Hello, I recently purchased a second hand 318ti and the car runs like a dream, however it did not come with an owners manual. I changed the oil for the first time recently, as I didn't have the manual to go off of, I went with the mechanics recommendation and now the car has major oil leakage. I have read in a couple places that older bmw will leak with a synthetic oil which is what he put in.
So does anyone with this car have a recommendation for which oil to use, or even better a picture of the Engine Oil Specifications" page from the owners manual?
If it's leaking now, it was leaking before. Changing from dinosaur oil to synthetic just doesn't suddenly cause massive leaks.
10W-30, 10W-40, even 0W-30 is OK for your climate. Down here (southwest corner of Alabama) we run 20W-50 or 15W-50 in my M42 engine (manual recommendation) year-round due to the average temperature (just below boiling :yikes: )
Thanks for the reply! SHould have done my research before I got it changed I suppose. I've found a couple sources now explaining that if the car had old seals sometimes they are built up with "gunk" allowing them to still function and changing to synthetic effectively washes this away, so changing back won;t help if I have a bunch of leaking seals :/
So do you know where it's leaking from? The valve cover gasket and oil filter housing gasket are some common sources of leaks, and are easy to replace.
what did the mechanic recommend btw?
if it s leaking from the valve cover or from the oil filter housing...it s no big deal. it s an easy and cheap fix (40$ for valve cover gasket 1 to 2 hours work or 5$ for oil housing filter and dont forget the 2 O rings too, 3 hours of work+ you will need an oil change).
and for the type of oil to use, check the bentley manual and there is a sticky in the forum about engine oil recommendations...generally the recommendations go from 0W30 to 15W60 depending on where you live and what you do with the car and what season is it...
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