Replacement Oil

[jinkies-jen]

Can anyone tell me how often I should be checking oil on my M3, its a 2003 plate but I have only just bought it. Garage said every two weeks or until the light came on?? also they quoted me sixty odd pounds for a litre of oil!!! can I use an equivalent oil (and if so can anyone recommend any) or is it something I should comply with and put in BMW approved oil? thanks

[m3john]

jinkies-jen said:

... its a 2003 plate but I have only just bought it. Garage said every two weeks or until the light came on??....

Sounds a bit suspect to me mate, especially at £60 a time its also very expensive.

Depending on how many service lights you currently have on, i'd obviously give it a check over, may even drain the oil and put a new filter on if your that worried then, just go by the service lights on the dash.

[steve1]

I take it you have to use the castrol tws 10/60 grade oil, you can actually buy a 4 litre container of that oil for about £35, if you need some let me know and I will give you a contact.

Steve.

[Kinky]

I'd be very nervous not checking the oil until the oil light comes on.

I'd check it at the very least every 2 weeks.

And as M3John says above - the price quoted is way too much.

K

[m12_nathan]

2003 car won't have service lights, just a countdown in miles.

You can check the oil using the onboard computer, just cycle through and it tells you how much you have +0.7L means .7 Litres over the minimum, it reads up to 1.1L, try not to fill it over +1.0 as you don't know if you've over filled it once it hits +1.1. This is the long term reading, the procedure for doing a short term reading straight after you've filled up is in the handbook.

BMW charge about £10-15 for a litre of Castrol RS oil for an M3.

[jinkies-jen]

Steve1
If you could let me know where I can get it from that would be great ! thanks for the advise guys, do wonder weather BMW saw me coming !!

[dave_s13]

And check general gassing and ask opieoilman (I think thats right), sticky at top of forum. He'll tell you what you can use safely and sell it for a good price as well.

[jinkies-jen]

Thanks for that, I have sent them an email asking for their prices etc

[PaulC_UK]

m12_nathan said:

2003 car won't have service lights, just a countdown in miles.

You can check the oil using the onboard computer, just cycle through and it tells you how much you have +0.7L means .7 Litres over the minimum, it reads up to 1.1L, try not to fill it over +1.0 as you don't know if you've over filled it once it hits +1.1. This is the long term reading, the procedure for doing a short term reading straight after you've filled up is in the handbook.

BMW charge about £10-15 for a litre of Castrol RS oil for an M3.

The m3's engine uses a dipstick rather than the oil level sensor in the V10'd m5/m6's (miss not having a dipstick as a backup on the V10 to be honest).

The m3 should really be using castrol TWS 10w60 not RS, TWS has better properties than RS for the higher revs of the engine as per Castrols tech dept.

I've bought my TWS 4L bottles from castrolclassicoils.co.uk in the past - was circa £45 a pop from memory.

Edited by PaulC_UK on Wednesday 16th August 21:55

[gaz1234]

how do you get to the oil level?