Quote:
Originally Posted by M5CCIE
On a second thought, do you think the BMW US oil is actually the 5W-40 Valvoline Synpower which if I'm not mistaken is BMW approved? (Not sure if it's LL-01 or LL-98). A thiner 5w-40 weight could be marketed as a 5w-30 as we have seen with M1 0w-40, etc.
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If they're doing it, it's not likely a retail product - it would be a custom blend. The reasons I made such a controversial comment about the North American oil are:
1. BMWNA used Valvoline for years before Castrol came along.
2. Valvoline had LL-98 and LL-01 (on two different products) before the rest of the North American suppliers, for no apparent reason.
3. Valvoline had an LL-04 approved product earlier this year before BMW even started talking about bringing diesel cars to North America. Again the rest of the North American suppliers waited.
4. At one time, although I haven't checked recently, Valvoline had an API license to produce "High Performance Synthetic Oil". If I remember correctly, that's what's on the front of the BMW oil bottle here.
5. BMW uses non-Castrol products in other parts of the car - ATF is not Castrol, MTF-LT1, 2 and now 3 are not. That said, SAF-XJ and SAF-XA are Castrol, but it's easy to tell because they use the Castrol product name.
So, for me, that's enough circumstantial evidence to admit the possibility that Valvoline may still be making BMW oil in North America. Everybody denies it, but the only Castrol labels I've seen at a BMW dealer are on TWS and SAF-XJ. I'm content to believe that if it doesn't say "Castrol" on the container, it isn't Castrol product.
Ich liebe mein Europa! 
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