If you think we have issues then take a look at GM. Last week they recalled over 800,000 Tahoes, Suburbans, and Silverados powered by the 6.2L LT petrol engine. The issue is failing rod bearings. Internal documents showed over 30,000 failed engines prior to the recall. The fix it to replace engines that are starting to fail and then change all of them from 0w-20 to 0w-40 to increase film thickness at the bearing.
Personally I have been very skeptical of this ever thinner oil specs. Our 2020 Range Rover Sport has an inline turbo 6 cylinder and uses a 0w-20 with basically the same spec as what BMW is now calling for in our B58. Land Rover service interval is an astonishing 20,000 miles. I have been going 15,000 and now regret that. I did an oil analysis on the last oil change and it was crap. Tons of metals in the oil. I’m not going to move it to a 0w-40 and resample it after 3,000 miles.
These thin oils and stupid long intervals are being driven by fuel economy requirements and marketing. Do yourself a favor and watch this video. Lake Speed is an extremely qualified lubrication engineer. These is lots of talk about how BMW has engineered the current B58 for the LL-17fe+ oil with changes like coated rod bearings but it really makes me wonder. I will definitely be changing oil every 5,000 miles and doing oil analysis to see where things are. The first oil results showed metals typical of break in. I’m doing a second oil change on Monday and will share the results. Hopefully it is a bit more cleaned up.
View: https://youtu.be/pbEdr6Q6cKw?si=AHHwWfLLvNNr1zOc
