doc Oc]

I was just going by the viscosity index and pour point. They look pretty comparable otherwise.

[dparm]

Originally Posted by Doc Oc

I was just going by the viscosity index and pour point. They look pretty comparable otherwise.

Those are not good indicators of an oil's operational viscosity.

Pour point is largely worthless -- not even sure why it's published. CCS or MRV are far better because they measure pumpability at low temperatures.

VI is a decent indicator of the base oil's quality and sometimes its resistance to shearing.

[Doc Oc]

I always thought the higher the vi, the less the shear, leading me to believe the tws shears down more than the LM. Is that not how it works?

[Beemdog]

Originally Posted by kaede

I do 100% M1 0w40 in the colder months, and switch to mix of M1 0w40 with TWS 10w60 (around 6L M1 and rest Castrol)in the summer months here in Vancouver.

If you are going to blend oils to alter viscosity, it would be more predictable to stay within the same brand and type of oil. Combining different base stocks with different viscosity stabilizers from completely different sources is a bit of a crap shoot. I wouldn't do it, but that's just me. If you want a slightly heavier version of Mobil 1 0W-40, you could blend in a 3-4 quarts of the same basic version of Mobil 1 in a 15W-50. The final results still aren't guaranteed, but would be closer to expected than mixing Mobil 1 and Castrol, which, I am pretty sure neither manufacturer would recommend.

[dparm]

Originally Posted by Doc Oc

I always thought the higher the vi, the less the shear, leading me to believe the tws shears down more than the LM. Is that not how it works?

That is not how it works.

Higher VI can sometimes be a sign of VIIs (viscosity index improvers), which may or may not be able to withstand sustained punishment. It really depends on the formulation. Some oils have naturally high VIs, and those tend to be more stable. TWS uses more group V oils which typically have a naturally high VI.


It is difficult to tell if an oil will be shear stable just by looking at the VI. One theory that's been thrown around on BITOG is to approximate it with this formula:

Dynamic viscosity @ 150 C
------------------------------
HTHSV (@ 150 C)

Just as an example, Motul 300V 0w40 has a calculated "shear resistance" of 0.8795, but Pennzoil Ultra 0w40 only has a VI of 0.7173 despite having the exact same VI of 186!

If you're curious, the TWS shear resistance works out to about 0.8094. Not exactly the champion in this area, but still a very respectable number given its huge 10w60 viscosity spread. Many 0w50s I've looked at only offer shear resistance in the low 0.7x range.

[dparm]

Originally Posted by Beemdog

If you are going to blend oils to alter viscosity, it would be more predictable to stay within the same brand and type of oil. Combining different base stocks with different viscosity stabilizers from completely different sources is a bit of a crap shoot. I wouldn't do it, but that's just me. If you want a slightly heavier version of Mobil 1 0W-40, you could blend in a 3-4 quarts of the same basic version of Mobil 1 in a 15W-50. The final results still aren't guaranteed, but would be closer to expected than mixing Mobil 1 and Castrol, which, I am pretty sure neither manufacturer would recommend.

I agree that if you're going to mix, you should stay within the same manufacturer (and within the same "lineup" if possible). Red Line even says this on their website.

However, API certification means that it must be miscible with other API certified oils. Is it optimal? No. You can get additive pack clash if you start doing really funky stuff with drastically different types of oils. If you're going to mix two LL-01 certified oils together, for example, I don't think it would be a huge deal since they're already very similar.