Genral maintenance and a probably very silly question!

[Bev & Lola]

Hi there, so i live in the UKand have a UK E36 1996 318is (M44 1.9 engine). A few questions and i will leave the really silly one to last!

1. what type of oil should i be using for it? synthetic? mineral? part synthetic? if you need to know mileage to answer this it is up to 90k miles.

2. what make spark plugs NGK? BOSCH? and also model numbers do you approve of?

3. Silly question alert ! i have seen a lot of talk on here about check engine light and have sort of shrugged it off as i always thought i didn't have one as i have never seen anything like this light up....but the more i look on the forums the more people i see with older cars than mine saying about their lights coming on. So should i have one? and where abouts is it?? i presume on the dashboard somewhere!! and what does it look like anyone have a photo of it?? and where it is!!

[E36 Phantom]

I prefer synthetic. Part synthetic is pointless IMO. You're not gonna kill it with dino, but I think synthetic builds a better film from my understanding.

Spark plugs.........ODL. Has been covered way too many times. NGK Iridium IX.

CEL is a USA thing. You have the Check Control light (yellow, just says CHECK) if you have Check Control on the OBC. That's totally different than the CEL (which is red and says CHECK ENGINE). UK cars don't have it, and it confuses a lot of people when we start talking about it... :rofl:

[Bev & Lola]

ok, so synthetic it is, sparks. check. and then you started using language that i have no idea about :rofl:
CEL = check engine light which if i can understand you means this is USA only so i won't have one
but i may have a check yellow light if i have a OBC. see this is where i am getting confused is the OBC the onboard computer thing that is in the centre console that tells you MPg etc?? if so, i don't have one of those!! so i therefore presume i don't have a check engine light at all?

[E36 Phantom]

Yes, CEL = Check Engine Light = USA only.
Check Control light = CHECK = Worldwide, with an 11 or 18 button OBC if it has the "Check" button
If you don't have the "Check" button and you're not in the US, you have no lights relating to "Check" anything on your dash.

[Adam318is]

Wow, I didn't even know that about CEL being US-exclusive.

Soooo, if an emissions-related problem occurs in a European edition, you just kind of have to troubleshoot it yourself with no assistance from an OBD?

[E36 Phantom]

You can still use OBD to pull codes, but they won't light up any light. The CEL was mandated by the EPA, IIRC. It freaks people out thinking they've got some heinous problem, when really it can be very simple things like an Evap line not being hooked up all the way and letting an extra ppm of some horribly deadly, environmentally detrimental gas like CO2 come out! :rolleyes:

[Adam318is]

...Or my crankcase vent hose being sliced 'n diced :)

That's crazy, though, I didn't know that. I don't think the CEL is necessarily a "bad" thing though, it can become very irritating when it's tripped by something so ridiculously minor, though.

[E36 Phantom]

I'm split on it. It's convenient to alert you to problems that may be minor, but should be fixed.

The downside is for the smog checks out here. You can't have the CEL on for any reason, even tiny, or you automatically fail. Can be stupidly annoying.

[Westlotorn]

I think it is proven that true synthetic oils will perform at higher temperatures than petrolium oils. This is only an issue if you overheat or run very hard.
I run synthetic Amsoil in my 530i and 525i because I never want to wonder if the engine would have lived if I had run synthetic.
I do know fully that petrolium works just fine, I just like the insurance I am paying for with synthetic.
Before you Poo Poo this think about simple failures that happen, like a partially plugged Catalytic converter, it causes excess backpressure and your exhaust gas temp suddenly is higher than normal, now the valves and pistons are exposed to unusual heat even though you are driving normally. I would hope to discover the problem before failure but I also hope the synthetic oil buys me a little more time to discover that before something else fails in addition to the Cat blockage.

[HyphE36]

deeeeeeeeeem chad :wow:

You're like an encyclopedia on e36's, remembering pages from manuals, knowing about US vs UK spec's down to the CEL ------------ +1

sliiiiiiick