Blackstone report- 2011 M3 at 33,000 miles and a few track days.

[roastbeef]

Got a great report, and I couldn't be happier.

My car had about 33,000 miles on it at the time. This report was with oil that had about 10,000 miles and one track day on it. My car now has 43,000 miles on it, and coincidentally went out of warranty today (ran out of time).

I let the car idle for about 1-2 minutes, then I drive it gently until the oil is at or close to 210*F. My car typically runs at about a needle's width below the 210 mark unless its a hot day and I'm running the A/C. I definitely don't beat on the car until I have been driving the car for a while and everything is warmed up.

I'm also one of those people that only used Chevron 91 gas.

Photobucket sucks these days, but this is what I got.

[X5-User]

0 Lead very nice but it is 2011 which doesn't show lead metal

BTW, are you changing oil every 10k miles? I have been told by some that I don't need to change it every 5k or 7.5k if I don't track the car and this type of oil can be good upto 10k

[roastbeef]

Originally Posted by Bimmer-M3

0 Lead very nice but it is 2011 which doesn't show lead metal

BTW, are you changing oil every 10k miles? I have been told by some that I don't need to change it every 5k or 7.5k if I don't track the car and this type of oil can be good upto 10k

what do you mean by a 2011 not showing lead?

i change my oil about every 7.5-8k. i was under the factory maintenance until it expired and payed $200 for oil changes between what the dealership would perform (i just didn't reset the oil timer).
my car does burn oil, and i could attribute that to road trips where i was driving about 400 miles at 80-85mph and track days.

i think 15k intervals are somewhat asking a lot of the oil in a performance engine. 10k is comfortable, and 7.5 is where i would like to be.

i have never had any concerns with noises, etc. with this car and i'm going to continue to track and keep up the maintenance and care habits i have developed. it isn't my daily driver anymore, but i do intend to keep it forever.

[X5-User]

Originally Posted by roastbeef

what do you mean by a 2011 not showing lead?

i change my oil about every 7.5-8k. i was under the factory maintenance until it expired and payed $200 for oil changes between what the dealership would perform (i just didn't reset the oil timer).
my car does burn oil, and i could attribute that to road trips where i was driving about 400 miles at 80-85mph and track days.

i think 15k intervals are somewhat asking a lot of the oil in a performance engine. 10k is comfortable, and 7.5 is where i would like to be.

i have never had any concerns with noises, etc. with this car and i'm going to continue to track and keep up the maintenance and care habits i have developed. it isn't my daily driver anymore, but i do intend to keep it forever.

2010+ model don't have the lead rod bearings anymore. They are coated with Alum instead. Search under engine section for more details.

[dparm]

Looks fine to me. Pay for TBN and TAN next time so you can establish a good change interval.

BTW, no need to let the car idle for 1-2 minutes, it won't do any good (actually a bad idea to do this habitually).

[roastbeef]

Originally Posted by Bimmer-M3

2010+ model don't have the lead rod bearings anymore. They are coated with Alum instead. Search under engine section for more details.

i thought i remembered reading somewhere that bmw changed bearings somewhere along the line, but wasn't sure what the year was. thanks.

Originally Posted by dparm

Looks fine to me. Pay for TBN and TAN next time so you can establish a good change interval.

BTW, no need to let the car idle for 1-2 minutes, it won't do any good (actually a bad idea to do this habitually).

i'll have to research TBN and TAN, i'm just getting into this oil analysis and have a lot to learn.

i know the two minute idle has been debated a bit, sometimes it is a little less. i'm going to keep doing what i'm doing... i'm a little ocd with stuff like this.

[dparm]

Originally Posted by roastbeef

i'll have to research TBN and TAN, i'm just getting into this oil analysis and have a lot to learn.

i know the two minute idle has been debated a bit, sometimes it is a little less. i'm going to keep doing what i'm doing... i'm a little ocd with stuff like this.

TBN = total base number, which is a measure of reserve alkalinity. In other words, how well can it neutralize acids. Higher = better. As the oil wears out, the TBN will start to fall.

TAN = total acid number, which is a measure of the oil's acidity. As the oil is in use longer, it will grow more acidic. The current way of thinking is that you need to change it when TBN and TAN numbers are pretty close (ideally the TBN should be a little bit higher, but there's no way to tell until you pull the oil).

These are the better ways to determine change intervals. Even though particulate matter might be fairly low, if the oil has run out of that reserve alkalinity, it needs to be changed. What I did when I first got the car was to pull a sample of the oil at about 5,000 miles and send it in for analysis. From that, I was able to tell that 7,500 was a very safe change interval (for my exact motor and driving style) and that I could've gone even longer. I suggest you do the same. A small hand pump is about $20, and the analysis with TBN and TAN is about $40. If it lets you stretch the change interval out, that saves you money.



As far as prolonged idling, do you understand that it is actually worse to do that? When the car is cold, it is running very rich and contaminating the oil with fuel. You are basically wearing the oil out faster (the above reserve alkalinity will have to try and fight the gasoline) and thinning the oil out. You are also forcing the motor to pump extremely thick oil for longer than it has to.

If you look at an oil analysis for a car in the winter, and then look at the analysis for the same car in the summer, you will see the winter oil being thinner and needing to be changed faster.

My advice is to just start the car, wait a few seconds, and keep engine load low until the oil has heated up a bit.

[Leonardo629]

I say bravo, here's why: your M3 obviously has the newer non-lead bearings, and from my observation, non-lead bearings M3 UOAs typically show zero lead of course, but a few ppm of tin/nickel would show up in the report. Yours show zero, so I say keep whatever you're doing.

[Billj747]

Originally Posted by dparm

As far as prolonged idling, do you understand that it is actually worse to do that? When the car is cold, it is running very rich and contaminating the oil with fuel. You are basically wearing the oil out faster (the above reserve alkalinity will have to try and fight the gasoline) and thinning the oil out. You are also forcing the motor to pump extremely thick oil for longer than it has to.

If you look at an oil analysis for a car in the winter, and then look at the analysis for the same car in the summer, you will see the winter oil being thinner and needing to be changed faster.

My advice is to just start the car, wait a few seconds, and keep engine load low until the oil has heated up a bit.

I'm sure you've said this 1000X by now, but I haven't been on m3post in a while. If you don't recommend idling, how do you explain how pretty much every professional race team idles their cars for minutes on end, then cycle through a few thousand rpm (up and down) once it gets a bit warmer to get the oil up to temp before running it? -and even better is having a sump warmer prior to firing in the first place.

I agree if you're going to drive it right away, low RPM and low load is crucial to not hurt the engine when cold, especially when using thick oil; however I don't know what the difference is between idling/cycling the rpm while stationary vs. driving it slowly is....

[dparm]

Originally Posted by Billj747

I'm sure you've said this 1000X by now, but I haven't been on m3post in a while. If you don't recommend idling, how do you explain how pretty much every professional race team idles their cars for minutes on end, then cycle through a few thousand rpm (up and down) once it gets a bit warmer to get the oil up to temp before running it? -and even better is having a sump warmer prior to firing in the first place.

I agree if you're going to drive it right away, low RPM and low load is crucial to not hurt the engine when cold, especially when using thick oil; however I don't know what the difference is between idling/cycling the rpm while stationary vs. driving it slowly is....

I'd say their use case for motor oil and engine longevity is vastly different than a street car's. Apples-to-oranges.

[Billj747]

So then how is idling/slowly cycling the RPM while stationary any different then driving the car slowly?

[dragonsi]

Nice numbers! How much oil did you end up adding to top it off over the span of 10,000 miles?

[roastbeef]

Originally Posted by dragonsi

Nice numbers! How much oil did you end up adding to top it off over the span of 10,000 miles?

I'm not 100% sure, but I think I gave her half a quart I had left over from an oil change and that held her over.

The only time she has asked for oil is usually long road trips at about 85 mph for an extended period of time.

[Therooferking]

Originally Posted by roastbeef

i thought i remembered reading somewhere that bmw changed bearings somewhere along the line, but wasn't sure what the year was. thanks.

i'll have to research TBN and TAN, i'm just getting into this oil analysis and have a lot to learn.

i know the two minute idle has been debated a bit, sometimes it is a little less. i'm going to keep doing what i'm doing... i'm a little ocd with stuff like this.

I don't think 1-2 Mins is gonna hurt anything. It gives the car a chance to atleast warn up from the cold start. I do the same with my car. I wouldn't suggest 5-10 mins or anything like that. Alot of people I've noticed start talking about the rest of the car warming up together with the engine and the engine itself warming up faster while driving. I've started my car and drove away immediatly and I've also waited 1-2 mins. I really didn't notice any real difference. The car took the same time to fully warm up.