Oil change

[Bram]

Goodmorning to all of you.
I have a question, my garage that i allways visited for the
normal oil change has put an end to the bussiness, so i am
forced to anothet garage, so my question is , what is the best
oil for a diesel motor, is syntetic or half syntetic good or something
else will do better?
What brand of oil, ( i live in Holland) is Shell or Castrol or any other
brand good, or shall i go to a BMW garage to do it, please let me now what
to do, i will have the best for my car, because it deserves it.
And for everyone , good Christmas and a fine and healty 2011.

[T-Cut]

The chances are the engine has had the specified semi-synthetic from new. Don't change to fully synthetic, it's unnecessary and could cause sealing issues.
The MGR spec (2004) for diesel oil is one of viscosity 5W/30, 5W/40 or 0W/40 complying with ACEA A3 and B3 requirements. Any big name oil brand will be fine, but more expensive than lesser known makes. The important thing is the specification. Any BMW depot will know exactly what their M47 engine requires. Brand is personal choice, (which usually opens the floodgates, so I'm leaving now!)

TC

[flyer_phil]

Hoi Bram

Tc goed is, zijn de spec dat telt. Plus ik denk dat het veranderen van de olie
vaker is een goed plan. Verander ik het iedere 6.000 km of 6 maanden
onafhankelijk van het schema.

Tot zeins

(TC is right, its the spec. Also changing oil regularly is more important than the brand)

[Bram]

Hello, and thank you for your answer, i think it is wise for me to
go to a good BMW garage and let them do it.
But 6000 km, is it not a bit short, in the book that belong to the
car the say it will be changed after 20000 km, this is about 12000
miles, this is a great difference, i changed oil every 15000km.
I have read some articles from well nowned experts that it is not neccesary
to change oil at all, they drove their car for more than 300000 km.
The only thing is to observe the oil level , and there are some tests with
a special metal ,when a drop off oil is put on it , it will change from
colour thanks to some acid that will build up in the motoroil, and then you
have to change the oil.
But i am no expert and i think it is safe to change the oil between
13000 and 15000 km, or once a year.
So , thank you and have a good weekend.

[Bram]

Thank you Moonstone to answer in Dutch to me, it is good to hear
from England a reply in my mother language.
But i try to answer and speak in English, Dutch is not a wide spread
language.
Specially when you drive a British car.

[flyer_phil]

Bran

:D Moonstone is the colour of my car!

Its flyer_phil - or Phil. Lol

Please dont go to a BMW garage they will charge you a fortune for some oil. Just go to your local autowinkle and buy some oil with a decent spec.

Sorry I got my miles and Km mixed up - I know the schedule says you can replace it every 20,000 km but I think if you do it earlier with a cheaper branded oil (but to the same spec) then it will keep your engine in great condition.

Sorry for my poor Dutch - I worked in Veldhoven for two years a long time ago!

Phil

[SD1too]

Please don't go to a BMW garage they will charge you a fortune for some oil ... if you do it earlier with a cheaper branded oil (but to the same spec) then it will keep your engine in great condition.
:iagree:
Phil is right. For a diesel engine the spec. is B3 (A3 is for petrol engines). If you do a lot of short journeys change it at 10,000 km, but if you do regular long distance driving 13,000 km is o.k. Frequent oil changes are the secret of engine longevity.

Simon.

[mamasboy]

Buy a vaccum pump and do it yourself, you can be sure its done correctly and at rock bottom price. I work with some mechanical engineers and could'nt believe they knew nothing about their own cars...had never done an oil change:shrug:

[COLVERT]

Thank you Moonstone to answer in Dutch to me, it is good to hear
from England a reply in my mother language.
But i try to answer and speak in English, Dutch is not a wide spread
language.
Specially when you drive a British car.

Buy a PELA PUMP from www. mailspeed marine.com and do the job yourself in ten minutes.

It will be less money to buy the pump than you would have to pay the garage !!!
Then you can always change the oil quickly in any car you might own in the future too.
I use one and it works perfectly.

Colvert. :D:D:D

[ianinfrance]

Buy a PELA PUMP from www. mailspeed marine.com and do the job yourself in ten minutes.

It will be less money to buy the pump than you would have to pay the garage !!!
Then you can always change the oil quickly in any car you might own in the future too.
I use one and it works perfectly.

Colvert. :D:D:D

Is it fair to say that ALL modern oils do not sludge or is it only Synthetic based ones?

I ask because a PELA probably won't shift any sludge in the sump from a mineral based oil.

I have a PELA, deep joy!

[Bram]

Thank you all very much for your good and kind advice.
Now a last question from me.
Is it a good and easy job to do it by myself, i had in earlier days
a Mercedes and they too were sucking the oil out.
But that motor had a very easy oilfilterchange, and on the BMW
motor is a plastic cover with a great hexagon on it, is that too
easy too change?
I will happy spend a few extra euro,s more to do this properly
then forget something, or wrestle with some parts by myself.
In my case it must be done once a year, or so, my mileage
this year is about 8000 km that is 5000 miles, so it makes no sense
to do it myself.

Greetings to you all

[mamasboy]

Thank you all very much for your good and kind advice.
Now a last question from me.
Is it a good and easy job to do it by myself, i had in earlier days
a Mercedes and they too were sucking the oil out.
But that motor had a very easy oilfilterchange, and on the BMW
motor is a plastic cover with a great hexagon on it, is that too
easy too change?
I will happy spend a few extra euro,s more to do this properly
then forget something, or wrestle with some parts by myself.
In my case it must be done once a year, or so, my mileage
this year is about 8000 km that is 5000 miles, so it makes no sense
to do it myself.

Greetings to you all
Even only one change per year, you will know its done properly, I dont trust garages to use correct oil and procedures. My friend has an audi a4 convertable which has been to a garage to have a coolant leak fixed. They should have replaced the coolant with G12 (pink coolant) but he got it back with purple coolant in it which is not good for Audi's. Only noticed because i'd changed my coolant on my VW and knew it was same for Audi so when I saw the purple stuff in his car I knew it was wrong.
I dont have the fortune of living close to some of the guys like Jules and Lates on the forum who know these cars inside out so i'd rather do it myself - with forum advice.

[Jules]

If the coolant is Purple it sounds like they have not changed the original RED OAT but have simply topped it up with cheaper spec BLUE.
Resultant will be purple..................could be wrong though :shrug:

[Mr Edd]

Thank you all very much for your good and kind advice.
Now a last question from me.
Is it a good and easy job to do it by myself, i had in earlier days
a Mercedes and they too were sucking the oil out.
But that motor had a very easy oilfilterchange, and on the BMW
motor is a plastic cover with a great hexagon on it, is that too
easy too change?
I will happy spend a few extra euro,s more to do this properly
then forget something, or wrestle with some parts by myself.
In my case it must be done once a year, or so, my mileage
this year is about 8000 km that is 5000 miles, so it makes no sense
to do it myself.

Greetings to you all

Hi Bram

I too only average about 4 - 5 K miles per year and I change the oil every year too using a Pela Pump. The best thing since sliced bread...

this is how it is done...

How to Change your Engine Oil using a Pela Pump

I purchased my Pela Pump on the recommendation of people on the MG Rover.org forum. This is an amazing bit of kit and has numerous uses. It doesn't actually save a lot of time but if used properly may make changing engine oil something of a breeze. You don't need to jack up the car and crawl under it so there is less chance of the car falling on you. You can even do it in ordinary clothes although I don't recommend it as oil is oils and has a propensity to get everywhere. However, I did have some issues and as I progress through this "How To" I will explain these.

Some preparatory things to do... Warm the engine oil up first. I took my car out for a quick trip around the town; about 5 miles, but this was not enough in a winter environment. The oil needs to be quite hot when the weather is cold.

This then creates issues with handling hot engine oil so be careful. I think you need to go on a trip long enough to make sure the oil is not too thick but is loose and flowing, ready to be pumped out. Otherwise the Pela Pump will struggle to get cool thick oil out quick enough before the oil left in the sump cools down too much and it becomes hard work. The pumping action and suction slows down quite a bit when the oil is cold.

My old oil looked like this after about 2 years and 7K miles...

http://www.deadgooey.co.uk/images/Oil/old-oil.jpg

First jack the passenger side up so the oil flows against the bottom of the dipstick pipe... If your driveway already has a slope then if possible use it and forget jacking it up.

I assume that the dipstick tube bottom is the lowest section of the sump on the driver side front but I could be wrong? Position the car so that the dipstick pipe is at the lowest center of gravity in the car. It doesn't require to be much just make sure it doesn't flow away from the dipstick tube otherwise you may not get all the old oil out.

http://www.deadgooey.co.uk/images/Oil/jack.jpg

Now to insert the Pela Pump...

http://www.deadgooey.co.uk/images/Oil/pelapump.jpg

The pump is a vacuum type pump that sucks the oil out of the engine sump via the dip stick tube. The instructions say that it only requires 20 pumps for the oil to be sucked out through the provided tube and left in the container. I found I needed to repeatedly pump it; I will explain why later.

The Pela Pump tube is a plastic coated metal tube which is pushed down the engine oil dipstick tube until it enters the sump. Push it as far as it will go. The picture below shows as far as it will go in my Rover 75 V6 engine with the remainder of this pipe up to where my fingers are.. At this point the tube becomes a transparent plastic tube so you can see the oil as it is sucked out. It is plenty long enough for most engines.

http://www.deadgooey.co.uk/images/Oil/hose1.jpg

When I pushed the Pela Tube into the dipstick tube I felt it hit the bottom and I jiggled it around a bit trying to make sure it was at the bottom of the sump.

This is the end of the tube when new and looks like this...

http://www.deadgooey.co.uk/images/Oil/hose-end.jpg

I think what happened is it sits so close and flat to the plate at the bottom of the dipstick tube it may have closed it off. I found it so hard to get the oil to flow freely. As I said I don't think I let the oil warm up enough and I had to keep pumping. I was also getting quite a few bubbles in the oil which I could see through the clear plastic tube on the pump.

I now think that this was because the end of the pipe was so close to the plate that the oil had to squeeze through and so generated bubbles. Generally they were far worse than the ones you see here in this picture.

http://www.deadgooey.co.uk/images/Oil/bubbles.jpg

I persevered with it for quite a while until the penny finely dropped and I withdrew the pipe about a millimeter so that it lifted the flat end of the tube up slightly allowing the oil to flow freely. The last part of sucking the oil out went very quickly as a result of doing this.

So I have now modified the end of the pipe by grinding it at a 45% angle like this... Next time it should be a lot easier. You have been warned!

http://www.deadgooey.co.uk/images/Oil/angle-end.jpg

Can you imagine my frustration at having to repeatedly pump then the vacuum run out of steam before the oil had been sucked out. At one stage I pulled the pump apart trying to figure out why it was taking so long. The pump was fine it was just that (I think?) the end of the pipe was stuck flush with the plate at the bottom of the dipstick tube. Hopefully the modification I did by grinding the end of the tube to an angle will resolve this issue.

It took a lot longer then it should and by then the oil had cooled right down and that in itself makes the whole procedure become hard work. I also opened the oil filler cap so that there was an option for air to enter the engine in case it was this that was causing the problem. It may not have been; the jury is still out on this!

http://www.deadgooey.co.uk/images/Oil/cap.jpg

Loosen but leave the cap over the filler hole so that no small tools will fall down there. You definitely don't want a small socket falling into spinning engine components. As you can see from the photo it had also started to rain by this time.

The container holds about 6 litres as you can see by this picture, just about all the oil in the sump was pumped out; about 5 litres. Counting the rings from the bottom up seems to register as 1 liter per ring,
http://www.deadgooey.co.uk/images/Oil/fulla.jpg

You know when all the oil is out of the sump when you hear a sucking sound and the clear plastic tube shows the oil becoming clear and bubbly. once you are sure all the oil is out pull the pump tube out of the dipstick tube and hold it up so that any oil left in the tube will flow down to the pump container. Wedge into something high to give it time to do this.

Now you can refill with new oil...

http://www.deadgooey.co.uk/images/Oil/poor-oil.jpg

Put an old rag around the neck of the hole to catch any spillage and insert a funnel. Poor a whole 5 litre container of new oil into the engine, allow it to settle wait a few minutes for the oil to drain through to the sump and check with the dipstick if anymore is required, top up accordingly.

Start engine allow to run until warm turn off and check oil level again and top up if required.

Tadah! your dune.

As for the oil filter... Some say that the car still has to be jacked up but you can change the oil filter from the left side wheel arch (looking at the front of the car). I didn't take any pictures of this proceedure at the time but will add some to this post at a later date.

It can be done with the wheel still on but to be honest it is easier with it off.

Simply take the wheel arch liner off and the filter can be accessed through there. Simple job to undo it and refit a new one without getting under the car. But it doesn't have to be changed at every oil swap.

I'll do more on this later.

I use semi synth oil, usually Halfords, but any good brand will do I think?


Hope this helps

Edd

PS Just realised that this procedure is demonstrated on a V6 petrol engine. But the principles will be the same if you have a Diesel or the 1.8.

[SD1too]

Now a last question from me.
Is it a good and easy job to do it by myself ...
It's easy provided you know which way to turn a spanner (and I'm sure you do!) :D
... on the BMW motor is a plastic cover with a great hexagon on it ...
You may need to buy a suitable large socket to release this cover. Inside is a replaceable element. Be prepared to mop up some oil spillage.
... my mileage this year is about 8000 km that is 5000 miles, so it makes no sense to do it myself.
It always makes sense to do it yourself. You'll know that the correct oil has been used and you'll take care not to round the flats of the sump plug. You'll check the condition of the sealing washer and you might even spend fifteen minutes cleaning out the filter housing. Whilst you're doing the job you might notice something else on your car which needs attention, thus avoiding a future breakdown. Afterwards you'll feel a tremendous sense of achievement and increased pride of ownership. You'll also think that it doesn't look too difficult to change the brake pads.

But it's up to you, of course. It's not everyone's cup of tea.

Simon.

[Bram]

Hello everybody, i will give all of you my thanks for all the advices and the
hints for changing the oil of my Rover diesel.
I beginning to believe that it is not so great and difficult task to do it
myself.
But can someone tell me the measurements of the hexagon on top of the
oilfilter and the diameter of the little pipe that goes into the dipstickpipe.
If it is possible can you give me that in metric please.
I have a copper vacuumpump ( a little one) for changing the oil in my boat.
But that is a very small motor 7hp. and 1 and a half liter oil, so i think that
it take a while before the Rover is empty, but who cares?
I think it is a thankfull job to do it yourself.
Many greetings from Holland to you.

[MalteseMarc]

6955

Just to add I have recently bought the above oil to do an oil change for a diesel engine and was wondering if it was okay to use as it doesn't specifically say diesel on it:shrug:

[Stefano]

A very useful thread thanks for the pics.
Will it work on a v8. Presumably it will. I had an MGB V8 with a SD1 3.5 engine. I was advised by many sources that once the oil is removed to use flushing oil and run engine for 15 mins at 2000rpm to ensure all the bits were easily removed and to stop the tappets sticking. Does that still hold good for v6 and v8s?? in the more modern engines?
Steve

[Ian V]

Hello everybody, i will give all of you my thanks for all the advices and the
hints for changing the oil of my Rover diesel.
I beginning to believe that it is not so great and difficult task to do it
myself.
But can someone tell me the measurements of the hexagon on top of the
oilfilter and the diameter of the little pipe that goes into the dipstickpipe.
If it is possible can you give me that in metric please.
I have a copper vacuumpump ( a little one) for changing the oil in my boat.
But that is a very small motor 7hp. and 1 and a half liter oil, so i think that
it take a while before the Rover is empty, but who cares?
I think it is a thankfull job to do it yourself.
Many greetings from Holland to you.
You need a 36mm socket for the hexagon. Do not over tighten. Use a rachet and torque to 25nm or 18lb ft.
Please stuff rag between alternator and housing to stop used oil entering it and killing it.

[SD1too]

Just to add I have recently bought the above oil to do an oil change for a diesel engine and was wondering if it was okay to use as it doesn't specifically say diesel on it.
Marc,

For the diesel engine MG Rover recommends 10W40 or 15W40 meeting ACEA spec. A3 and B3. This is a strange requirement because the 'A' prefix is for petrol engines; however that's what they say. Your Mobil oil should state the ACEA spec. on the label, but as it's 0W it will be very thin at low temperatures and it might be unsuitable. A diesel owner might be able to advise you further.

I was advised by many sources that once the oil is removed to use flushing oil ... to ensure all the bits were easily removed and to stop the tappets sticking. Does that still hold good for v6 and v8s?? in the more modern engines?
I don't see why not Steve. I've used flushing oil in different engines and never experienced any ill effects. In fact my SD1's hydraulic tappets are original and silky smooth at 170,000 miles!

Simon.

[ianinfrance]

A very useful thread thanks for the pics.
Will it work on a v8. Presumably it will. I had an MGB V8 with a SD1 3.5 engine. I was advised by many sources that once the oil is removed to use flushing oil and run engine for 15 mins at 2000rpm to ensure all the bits were easily removed and to stop the tappets sticking. Does that still hold good for v6 and v8s?? in the more modern engines?
Steve

I think it may have been much more of a necessity with older mineral oils as they produce sludges and can leave desposits internally which a flush would help alleviate.

Modern synthetic oils are considerably cleaner and rarely produce sludges and I guess therefore less deposits.

I suspect the need for flushing, especially if you do very regular oil changes is much less.

Semi synthetics? I don't know hence my earlier question re PELA's and mineral oils.