Quote:
Originally Posted by Petros
I think you confused things. Here is what I think based on what I read online. The old original oil was Castrol RS which was the BMW approved oil. Then around 2000 or so Castrol reformulated RS from ester to PAO base and lost BMW approval. Since then, the original ester formula was relabeled as TWS, and later on reformulated as Edge TWS, which is the oil used today. The PAO formulation introduced in 2000 retained the RS name until it was later renamed Edge Sport. All of those oils had a viscosity of 10w60. But only the ester based formulations (old RS, then TWS, then Edge TWS) are approved for BMW M engines.
What SFP was saying was that there are two different Edge TWS formulations, the FST for general retail, and the "Professional" FST exclusive to BMW dealers. If that's the case, that would mean Castrol has 3 different 10w60 oils, the Edge Sport PAO based, then the two ester base oils, the normal FST, and the BMW-specific Professional FST. Supposedly, the "Professional" oil has better quality.
That is what I personally doubt. It seems pointless, wasteful, and cost prohibitive to have separate refinement and processing facilities to make the same oil with one of those facilities just a bit more thorough in quality control just for the sake of keeping BMW happy. Without evidence, I am assuming that the whole "Professional" naming thing on the label is just branding and marketing, nothing more. I'm thinking that this branding is part of the exclusivity agreemnent with BMW, that only oil sold by their dealers can be labelled "Professional", therefore Castrol removes that word from the label on the version of the oil destined for general retail.
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What about this one though?
http://www.ecstuning.com/BMW-E92-M3-...ice/ES2580488/
This is still labeled as "Professional" but is not "Genuine BMW" oil and is a few bucks cheaper than the bottle with the BMW label. What are your thoughts on this?