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      07-05-2020, 07:00 AM   #17
Lfk
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Drives: BMW 3 Series G20
Join Date: Apr 2020
Location: Melbourne, AU

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Quote:
Originally Posted by IraHayes View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lfk View Post
Okay so in case anyone's wondering, I checked with BMW dealer and they said in Australia it's LL-01 for gasoline engines and LL-04 for diesel (high sulfur petrol etc). The manual's recommendation is for European countries (even though it's for the Australian market!).

I topped up the rest (up to max) with 5W-30 LL-01 that I bought from the dealer. They said pretty much any fully synthetic oil is safe up to 1 liter, so the LL-04 I initially added shouldn't be an issue.
You will be fine. If you want to stick with what BMW uses, BMW switched from Castrol to Shell/Pennzoil for their factory fill a few years back. Depending on the market you live in, this will be either Pennzoil Platinum Euro, or Shell Helix. That way you don't have to buy the oil from the stealership and pay the premium for a repackaged product with BMW branding.

Whether your car needs LL-01 or LL-04 I think is dependent on the market in which the car is sold because differing markets have differing levels of sulfur content in their fuel. In the US where our gasoline has a higher sulfur content we are told to use LL-01. Europe where gasoline has a lower sulfur content, they use LL-04.

My understanding is that LL-01 is compatible with both high and low sulfur gasoline, so it can be used in place of LL-04. LL-04 OTOH is compatible with low sulfur gasoline only, and must not be used in engines using gasoline with a high sulfur content. If Australia uses high sulfur gasoline, BMW is doing its customers a huge disservice by providing them with owners manuals that contain incorrect information. Hopefully you simply got an incorrect manual, and they aren't putting manuals with incorrect info in all their Australian market cars.
The dealership guy wasn't surprised at all and just said the manual's recommendation is for Europe. So doesn't look like I got the wrong manual.

According to this article, 95-98 RON Australian gasoline can have up to 5 times more sulfur than US gasoline:

"We have a regulated maximum limit of 150 sulphur parts per million (ppm) for regular unleaded petrol (91 RON) and 50ppm for premium unleaded petrol (both 95 and 98 RON).

The maximum limit is 10ppm in Europe, the US, Japan and South Korea."

https://thewest.com.au/lifestyle/mot...ng-b881513935z
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