Engine oil VALVOLINE or OEM BMW

From personal experience I have always changed oil every 3500-5k miles depending on how I drove. I used to do 6500-7500k and I noticed on my 540i last winter on days when it got below 20 degrees the engine was very noisy during the first 5-10 mins driving. It was so noisy I was convinced it was piston slap or something. It wasn't a low oil "thunking" sound though. Always kept it under 3k rpms and was very gentle on those cold mornings. This was when my oil had 4-5k+ miles on it and it was last changed in Sept 2024 and this was Jan 2025 back then. So I scheduled an oil change worried my oil was low or something and the noise went away. Oil quantity came out normal no burn or leak! After that I reduced my intervals to 5k max and I also always changed the oil before winter/summer (mid-late Oct and early-mid April) ever since following this personal guideline of mine I have never experienced that cold rough engine sound in the winter anymore. Also two examples of manufacturer oil recommendation being shite is the B58 states 0w-20 but the manual says 0w-30 is acceptable. I also noticed that switching to 0w30 the engine sounded/felt smoother especially on cold idle. Second example is N63tu2 BMW used to recommend 5w-30 but then they dropped it down to 0w-30. Many cases of those motors particularly found in 2018 M550i's etc were consuming 1qt every 3k-4k+ miles yikes! But once switching back to the original 5w-30 recommendation all consumption ceased.

I’m up to 150k miles on my B58. Oil changes every 10k miles from new. Still running smoothly, not burning any oil, pretty sure it’ll go another 50k miles at least. Personally, through 5 BMWs, I’ve always just stuck with the factory recommendation and never had the slightest issue. It’s always been the rest of the car which has gone before the engine.

I really liked Valvoline, good quality, reasonble price.

Valvoline Restore & Protect or Pennzoil Ultra Platinum are also great oils to run and clear up and baked on sludge.

I run 0W20 that is approved by BMW and have 255K KMS. No issues at all.

Buy Valvoline oil, and maybe it's a good time to switch to 5w-30 in it.

I maintained 0w-30 factory spec on my F85 and did 2 oil analysis and Data was great. I just changed to 5w-50 leichluf.

160k miles on mine. Most reliable car I’ve owned. Just do your regular maintenance like plugs, coils, filter, oil, other fluids and they’re rock solid!

My last [Blackstone-labs.com](http://Blackstone-labs.com) report came back with 1.8% fuel dilution. 2021 1.5T at 23kmiles, 6800 miles on the oil (0w20 Valvoline R&P).

0W-20 at 5K interval. 74k miles.

Gen 1 B58 with plastic oil pump. Increasing oil viscosity is a recipe for failure, especially in cold climate.