Paul3637

Because of their frequent 1000 round trips back "home" to Kansas City from McKinney TX , they drive their SUV right at about 15K a year. Car was not quite 4.5 years old with just over 65K on it when engine started making horrible noises while they were driving on I-35 nearing Kansas City - traveling with two small boys. They bypassed the "ex" wife's house and drove stright to Baron BMW in KC (obviously not their selling dealer). The "ex" picked his family up and the next day Baron BMW called them with an estimate of $5-6K and days to fix.

He never went back. He went straight to the Lexus dealer, bought a new RX450h, and arranged for Lexus get rid of the X5 for him. The probem in all honesty, probably wasn't oil related .... but who knows if more frequent changes would have prevented or at least postponed it.

I was wrong about "shortly after the warranty expired." BMW powertrain warranty was then ... AND STILL IS ..... only 4 years/50,000 miles versus Lexus 6 year/70,000 miles. Had his car been a Lexus ..... it would have been covered ...... or more likely ..... the problem never would have happened.

Learn something everyday ....... I didn't think any new vehicle sold in the USA had less than a 5 year, 60,000 mile warranty. Can you imagine someone with a BMW on 60 month payments getting a bill like that ????? My son is an actuary and fortunately can afford this type of calamity]

cl206

Glad everything worked out. There are many factors that contribute to the deterioration of the engine oil and those are long trips! They should have changed it more often as per like a severe schedule maintenance. Might have helped...

Paul3637

It's March 2014 now. Well ........... my son has had zero problems with Lexus despite the sub-zero temps of Chicago (he moved to Glenn Elyn IL Jan 2012).

There was/is no "severe service" instruction in the BMW X5 video.

BMW has now changed their oil recommendation from 24 months/ 15K miles to 10/k 12 months ..... do you think maybe there is a correlation to oil changes and engine failure?

jagtoes

Sorry but the pictures you are showing are extremes. You need to study up on oil technologies as what you stated is not true. Both dino and syn oil have detergents and viscosity additives. The example you have shown is a gross misrepresentation of a poorly maintained engine. Oil gets contaminated which is the cause of sludge. Syn is less subject to this but it still happens. A 5W-30 viscosity oil is 5 weight fortified to change to 30W as it's temperature is increased. As the chemicals that cause this change get contaminated the oil eventually returns to it's 5W state. The net is full of oil explanations and the phases it goes through . So 5W-30 dino is good to go for 5000 miles and 5W-30 syn can go to 7500-10000 if you so chose. I usually compare color at new vs. 3000 vs 5000 and change it then. To each his own as when I 1st started driving/wrenching my cars back in 1961 I watched as oil and engine design improved. I also evolved with oil change requirements .