Engine oil Mobil or LIQUI MOLY

For oil changes, use BMW, Mahle, or Mann filters and any LL-01 approved oil. Mobil1 0w40 is what I've been using and never had any problem.

Last change I did I switched to liquimoli 5-40 and I used a can of Cera tec. Noticed a bit of quieting from the engine after a few miles of circulation and after nearly 5k miles I'm only down mayyybe 1/4 QT. So far so good at 131,000

As mentioned above, you should consider Mobil 0w40 oil. I've used it for 4 winters now, driving in very similar conditions to what you're seeing, and the oil basically looks new every time I change it at 7000 miles.

I'd recommend changing the oil to a good brand 0W-40, Mobil or Shell. Replace the oil filter as well.

Molygen (the green stuff) is recommended by Liquimoly for VW 502, but it does not actually have official approval from VW for the 502 spec. Just something to be aware of. I buy the liquimoly leichtlauf which has the official approval from VW.

I just stick to LiquidMoly. It's been in there since I bought it and the difference of $20 bucks over the course of 10K miles isn't that big of a concern. It's worth the slight piece of mind.

I live on the west coast and use 5w40 LiquiMoly from NAPA @ $36/5 Lt. It made my CF life go from replacing every 10k miles to getting nearly 20k miles/CF.

I've run somewhere between half a dozen and a dozen oils over the last few years with oil analyses for all of them and both the analyses as well as my own personal observations favor the LM by a bit over other high quality full synthetics offered by Motul, Redline, etc. Specifically you want this one: https://www.amazon.com/Liqui-Moly-2332-Leichtlauf-Engine/dp/B00LIC29H6

I've doubled my cam follower life, from 10k to 20k miles, by switching to LiquiMoly 5w40...and it costs less than Castrol full syn recommended by VW.

I ran Mobil 1 ESP 5w40 in my 2.0 TDI for 80k miles and it was great. However it was discountinued so I switched to the Mobil 1 euro spec 5w30 ESP and continued to 120k miles and shortly after switching it gained nearly 2mpg. Both oils remained steady on the dipstick so if it used oil it was very little.