Just bought some Halfords 5/40 fully-synth, and it now meets API SL and ACEA A3/B4 specs, so ideal for petrol and diesel, plus it complies with BMW longlife requiements. With the current offer it's £20 for 5l.
Regards
John S
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John S : Hello John. (How is your business doing?)
Have you consistently used Halfords for your BMW oil? and Where do you buy filters for your BMW?
Regards, eMBe.
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Just bought some Halfords 5/40 fully-synth, and it now meets API SL and ACEA A3/B4 specs, so ideal for petrol and diesel, plus it complies with BMW longlife requiements. With the current offer it's £20 for 5l. Regards John S
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Hi John S, If your interested, Halfords oils are made by Esso.
I only know this because as a lorry driver, i was collecting from a warehouse in Basildon run by a well known parcel company. I was picking up drums of lubricants for export and i saw Halfords packaged oils, a bit of enquiry and i found out Esso oils and Halfords are manufactured in the same factory.
A little snippet of info.
Pastyman
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>> Hi John S, If your interested, Halfords oils are made by Esso.>> Pastyman >>
And Esso/Mobil are one & the same company. So, is Mobil1 fully-synth the same as Esso fully-synth as Halfords fully-synth?
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eMBe/pastyman
Yes, it's been commented here that Halfords oils are made by Esso, so thanks for the confirmation pastyman! It was thought that the fully-synth is probably made by Comma, which is a subsidary of Esso. I doubt it's (UK) Mobil 1 as that's a 0-40, although on the continent there is a 5-40 Mobil 1 on sale - I wonder where that comes from?? Whatever, it appears perfectly good quality.
I've used it for a couple of intermediate changes in the BMW and it seems fine. The engine is, if anything, quieter at idle than on the SLX (the only noise is the alternator twittering away to itself!), and I'll be presenting my dealer with 6.5 litres next time, and not paying for his expensive SLX. The astra also seems OK on it.
As I change the oil at about 4.5/5k intervals (my E36 runs 9/10k between services) the oil comes out fairly dark brown, but not black. I must admit, for that reason, I don't bother with a filter change. In fact a filter is more efficient once it's been used for a while, and given the same filters are used on the current cars which can do 15k between services I simply don't worry. It seems to take 6.5 lires even without a filter change, so the oil oil left in is a very small proportion. However, they're available from the dealer, or Euro car parts which have opened up in Swindon about 200 yards from the BMW dealers.
eMBe - thanks for asking - business is a bit quiet this year. I can't pick up from your profile where you know me from. Any clues?
Regards
john S
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During a quiet day a few months ago I investigated what Halfords oils were and (having finally found someone knowledgeable at Comma to speak to) found out that Halfords oils are exactly the same as the Comma range i.e Halfords 5W40 fully synthetic is the same as Comma Syner-G 5W40 fully synthetic. Now Comma is owned by Esso but the Comma(Halfords) oils and Esso oils are NOT the same (ie they are blended separately) even though they meet the same API spec. Now you may have noticed that Comma/Halfords oils come in very handy 5 litre containers for sensible money, whereas Esso oils come in 4.5 (or is it 4) litre containers for loads more and often need the purchase of another litre (£8??).
If I were given the choice; using Halfords/Comma oils and changing them as often as HJ recommends is much better that using Esso/Shell/other oils and leaving them in for up to twice as long...
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Hi John S, If your interested, Halfords oils are made by Esso. I only know this because as a lorry driver, i was collecting from a warehouse in Basildon run by a well known parcel company. I was picking up drums of lubricants for export and i saw Halfords packaged oils, a bit of enquiry and i found out Esso oils and Halfords are manufactured in the same factory.
So is Comma and Mobil (Exxon-mobil) same comapny after they merged, like BP, Castrol, Burmah or Total, Elf, Fina. According to the Esso website, mobil lubricants and Esso one are made in the same plant in Essex, after the vase stocks are supplied from the refinery is Crawley.>> >> Just bought some Halfords 5/40 fully-synth, and it now meets
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According to the variable service indicator my Audi TDi it will be due a service at about 26,000 miles, this will coincide with about two years ownership - the recommended service interval for low mileage drivers.
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for 26,000 miles: Assuming an overall 52mpg, and a fuel cost of £3 gallon, you would have used 500 gallons costing £1500. If, according to Audi - by using castrol slx - your fuel consumption was improved by 2.7%, you have saved nearly the cost of buying another fresh fill of castrol slx !
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That's why I bought the car, free oil. You get a litre with the car and the service fills are 'free'!!!!!! Will that justify the cost of the car to my wife?!!
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These extreme service intervals are utter madness. The average user could almost destroy a car with neglect in 26K .
M.M
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These extreme service intervals are utter madness. The average user could almost destroy a car with neglect in 26K . M.M
Didn't Cadillac do a 100,000 mile service interval. See Aprilia's post at
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?f=4&t=15...8
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Cadillac's 100,000 mile service interval was, ISTR, for a "proper" service. I'm sure that interim oil changes plus safety-related checks are required.
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In fact, checking the full thread linked above from Aprilia, it says that the Caddy requires 6-monthly lube services. So perhaps, for ultimate peace-of-mind, we should all get our oil changed every 6 months.
Is it better to do this and use a "cheap" oil, or to go for an annual change using better stuff (eg fully synthetic)?
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M.M,
In saying: "extreme service intervals ... could almost destroy a car" do you mean the loss of opportunity for checks on the car in general (coolant leaks, cracked hoses, etc) or is it just the oil change intervals that worry you?
If it's just the oil changes, I'd like to mention out that Mobil advised a BMW owner (not me) living not far from yourself, that oil changes could be left to twice or even three times the BMW scheduled mileage when using Mobil-1. This equates to typically 14,000 miles or 21,000 miles on the 1990 E34 BMW in question and it comes from the people who would be expected to want to increase their sales of oil, not reduce them.
I agree wholeheartedly with the claimed benefits of changing oil more frequently than scheduled with many cars and many oils, but I believe it is a waste of money to do so with synthetic oil which simply doesn't deteriorate at anything like the same rate as mineral oil in particular.
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Dizzy
I believe that comment reflects current BMW service intervals. These have extended significantly over the last few years. My 1990 E30 would do no more than 7.5k between services, whereas the E36's will do up to 10k. However, E46 cars will do up to 15k. It's not entirely clear how much this is due to material and engineering changes in the cars and how much due to lubrication improvements. I believe it's more of the latter, but I still believe there is an element of pressure on the car makers to increase the intervals to satisfy the fleet market in the UK, and probably Europe. The Americans are not slouches in oil technology, but even with their low-revving engines, most of their cars will indicate the need for an oil chamge at much more frequent intervals than we're used to. Thus the easy availabilty of very cheap oil changes at specialised outlets. Example: Pontiac Transam - geared at about 35 (yes 35) miles/hr per thousand revs. Service interval between 3 and 7.5k depending on use. The spin off is that the Americans never expect engine problems even at 6 figure mileages.
I believe oil changes (even with synthetic oils) are cheaper than engines (especially BMW engines).
Regards
John S
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John S, that's a good response but it doesn't fully answer my questions.
I would never advise anyone *not* to change their fully synthetic oil at shortened intervals but I have to query the 'broad brush' HJ recommendation to change at 5000 miles/6 months whatever the oil being used. I'm not an expert but it seems to me that if synthetics need changing at 5000 miles, then mineral oils must need changing at 2000 or so.
Turning to the question of BMW extended servicing intervals, the engine maufacturing firm that I worked for received pressure from customers to extend servicing intervals, mainly on industrial diesel engines. One important customer in particular requested 400-hour intervals in place of 200-hour for his earthmover engines. We worked on ways to achieve this without detriment to engine life and came up with answers, at least one of which we filed patent applications for. Hopefully (and expectedly) BMW took the same route when upping the service intervals, i.e. making sure the engine would not suffer.
I'm not familiar with modern American engines. Perhaps they have a relatively small oil capacity? In any case, oil products over there are priced lower than in the UK so they can more easily justify changing the oil very frequently as an insurance against early engine failure (if such is needed). My experience from working directly for a US engine manufacturing company immediately prior to my retirement is that they are often over-pessimistic and old-fashioned in some aspects of engine design and maintenance.
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Dizzy
Always good to get a thought-provoking response!
Inevitably, unless cars are operated on an oil condition monitoring system like major industrial plant, then any oil change recommendation is based on ‘average’ usage. There’s no doubt that the 6month/5000miles advice falls in to this category, and is based on the assumption that precautionary early changes are better than late changes. Does mineral oil need changing sooner than fully synth.? On the face of it, yes, except that engines which are designed for, or only need, basic oils (eg lower specific power outputs) don’t stress the oil to the same extent as the engines which need the higher spec. oils. Therefore the oil lifetimes are perhaps not so different as the oil specs may imply. Then you get the people on this site who use the best, rather than the cheapest, oils for their cars which confuses this logic. Hence, no doubt, HJs broad brush recommendation. At least the service indicators such as those on the BMW use some sort of analogue to estimate oil lifetime.
I did comment that the extended intervals for BMW service were probably a combination of engine technology and oil technology, and I’m sure that material selection, surface coatings, filtration etc are ways to improve engine oil life. The snag with cars is that they get very different usage from different owners. Not saying it’s easy, but I guess and earthmover engine gets a regular daily cycle, so cold starts are well defined, and it’s perhaps easier to estimate engine use – at least in terms of engine speed and load. I can see why the owner wanted an increased service interval. 200 hours at 8 hours a day is an oil change a month!
Modern American engines are not that different from their UK counterparts, although specific power outputs are often lower. The Americans have been using low viscosity oils for many years for efficiency purposes, and things like hydraulic lifters were common there before they were in the UK – the mechanical quietness of their big V8 is amazing. I believe you’re right that the manufacturers are more conservative, but then their customers expect more from the product in terms of engine life. Equally, the owners are perhaps more aware of what the oil does, and the quick-lube shops which provide instant oil and filter changes with good quality products at low prices take the problems away. It’s not just the USA that’s more cautious. I believe that the up to 30k service interval for the new Vectra is UK only – other markets have shorter service intervals. This is allegedly demanded by the fleet operators who buy a huge proportion of new UK cars. They have little interest in the car past 80 or 100k miles, apparently unlike many users of this site.
Regards
John S
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John,
The points you make are sensible as always, though I still maintain that such strong advice as we get regarding 5000 mile/6 month oil changes should not be \'broad-brush\'. If car owners get the message that their engines will fail unless they change their very expensive oil more frequently, the sales of synthetic oil will fade away and we\'ll lose the undoubted engine-life benefits that this provides for modern high-output engines.
I use mineral oil in my Triumph 2500 because the engine is low-tech and I change it (the oil, not the engine!) once a year, not every six months as advised. This means, oh dear, it travels up to 1500 miles (almost all in the summer months) on the same oil! An extreme, I know, but I think it demonstrates my point.
Enough argument! I\'ll now relate an incident that you brought to mind in mentioning earthmovers\' daily cycles (with apologies for going off-topic). I spent two weeks with Caterpillar in the US shortly after they bought Perkins in 1998. Part of my stay involved touring their various engine, foundry, fuel injector, earthmover, etc., plants. One plant in Illinois makes huge earthmovers and I was invited to follow the build of a D11 and then drive it on their test track. The D11 is their largest machine -- 100 tons and $1,000,000. Sitting in the cab was like sitting on top of a bungalow, and looking down on their enormous trucks that were parked alongside the test track was quite an experience in itself. Pull the wrong lever and I could run over them, or so it seemed!
The D11 has very small light-touch finger-tip controls for steering and gear selection and I must admit that I inadvertently caught the gear selector a few times, unknowingly knocking it into neutral and thus noisily revving the engine. However I got the hang of most of the controls quite soon. What I just could not get used to was the fact that the \'gas\' pedal worked in reverse, i.e. with foot off the pedal the engine ran at max revs and, conversely, it was necessary to push down on the pedal to slow the engine. This was quite embarrassing because I kept taking my foot off to change up a gear, as you would! First time I\'ve kangaroo-jumped in 40 years and then it has to be in a gigantic machine in front of an attentive audience!
When I got back to the start I asked why the gas pedal was about-face and was told that the regular drivers demand it as they spend more time at full belt than at part-throttle. I think he was being serious but it sounds crazy to me. I wonder what the driver did when he got in his own car at the end of the day ... doesn\'t bear thinking about!
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Dizzy
Quite. The Minor gets a one/year change, having covered about 100 miles. I do this before the winter to be sure it sits there with new oil. Last time I used some semi-synth 10-40 Magnatec I had in the garage. I know it doesn't need it, but I couldn't be bothered to go out and buy some 'cheap' stuff. Given that the original spec for the car is an sae30 I won't worry, even though most people put X-50 in them.
Fascinating about the earth-mover. Now, why on earth have they got the reversed arrangement for the throttle, given that the push to accellerate system has been used in cars and lorries almost since cars were invented
Regards
johnS
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I hope you'll all excuse me for going off-topic again but I've recalled just how the acceleration is controlled on the Caterpillar D11 earthmover that I mentioned yesterday. My earlier explanation didn't tell the full story and made the system sound stupid, which it isn't.
In fact the D11 operator presets the engine speed that he wants by working a rocker switch on the console, holding it down one way or the other to increase or decrease engine speed and then releasing it to maintain that speed. What I called the 'gas' pedal is in fact a 'decelerator' pedal which is pushed down to drop the engine speed that's already been set, as when changing up a gear for example. In other words, it's there only to over-ride the engine speed preset at the governor.
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