6 Monthly Oil Change??

BOWFER

Ebe_Scrooge said:

BOWFER said:

Britannia1863 said:

Yeah I've owned it since 80k when I bought it 6 years ago, and (touch wood) haven't had any dpf issues to date!

Ok so there's every chance the previous owner cleaned it out or replaced it.
I have strong doubts it's gone 127K without one or the other.

Can't speak for BMW, but my previous car was a Peugeot diesel.  40k miles when I bought it, 185k miles when I sold it, never had an ounce of trouble.  Mind you, I was doing the sort of driving & mileage that's supposed to be good for a DPF.

Was it one of the Peugeot engines fitted with the EOLYS fluid?
The BMW Mini diesels were fitted with the 1.6Hdi engine for a good few years and they didn't give much DPF issues, although the bag of fluid itself usually needed topped up/changed around 80k miles.
I managed to sell my Dooper just before it needed done.

Londoner_1

BOWFER said:

Britannia1863 said:

Yeah I've owned it since 80k when I bought it 6 years ago, and (touch wood) haven't had any dpf issues to date!

Ok so there's every chance the previous owner cleaned it out or replaced it.
I have strong doubts it's gone 127K without one or the other.

 Or the dpf may have been deleted.

Ebe_Scrooge

BOWFER said:

Ebe_Scrooge said:

BOWFER said:

Britannia1863 said:

Yeah I've owned it since 80k when I bought it 6 years ago, and (touch wood) haven't had any dpf issues to date!

Ok so there's every chance the previous owner cleaned it out or replaced it.
I have strong doubts it's gone 127K without one or the other.

Can't speak for BMW, but my previous car was a Peugeot diesel.  40k miles when I bought it, 185k miles when I sold it, never had an ounce of trouble.  Mind you, I was doing the sort of driving & mileage that's supposed to be good for a DPF.

Was it one of the Peugeot engines fitted with the EOLYS fluid?
The BMW Mini diesels were fitted with the 1.6Hdi engine for a good few years and they didn't give much DPF issues, although the bag of fluid itself usually needed topped up/changed around 80k miles.
I managed to sell my Dooper just before it needed done.

No, there was no fluid.  It was the 1.6 hdi engine, but it was a pretty old car (as are all the cars I've had!).  Must admit I was very pleased with it overall.  I know French cars have something of a bad reputation for reliability, but I never had any problems with it.  And all I ever did was change the oil+filter religiously (dead simple and cheap to DIY), air filter occasionally when it looked dirty.  Other than that it was just standard consumables like brakes and whatnot - even they were a doddle to DIY.

Goudy

The job of the DPF is to trap the soot and ash from the engine.

The soot is made up of incomplete combustion from the engine which has quite large particules and is still combustible, the ash isn't and is far smaller in particule size, plus there's much less ash than soot (around 5% in total) from combustion.

When the DPF regens it burns most of the larger, combustible soot particules to much smaller ash particules which are stored in the filter.

This means the filter can hold far more ash than it can soot.

Repeated failure to regen (short tripping and stopping the engine before the cycle is complete) causes the filter to fill up much quicker with soot and creates back pressure which the ECU detects and tries to solve by regening more often.
If the process still continues to fail, more and more of the post injected fuel introduced to burn the soot to ash washes past the piston rings and dilutes the engine oil.

Another compelling factor into short tripping is the engine will often be started from cold far more often, which tends to produce more soot, aggravating the problem.

If all is allowed to work well with the DPF, it is thought most filters can hold around 150,000 miles or more worth of ash which can be cleaned out by a specialist.
If it's not, they can fill up with soot and ash pretty damn quickly.


As mentioned, some manufacturers introduced a fluid into the regen cycle, like PSA's  EOLYS in their FAP system.
This actually lowers the natural combustion temperature of the soot from 550c to 450c which helps the regen process to burn more of the soot.

VFR

Britannia1863 said:

Hi All,

My BMW 1 series diesel has done 127k miles. I have always had the oil changed every year (approx 8k per year since I've owned it). With its advancing miles and 75% of my journeys being local (3 miles to work and school run etc) is it worth going to 6 monthly (approx 4k) oil changes if I plan to keep the car for a few more years yet, or is it a waste of money and should I stick with the yearly change??

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Well Diesel engines do like clean oil & air so as you are now going to switch to short journeys it cannot do any harm (IMO)

Ganga

Iceweasel said:

The standard BMW oil changes are scheduled at 18000 miles or 2 years, so you are already treating the engine well with yearly changes at 8K miles.

With my higher annual mileage the 18K comes at approx 18 month intervals - but I change the oil-filter, but not the oil, at the halfway stage.

If you feel like cosseting the car a little more then changing the oil-filter at 4K might be the thing to do - it's incredibly easy and not at all messy to do oneself.- if you use a disposable glove and pop the old filter in a plastic bag - it's also much cheaper than doing a complete oil-change.

The other thing I do more frequently than in the BMW schedule is change the air-filter more often - BMW say to do it at every 2nd oil-change which for some folks could be every 4 years - which IMHO is way too long - so I change it at every oil-change.

A dirty air filter increases fuel consumption and the amount of crud - insects, leaves, cigarette ends and such that is in there after even 6 months is unbelievable and disgusting - often damp and smelly too after a Winter - again a very easy DIY job.

I can never understand why people would change the oil without the filter or the filter without changing the oil ,the price of oil plus filter is a lot less than an engine replacement .

Iceweasel

Ganga said:

I can never understand why people would change the oil without the filter or the filter without changing the oil ,the price of oil plus filter is a lot less than an engine replacement .

I take your point and no way would I ever be changing the oil without changing the filter at the same time.

My thinking is that long-life oil to BMW spec LL04 is pretty good stuff and OK for 18K miles, especially if they are 'easy' motorway miles, but the same can not be said for the filters.

Filters get clogged up over time and restrict the flow through them.

So to try and maintain the best efficiency I change them more often than the car manufacturer suggests.

Britannia1863

I've decided to go with the 6 month (4k miles) oil and filter change. For a small extra cost in the grand scheme of things I feel have clean oil twice a year can help me to get over my 200k target!