How to CHOOSE the right oil for you for your E39

Originally Posted by 540 M-Sport

Yes, if you are looking for a definitive answer.

Again, I'm totally unsure where you're going with this. Sorry.

To be clear, we have a reasonably definitive answer for what it means to the OP when he reads "Use Castrol" on the oil filler cap.

And, we have three reasonably definitive answers (depending on what 'religion' you subscribe to) to what oil you'd use.

1. If you're in the first camp - you'd use only what BMW says to use.
2. If you're in the second camp - you'd use that - or anything you deem reasonably equivalent.
3. If you're in the third camp - you'd use all of the above - plus many others that are of reasonable quality based on well known and well used and well published standards.

So, from a 'definitive' standpoint, I think if someone asked me "what oil would I use", I'd have absolutely no problem.

The problem comes with someone asking me what oil YOU would use; or what oil "MatWiz" would use; or what oil "Doru" would use; or what oil cn90 would use (actually I know exactly what oil cn90 would use because he thinks like I do).

My point is you just can not answer that question until you know what religious punch the user wishes to subscribe to. Once you know that, it's easy to tell them which oil fits the criteria.

If that's what you mean by "definitive", well then, it's definitive as lone as you define the religious camp the "questioner" wants to live in.

Originally Posted by 540 M-Sport

The only way to it is to drop your often repeated "dogma" term and start looking at this by DOCTRINE.

Well, we 'did' ask in the thread what to call it, whether it be 'camp' or 'dogma' or 'doctrine' or 'religion' or whatever. The camps will be the same no matter 'what' you call them (a rose is a rose ... ).

Call them categories. Call them thought models. Call them mind sets.

You can call it whatever you like. I use all those terms interchangeably.

Originally Posted by 540 M-Sport

The first information comes from the builder of the engine, they made it, and they should have a very good idea of what is required to ensure reliability and longevity

Ummm.. this is the same "builder of the car" who specified plastic DISA valves, plastic pulleys, a plastic cooling system, buton VANOS seals, recycled rubber window molding, idiotic FSUs, leaky thrust-arm bushings, ridiculous window regulators, asinine cluster & MID pixel tape, brittle PBT plastic headlight adjusters, poorly tack welded ABS control module steel wires, weak vapor barrier adhesive, 20K mile shocks, too-short wiring looms, fragile steering wheel & seat controllers, etc. (all that just from memory).

BMW gets no credit for engineering on any of those issues. But, what's your point?

1. Everyone in the 1st 'mind set' agrees with the BMW-approved list.
2. Everyone in the 2nd 'mind set' agrees with the BMW-approved list.
3. Everyone in the 3rd 'mind set' agrees with the BMW-approved list.

I don't see a single person 'disagreeing' with the BMW-approved list of motor oils to use in the E39.

What I see, at both ends, is people in the first list disagreeing with everyone else - and people in the last list agreeing with everyone.

You just happen to (probably) be in the first list. That's all. It's pre-ordained, based on which list you're already in, by your very nature. And that's OK.

Since I'm in the third category, I think everyone is right. And that's OK.

The problem isn't you or me. We're set for life. (And that's OK.) Neither one of us is going to have an engine failure because of what oil we used. Never ever ever. It just isn't going to happen.

The problem is the confusion of the NEWBIE who asks "what oil?" and then gets lists of oils in the three different categories and then, confusingly to him, all the arguments in between (almost exclusively from those in the first category denouncing all the other thought models).

Nobody in the third category is doing the argument. I doubt anyone in the second category is either (all they do is select oils).

All the argument comes from those in the first category ... which is hilarious ... when you think of it ... 'cuz ... for them ... the decision is so very simple!