Whos running Mobil 1 0w-40?

[bigjae1976]

Me says...the more you run your engine at redline...the shorter your engine life will be. Doesn't matter what oil you put in. The only thing you can do without going inside of the engine is use a quality oil and change it frequently. Raising the rev limiter with software sure isn't helping things either.

I've used both M1 and TWS and blown motors with both oils on my E46 330 and E46 M3. I think there are minimal differences as long as you are using a frequently changed, quality API approved synthetic oil. I can't speak for racing oils with significantly more robust additive packages.

Me, I'm looking at a 50k-ish rod bearing change out. Mostly due to the track abuse and the amount of time at redline it has seen. This interval should be way sooner than most.

I think history has shown that TWS is a pretty good oil to use for cars that are driven hard. There's plenty of other cars that have shown Mobil 1 to be a quality oil as well. I think either oil will work well in our cars. I won't go away from TWS because it will blow up my engine...but I will use Mobil 1 because its way easier to find and doesn't require a special trip to the dealer. If anything, the lower cost and better availability allows me to change the oil more frequently.

[wrecklessfool]

I saw that Kawasaki00 mentioned 5 qts 0-40 and 4 qts 15-50 (5/4). What is the consensus on doing 6 qts 0-40 and 3 qts 15-50 (6/3)? So you get the majority of the goodness of the 0-40 for cold starts but with a little bit of added pressure and film strength between bearings under load. If the 5/4 is good for a heavily boosted airstrip machine then maybe the 6/3 is equally good for a moderately boosted street car? Or is 7/2 maybe better?

Can anyone chime in?

[SenorFunkyPants]

Originally Posted by bigjae1976

Me says...the more you run your engine at redline...the shorter your engine life will be.

There was an article that I came across (can't find it again!) where Castrol ran E9x M3 engines at max rpm (under load IIRC) with their 10W60 oil and competing oils until they blew up. Of course unsurprisingly the Castrol oil lasted longest (they wouldn't have released the article if it didn't) but thats not whats interesting...the engines only lasted to around 180 hours!
That seemed an awfully short time...isn't it?
Anyway makes that sustained blast at high rpm trying to hit the cars top speed less of a good idea.

[pbonsalb]

Originally Posted by SenorFunkyPants

There was an article that I came across (can't find it again!) where Castrol ran E9x M3 engines at max rpm (under load IIRC) with their 10W60 oil and competing oils until they blew up. Of course unsurprisingly the Castrol oil lasted longest (they wouldn't have released the article if it didn't) but thats not whats interesting...the engines only lasted to around 180 hours!
That seemed an awfully short time...isn't it?
Anyway makes that sustained blast at high rpm trying to hit the cars top speed less of a good idea.

On the way to a top speed run, you won't spend much time at redline. If top speed ends up being at redline, there are few places in the world where you could spend even 1 hour at redline at that speed, much less 180 hours. And if you just spent a few seconds at redline here and there, I would think that more than 180 hours total would be possible. If I planned to run my motor only at high rpm, I would definitely be running 10W60. But I drive it on the street and after 60k miles of 10W60, now have 0W40 in it and a fresh set of WPC treated bearings. I would not worry at all about the engine if doing a top speed run.

[SenorFunkyPants]

I was simply agreeing with bigjae1976...more time at high rpm = shorter engine life all else being equal.

[gatorfast]

Originally Posted by wrecklessfool

I saw that Kawasaki00 mentioned 5 qts 0-40 and 4 qts 15-50 (5/4). What is the consensus on doing 6 qts 0-40 and 3 qts 15-50 (6/3)? So you get the majority of the goodness of the 0-40 for cold starts but with a little bit of added pressure and film strength between bearings under load. If the 5/4 is good for a heavily boosted airstrip machine then maybe the 6/3 is equally good for a moderately boosted street car? Or is 7/2 maybe better?

Can anyone chime in?

If you buy the 5qt jugs you can use 2.5 qts of 15w50 to get two oil changes out of it.

[Killerfish2012]

Originally Posted by SenorFunkyPants

There was an article that I came across (can't find it again!) where Castrol ran E9x M3 engines at max rpm (under load IIRC) with their 10W60 oil and competing oils until they blew up. Of course unsurprisingly the Castrol oil lasted longest (they wouldn't have released the article if it didn't) but thats not whats interesting...the engines only lasted to around 180 hours!
That seemed an awfully short time...isn't it?
Anyway makes that sustained blast at high rpm trying to hit the cars top speed less of a good idea.

I wonder how long the engines would have lasted with raised rpm redlines? Just some food for thought. So many rod bearing failure threads, but folks don't like coming clean about having a tune on their cars.

[kawasaki00]

Originally Posted by SenorFunkyPants

There was an article that I came across (can't find it again!) where Castrol ran E9x M3 engines at max rpm (under load IIRC) with their 10W60 oil and competing oils until they blew up. Of course unsurprisingly the Castrol oil lasted longest (they wouldn't have released the article if it didn't) but thats not whats interesting...the engines only lasted to around 180 hours!
That seemed an awfully short time...isn't it?
Anyway makes that sustained blast at high rpm trying to hit the cars top speed less of a good idea.

That is actually pretty good. GM does a 24hr WOT test at 100rpm below the limiter to test the v8 stuff. That was the original fault of the zr1, they tried to do the 427 with the blower and it would never run for 24 hrs without blowing up. They then backed it down to a 383

[checkmate]

Just changed the oil to M1 OW-40 this evening. Will report back on my experience over the winter.

[Killerfish2012]

1,500 miles, and it already needed a quart to top off! wtf? Big difference in terms of oil consumption compared to total 10W50. Oh well, I need the oil to get through winter. More singe digit cold starts next week. Do yourself a favor if traveling with M1 0W40, pack at least a quart. I'm in the middle of a 1,400mile round trip this holiday, and I had to find a walmart. Thank goodness, I found one right when I hit minimum.

[marksae]

Looking back in my records, my car was going through a quart every 3200 miles on the OEM 10W60. Since switching to M1 0W40, it now takes approximately 2700 miles to go through a quart. This is with all street driving.

[pbonsalb]

The thick stuff made sense for BMW's 15k mile oil changes. They would not want people coming in every 5k miles for a topoff. That would defeat BMW's plan to reduce its maintenance costs during the warranty period.

[W///]

Originally Posted by Killerfish2012

1,500 miles, and it already needed a quart to top off! wtf? Big difference in terms of oil consumption compared to total 10W50. Oh well, I need the oil to get through winter. More singe digit cold starts next week. Do yourself a favor if traveling with M1 0W40, pack at least a quart. I'm in the middle of a 1,400mile round trip this holiday, and I had to find a walmart. Thank goodness, I found one right when I hit minimum.

Were you filled right below max when you did the oil change? With 10W60, my car never had to be topped off between oil changes (7500 miles). With 0W40, I have to fill about 0.7 quarts every 2500 miles. That's acceptable to me.

[Killerfish2012]

Originally Posted by W///

Were you filled right below max when you did the oil change? With 10W60, my car never had to be topped off between oil changes (7500 miles). With 0W40, I have to fill about 0.7 quarts every 2500 miles. That's acceptable to me.

Yes right below max at first change. 1,100 miles later it was at 1/2 way. Started out on my journey, went 568miles, and it was at minimum with a warning message. Poured in a quart, and after 400 more miles, I'm now needing to pour in probably 1/2 quart to get back to max, when all is said and done.

[Flea7]

Originally Posted by Killerfish2012

Yes right below max at first change. 1,100 miles later it was at 1/2 way. Started out on my journey, went 568miles, and it was at minimum with a warning message. Poured in a quart, and after 400 more miles, I'm now needing to pour in probably 1/2 quart to get back to max, when all is said and done.

Have you checked to see if you have a valve cover leak or leak at the oil cap?....or both? I was going through the same thing to find out that I have leaks.

[bigjae1976]

Leak or burning oil. Going from 10w-50 to 0w-40 doesn't suddenly create oil consumption during street driving unless there is an issue.

[Killerfish2012]

Originally Posted by Flea7

Have you checked to see if you have a valve cover leak or leak at the oil cap?....or both? I was going through the same thing to find out that I have leaks.

No leaks. Not a single drop. The valve covers are brand new, changed like a month ago.

[Killerfish2012]

Originally Posted by bigjae1976

Leak or burning oil. Going from 10w-50 to 0w-40 doesn't suddenly create oil consumption during street driving unless there is an issue.

So that's 1,500miles and 1.5 quarts of M1 0W40 consumed. 3K miles total give or take on the oil. In sharp contrast to the Total 10W50, which went 6,800 total miles, 3 full track days, and consumed 1.5 quarts. Not what folks on a Mobil 1 love thread want to hear, but it's the truth.

[gatorfast]

Originally Posted by Killerfish2012

So that's 1,500miles and 1.5 quarts of M1 0W40 consumed. 3K miles total give or take on the oil. In sharp contrast to the Total 10W50, which went 6,800 total miles, 3 full track days, and consumed 1.5 quarts. Not what folks on a Mobil 1 love thread want to hear, but it's the truth.

That does seem like high consumption but not necessarily indicative of a problem. Maybe the consumption will drop with time

[kawasaki00]

Originally Posted by Killerfish2012

So that's 1,500miles and 1.5 quarts of M1 0W40 consumed. 3K miles total give or take on the oil. In sharp contrast to the Total 10W50, which went 6,800 total miles, 3 full track days, and consumed 1.5 quarts. Not what folks on a Mobil 1 love thread want to hear, but it's the truth.

Give it 2 or 3 oil changes, the consumption will be higher when first changing. The cylinder wall and ring interface will change with the different oil. Mine was the same when first changed, 2 qt in 5k miles but now it is 1qt in 4-5k miles
Idling and part throttle will consume more oil too. If you are in traffic alot it uses more oil.

[Killerfish2012]

Originally Posted by kawasaki00

Give it 2 or 3 oil changes, the consumption will be higher when first changing. The cylinder wall and ring interface will change with the different oil. Mine was the same when first changed, 2 qt in 5k miles but now it is 1qt in 4-5k miles
Idling and part throttle will consume more oil too. If you are in traffic alot it uses more oil.

good advice! thanks

[Richbot]

FWIW my car burned about 1.5 quarts over 7200 miles in my first run with M1. This was about a quart more than TWS on the same interval. This was the first change I ran with M1 currently on the second and no significant change in the readout yet after 2000 miles.