Willful Disobedience

10 Nov Willful Disobedience

Have you ever disobeyed your parents’ orders, only to find out that your disobedience worked out for the greater good?

Sometimes it pays to disobey your superiors (unless it’s Marilynn – we would never do such a thing!). In this case, it could be a matter of saving you time, money, and even new engine parts.

We had a 745il come in with a gasket issue. Upon removal of the valve cover to get at the gasket, we learned exactly what can happen when you listen to your superiors (well, superiors in a stretched-metaphor sense).

BMW has changed their service intervals as of late, and they tend to tailor some aspects of the service intervals based on your warranty status, driving habits, and other factors. Since BMW now pays for oil changes on vehicles under warranty, they’ve changed their maintenance suggestions for oil changes to one synthetic oil change every 15,000 miles.

Disregarding the fact that the dealership would only have to pay for 3 oil changes under warranty as opposed to 8 or more, leaving the oil in your car for 15,000 miles can cause unforeseen problems. Over time, small metal shavings will get tossed around in the oil in the crankcase, and the longer an oil sits in the car, the more gunk it collects, and the more sludge-like it can become. The following is NOT what your engine should look like:

These cars are also meant to run with synthetic oil, and deciding to change your oil yourself and forgetting/using the wrong oil (or going somewhere that doesn’t automatically know to use synthetic) will also create a gunky mess inside your engine.

We’re not too sure what the specific factors are that went into the mess inside this engine, but we’re really glad we took off the valve cover to inspect that gasket. Had this car not experienced a gasket issue, nobody knows how much worse this sludge could have become. Eventually, this sludge will start messing with engine components, causing them to seize and potentially break even more parts.

This is why we believe that willful disobedience isn’t always a bad thing. The extra money you spend on synthetic oil changes is much cheaper than a new head or new rods and pistons.