Initially Posted by Pauls1150

First, after all, learn the BMW House owners Guide on your bike and see what it says. Pay particular consideration to the oil grade Score (these API letters); a “newer” score is NOT essentially higher than the one it supposedly outmoded (normally as a result of the EPA would not care concerning the put on inside your engine).
Then take into account that any dealership is just about obligated to make use of “real BMW components”.
Bel-Ray makes respectable stuff, as do many different producers; grade and components’ portions and proportions are extra vital than the label.

One minor correction: Oil rankings posted on the containers; (SG, SH, SJ, SM, and so forth) come from the American Petroleum Institute and never the EPA. Emissions rules have some bearing on what automotive engine producers want to see in an oil however are usually not the driving pressure behind them.

Now for the remainder of the story: The API has all the time maintained that any later score exceeds all earlier rankings however BMW AG has forcefully taken exception to that declare. So produce other motorbike producers. When on the urging of automotive producers the API launched the SJ score BMW urged BMW motorbike sellers not so promote SJ oil and urged BMW motorbike homeowners to not use SJ oil.

The rationale was straight ahead. The zinc, calcium and magnesium content material of SG and SH oils was claimed to break catalytic converters which needed to be warranted for 7 years. So with the SJ (and later) rankings the quantity of those anti-wear components was diminished. This was acceptable to many automotive producers whose engine designs included curler cam-followers, for instance. BMW believed that the SJ oil lubrication of the flat tappet cam followers and different parts on its engines would result in unacceptable put on. They issued a service bulletin (SB#2855, November 25, 1998) on this regard.

All these 25 years later parts of the trade nonetheless agree with the place BMW took again then. SG and SH oils, largely recognized as motorbike oils, are nonetheless out there regardless of the persevering with API claims that they’re out of date and that later rankings are simply pretty much as good or higher.