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2010 2011 BMW 5 Series Forum F10 F10 Technical Topics Engine, Transmission, Exhaust, Drivetrain, ECU Software Modifications F10 550i Oil Analysis
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      11-04-2011, 10:34 PM   #1
tp550i
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I sent my 2,500 mile oil change out to Oil Analyzers for testing. Copper showed up at 41 ppm, not abnormal, but higher than I expected.

Does anyone know if the 550i oil coolers are copper core or aluminum core?

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      11-08-2011, 09:37 AM   #2
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This was your first oil change and everything is still good with the oil? I would've thought lots of metal pieces would be found in a first oil change from the engine breaking in...
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      11-08-2011, 12:21 PM   #3
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Everything is good, but copper levels were a little high - trying to verify if the copper is leaching from the oil cooler tubing or is it's bearing wear/break-in.

The BMW 5W 30 oil did lose some viscosity after only 2,500 miles.
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      08-14-2012, 09:29 AM   #4
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IMO, this kind of levels are very normal for the first oil change cos the engine was started on this batch of oil at the factory and its pretty common for the copper from the big end bearings to wear in.

I dun think the cooler uses a copper sandwich and even if they do, you should not see copper going into the oil.

rod
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      08-14-2012, 07:49 PM   #5
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the follow up oil change at 6,500 miles looked good and the slightly elevated copper levels were not flagged. One year/ 12k mile change soon
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      08-15-2012, 08:21 AM   #6
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Thanks for this. Looks like i will wait for my motor to be fully broken in before i tune it
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      08-15-2012, 10:19 AM   #7
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sounds correct.

Thinking from an economic standpoint, how can BMW afford to run in all their engines at the factory. Its always a good idea to do a 1000mile oil change just to freshen up the oil and lower the amount of metal bits within the oil. This oil analysis really proves the point.
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      08-22-2012, 06:46 PM   #8
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Anyone else experience oil consumption? I did the 1000 mile break in and then needed to add a quart at about 3800 miles. Seems odd that it would burn that much so soon. My guess is the heat this thing puts out has a lot to do with it.
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      09-18-2012, 07:06 AM   #9
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2nd Oil change at 6,700 miles attached. Should have the first dealer oil change in about 30 days and will post.

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      09-18-2012, 11:33 AM   #10
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tp550i: Thanks so much for posting your uoa. The second one looks quite good to me overall. The bit about nitration is kind of weird. Normally oxidation and nitration increase at roughly the same level or proportion. I'm no expert but one of the reasons it can get out of sync is if crankcase oil temps are relatively low and oil never gets up to full operating temp (as in a lot of short trips?). Anyway, the TBN and vis retention are quite good. If nitration was interfering with the oil, TBN would be down and vis up, but they look good.

Another thing: it always helps to do a virgin oil analysis of a sample of unused oil; it can help a lot sometimes in interpreting the UOA. I did a VOA on the Castrol oil BMW uses for their diesels and it showed 10 abs/cm for both oxidation and nitration straight out of the bottle. The lab (Polaris) was no help in explaining this, but after checking around, it seems esters in the oil can sometimes fool the infrared FTIR into thinking/showing there is oxidation/nitration when there is none. So you have to keep this VOA number in mind when interpreting the UOA data on the particular oil. VOA's can also help a lot when interpreting TBN retention, vis retention, and even sometimes silicon numbers (some oils use it as anti-foamimg agent) in the UOA.

One other thing: your first UOA showed fuel dilution measured by gas chromatography, but your second showed it as estimated. Maybe not enough oil in the sample bottle for all the various tests?
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      09-18-2012, 06:30 PM   #11
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yes, short trips and getting worse. My office moved and my commute is now less than 2 miles.
I have done several analysis on oil "out of the can" to verify Zinc and Phosphorus levels for use in my classic cars where thats a concern, but not yet on the BMW oil.
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Last edited by tp550i; 09-19-2012 at 06:56 AM..
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      10-19-2012, 08:02 AM   #12
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Third oil change at one year and just under 13k miles, first dealer/BMW oil change -everything looks great. Wear metals, fuel dilution and viscosity all look good. Surprised Zinc & Phos. numbers jumped up here (same BMW oil) - Sample #2 data shown

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