Changing your oil is an essential preventative maintenance service for any car, especially for your BMW. If you want to keep your vehicle running smoothly, regular oil changes are essential. A car’s oil keeps the engine parts lubricated to ensure that they’re running well – without regular oil changes, your vehicle’ s engine would overheat, which could potentially warp important parts, ultimately leading to engine failure.
To avoid damaging your vehicle, it’s important to change your engine oil at regular intervals. Which raises the question: how do you know exactly how often you need to change the oil on your BMW?
How often should I change my BMW’s oil?
In general, oil change services should be done every 5,000 to 7,00 miles; however, each vehicle is different, and how often you need to change your oil depends on a few factors. Firstly, the age and general maintenance condition of your BMW come into play. As you might imagine, classic car collectors will want to change their oil more frequently than BMW owners who have just purchased a newer (or the latest) model. Your Owner’s Manual should give you a general idea of the correct oil change intervals for your vehicle – but there are still other things that you need to take into consideration when figuring out how often you need to change your oil. The next factor, and possibly most important, is the driving you do. Highway driving and city driving affect your engine differently.
“City driving” would be better defined as frequent and regular short distance driving. Consistent short distance driving is one of the most stressful types of driving you could subject your BMW to. While we could wax and wane on the negative effects that continuous, short distance driving has on your car’s engine, here we’ll focus specifically on how it affects your engine oil. City driving accelerates and increases oil contamination, meaning that BMW owners who drive short distances regularly ought to be changing their car’s oil more often than the recommended service intervals. Here’s why: Short distance driving doesn’t generally let the engine warm up to its full operating temperature, meaning that most of your journey is spent in the “warm-up phase.” This warm-up phase has increased friction in the engine – requiring more fuel and burning more oil to keep the engine lubricated. It works like this. When the engine isn’t quite as hot as it ought to be, the engine’s internal combustion process works differently. During this warm-up phase, the engine experiences what’s called engine “blow by.” Engine “blow by” is when both burnt and unburned exhaust gasses move past the piston rings during the combustion of each cylinder, ending up in the motor oil or oil pan. As previously mentioned, this contaminates the engine oil more quickly than driving that’s done at optimal combustion temperature. Consistent driving in this warm-up phase thus accelerates the contamination of your BMW engine’s motor oil. For those who live in colder regions, cold winter driving can compound these problems! When you’re trying to figure out the correct intervals to change your BMW’s oil, consider both the age and condition of your car, along with your driving style and the weather of the region you live in.
Schedule an Oil Change for Your BMW in the Dallas, TX Area
When it is time for an oil change, it is beneficial to bring your BMW to a facility with BMW expertise. While you may be tempted to bring your sedan, crossover or SUV to a local quick lube place in the Dallas area for an oil change, you are missing out on the benefit of having a BMW technician on-site, who will do a full vehicle inspection during your oil change service and schedule your vehicle for any maintenance or repair that needs to be done.