Hey everyone, I’m very clearly new to these boards but as made evident by the title, I’m also a new BMW owner as well! Additionally, this is the first European car I’ve ever owned as well so a lot of firsts here.
Now onto my questions:
1.) the manual says it requires 5W-40 full synth. I have found that this is a very uncommon or at least not abundantly available oil weight. I did find two different brand earlier at autozone, STP was 5.69$/qt and Castrol Edge was 9.89$/qt. I ended up going with edge because they had an oil change special on that brand but my question is, was that right? I’ve seen this same weight and brand that says euro next to the weight but this particular one says US but both say bmw 0.1 on the back, STP did not have that though but said euro so I’m just confused.
2.) We took the car to a BMW mechanic for an in depth inspection after purchase because we were about to go on a 1750 mile trip from CO to VA and the only thing he saw was a very very slow oil leak which he said meant that we would periodically have to add oil (1qt in almost 5,000 Miles so far). He claimed it was an issue with the drip pan which was more annoying than critical but repairing it would equate to about 160 in parts and roughly 1,400 in labor due to BMW engineering requiring much more intensive labor than a standard vehicle for the same repair. Anyone have any insight into this situation.
Finally and MOST IMPORTANTLY, yesterday the car threw out a code which I hooked up and pulled from my OBD. The code is p0174 which is apparently bank 2 system to lean. With my basic understanding of mechanical work here, mixed with my wave top research, I determined the obvious, the system is too lean lol. Now I know there are a variety of possible causes but I wanted to make sure that what I’m thinking isn’t right before paying to get it looked at again. The car spent ALL of its 133,000 miles in Colorado, specifically boulder so higher altitude. The last 3,000 miles have been spent in VA, specifically the DC area. I know with planes they can never run the mixture full rich at altitude so I thought maybe the on board sensors are freaking out because the air being thicker means there is a higher ratio of air-fuel which hasn’t been compensated or calibrated for? Another possible option is that the manual calls for a minimum of 91 octane (93 is all I ever see) but without actually having it much thought prior to looking into the manual, we assumed and thus for these last 5,000 miles have used 85/87 octane (lowest at the pump) my thought process here is that the lower efficient is making the system think the gas is incorrectly mixed when it’s technically a proper ratio without the right result from lower performing fuel? Finally the only other thing I can think of is that I just replaced the air filter with a generic branded one from autozone maybe 1,000 miles or so ago. Could the air filter itself be affecting and thus causing this code or could I have knocked loose or improperly replaced something that would cause this?
Thanks in advance for the help guys and gals! Much appreciated!!
Now onto my questions:
1.) the manual says it requires 5W-40 full synth. I have found that this is a very uncommon or at least not abundantly available oil weight. I did find two different brand earlier at autozone, STP was 5.69$/qt and Castrol Edge was 9.89$/qt. I ended up going with edge because they had an oil change special on that brand but my question is, was that right? I’ve seen this same weight and brand that says euro next to the weight but this particular one says US but both say bmw 0.1 on the back, STP did not have that though but said euro so I’m just confused.
2.) We took the car to a BMW mechanic for an in depth inspection after purchase because we were about to go on a 1750 mile trip from CO to VA and the only thing he saw was a very very slow oil leak which he said meant that we would periodically have to add oil (1qt in almost 5,000 Miles so far). He claimed it was an issue with the drip pan which was more annoying than critical but repairing it would equate to about 160 in parts and roughly 1,400 in labor due to BMW engineering requiring much more intensive labor than a standard vehicle for the same repair. Anyone have any insight into this situation.
Finally and MOST IMPORTANTLY, yesterday the car threw out a code which I hooked up and pulled from my OBD. The code is p0174 which is apparently bank 2 system to lean. With my basic understanding of mechanical work here, mixed with my wave top research, I determined the obvious, the system is too lean lol. Now I know there are a variety of possible causes but I wanted to make sure that what I’m thinking isn’t right before paying to get it looked at again. The car spent ALL of its 133,000 miles in Colorado, specifically boulder so higher altitude. The last 3,000 miles have been spent in VA, specifically the DC area. I know with planes they can never run the mixture full rich at altitude so I thought maybe the on board sensors are freaking out because the air being thicker means there is a higher ratio of air-fuel which hasn’t been compensated or calibrated for? Another possible option is that the manual calls for a minimum of 91 octane (93 is all I ever see) but without actually having it much thought prior to looking into the manual, we assumed and thus for these last 5,000 miles have used 85/87 octane (lowest at the pump) my thought process here is that the lower efficient is making the system think the gas is incorrectly mixed when it’s technically a proper ratio without the right result from lower performing fuel? Finally the only other thing I can think of is that I just replaced the air filter with a generic branded one from autozone maybe 1,000 miles or so ago. Could the air filter itself be affecting and thus causing this code or could I have knocked loose or improperly replaced something that would cause this?
Thanks in advance for the help guys and gals! Much appreciated!!
