Perhaps this will be a PSA, or perhaps it will spurn some discussion.
Short story: I put LM 10w60 in my engine for the first time. It sounded broken. I immediately changed it back to BMW 10w60 and the car sounds perfect again.
Long Story:
My car (2013 ZCP, stock engine, 73k km's) is now just off warranty. It was time for an oil change, and I don't have free service any more. I live in a downtown condo, so car maintenance in the garage is frowned upon. I shopped around for oil change prices, and I found a reputable shop who would do the change for $200 CAD with LM oil. Nobody uses BMW oil in my area except the dealer - their price is about $300CAD inc. tax for an oil change. After reading all the threads with people praising LM oil, I thought I'd save the $100 and get an LM oil change.
I watched the tech do the oil change, and he did a great job, and the oil level was at the top.
On my drive home with the windows down, I started hearing noises. Non-pattern clicking from the engine that increased in frequency as RPM's increased. I nursed the car home and let it cool down.
I then did an experiment. First two videos are a cold-ish start two hours after I got home. you can see the temp gauge still have some residual oil temp from my earlier drive home. the noise is not apparent at idle or when revving.
These second videos are after a drive around the block to normal operating temp. the noise is apparent at idle and revving. the frequency of the noise increases when revving, but as you can hear it is not a regular frequency - it does not have a pattern.
it's hard to say whether the noise was coming from the top or bottom of the engine, but it seemed more likely to come from the top end.
the only change from yesterday and today (first time hearing this noise) is changing from BMW oil to LM.
I then rushed over to the BMW dealer and bought 8L of BMW 10W60 and a new filter. I waited until late in the evening and did my own oil change in the garage (hopefully nobody complains).
I took the car out, and thrashed on it as best I could in the city. No more noises - it sounds like it always has. No ticking besides the usual regular frequency valvetrain and injector noises.
The LM oil was in the car for approximately 1 hour of running time.
I read a couple of threads on this forum and bimmerpost about people complaining about similar noises with LM oil. My case is not unique - see
http://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1167323
Perhaps LM oil works well for others, but I won't be going back! The extra cost of the BMW oil is worth it for me now.