2002 BMW M3: Has a refined Palate.

estreka, I think you're paying too much for M1 over there in Montana. I can get a five quart jug of Mobil 1 10W-30 from Wal-Mart for $21.97 plus tax ($23.78 in Los Angeles County after adding 8.25% for sales tax).
 
As Mike stated, Castrol TWS 10W-60 can be difficult to find outside of BMW dealerships. If any of you M owners out there know of any other good places to source it, please post them. By doing so, you may be able to help a fellow M owner find a more cost-effective source for not only oil, but maybe parts, too.

estreka your overpaying. the local autozone has mobil1 for 6.50 a qt. and its overpriced there, since walmart has it cheaper.

Bavarian Autoworks (www.bavauto.com) - $10.95/bottle
 
Tischer BMW (www.getbmwparts.com) - $9.50/bottle (m3forum.com special)
 
I typically search www.realoem.com to find part numbers and get a rough idea how much to pay, then order my parts from Tisher BMW.
 
If you ever need spark plugs, don't get them from the dealer (not even Tischer). Get them from sparkplugs.com for $12/plug.

Great links, mdoan300! They should be able to save some of the readers here some money.
 
realoem.com is a great (and free) resource! Its interface is pretty similar to BMW AG's own ETK electronic parts catalog (I used to work in the parts and service departments of a local BMW dealership). The caveat to using realoem's online parts catalog is it's usually several months behind ETK and the part numbers it displays may sometimes have been superseded by newer P/Ns.
 
The tricky thing about oil is UPS, FedEx, and DHL have special policies regarding handling fluids and flammable items if I remember correctly.

I just changed my own last week. $32 for a 5 quart jug at Walmart plus a 1 qt for $7. If you're getting it cheaper, I need you to ship some to me. ;-)

I love how the USA is one of only three countries in the world that doesn't use the metric system, yet they feel everyone else is wrong for not using their system.

yay canada, goooo metric.

Wow, that's cheap!

Just because all the other lemmings are jumping off a cliff and we don't, that makes us wrong? :D
 
j.k.

when, how did the mertic system come into play here?

"I bought four-liters (crazy brand, not using the traditional quart) at $10.25 per. Our M3 took 3/4 of a liter before the level was acceptable."
 
That is crazy, I've never seen it before. Does BMW list the capacity in quarts or liters, or both? Do any other vehicles specify the stuff?
 
Oh, and that's how the metric system came into play.

Hehe....I have to laugh about the metric system. To be honest, it's a far superior system of measurement to the english system...yet I still like being 5'10" tall :)
 
Regarding the post...I'm surprised this is the first time you guys have run into this problem on the M3. You appear to be driving it quite hard, which would indicate good oil consumption :)....but this is the first time it's mentioned and only required 3/4 of a liter?
 
Glad to see you are using 10w60...keep that engine running, not blowing up :)
 
Regarding some other posts in this thread, I've bought from Wal-Mart a number of times and find it to be consistently the cheapest for three good brands:
 
Mobil One 5 quart jubs of 5w30 synthetic
Usually one other brand like Pennzoil Platinum
Rotella 5w40 full synthetic...I love this oil for "rougher" engines, seems to really smooth em out. (I intend to run it in my future Legacy GT 5-speed, mainly because it's a turbo and Rotella was originated for diesel and diesel turbo engines).
 
On a side note...my 06 Civic SI (now at 40k miles) was consuming about 1 quart every 1-2k miles....it did this under 5 different brand oils. I switched to AMSOIL 0w30, and now, after 14k miles of use, it only consumes about 1 quart every 5k. There's something to be said about that convenience...
 
Joe

Hmmm, I almost always found that the BMW Synthetic sold at the dealer was actually LESS than the Castrol Synthetic on which it's based by about $1 per quart. Now, that's for the "regular" 2.5l motor, not the M3...last time I got the BMW oil for 4.27/qt. at the dealer

keep in mind it is a race motor. that in mind, M motors are very civil race motors in how much oil they consume. now that you know, its simply a matter of keeping extra bottles on hand. well worth the trade off if you like the performance. not so much for the regular joe thinking "hey i'll buy the top of the line model to compensate for my shortcomings".

Hmmm, and someone was trying to tell me in an earlier thread that old BMW's aren't more expensive to maintain and repair... Riiiggghhht...
 
Even the oil is more expensive!

Stingray - BMW pays for this specific oil to be produced. You can put a different oil in your M car and have it still run fine...
 
My old 88 Ford Thunderbird Turbo Coupe had rotors which cost $130 per front(back in 2002)....I could get the same rotors for $50, but I'd lose the ABS ring inside of them...
 
Every car can be expensive to maintain old :)
 
BMW has alot of parts that are pretty cheap...and they have alot of parts that are really expensive. They tend to run alot of rear negative camber, and use aggressive brake pads.
 
I wouldn't hesitate to buy a used BMW in anticipation of replacing wear items...I would hesitate for the electrical stuff.

I'm not going to lie and say that BMW's are not more expensive to maintain, but it is not as bad as you might think. The E46 M3 and newer ///M cars require this 10w-60 oil @$11/L. The oil may seem high priced, but the change interval is approx. 15k miles (per the car's computer). If you used synthetic oil in another car and changed it every 7,500 miles, you'd be paying about the same price, since Mobil 1 is about $5-6/qt. Actually, since you have to pay for two oil changes, the other could be slightly more expensive, and more oil is wasted too.

stingray - BMW M vehicles will cost more to maintain than regular BMW vehicles, but it's still not unobtanium to the white collar middle class or, in some cases, even blue collar America (NOTE: I say this in the context of DIY owners).
 
I don't want to compare the maintenance costs between an M3 and a Z06, but rather the cost difference between 3-series & M3, and C6 & Z06, so let me ask you - since this blog post centers around oil, which is a consumable, how much do tires and factory brake pads cost for the C6 Z06? The first thing that John Page did after a day at Motorsports Ranch was eject the costly factory brakes for a Stoptech BBK out of simplicity, pad options, and consumable costs.
 
Regarding Castrol TWS, it's one of the best group IV synthetics out in the world market. Some people "upgrade" to running Amsoil, which costs nearly as much as Castrol TWS, and hope all the Amsoil multi-level marketing fluff is up to snuff. Well, Castrol TWS is backed and endorsed by BMW; they use this oil in all of their motorsports, from factory-built & backed touring car race cars to the Formula BMW open wheel race cars (and even their F1 cars, if I am not mistaken). For more info on Castrol TWS, I shall defer you to the forums at bobistheoilguy.com.
 
On a different note, I test drove the new E92 M3 coupe this past Thursday. Needless to say, the styling is left to be desired, but it's a great evolution performance-wise to the E46 M3.

"I don't want to compare the maintenance costs between an M3 and a Z06, but rather the cost difference between 3-series & M3, and C6 & Z06, so let me ask you - since this blog post centers around oil, which is a consumable, how much do tires and factory brake pads cost for the C6 Z06?"
 
I don't know, as I own a C5 Z06, same vintage as Edmund's M3. I just bought new pads (factory spec), and they ran me $189 for the full set front and back. Rotors are $30 each at Napa - track guys use these all the time - they're so cheap, that if they heat crack you just throw them out. The C5 Z06's braking system is probably the least sexy in terms of hardware specs (2 piston front calipers, single rears), but it works extremely well (60-0 in 104 ft.) and is cheap to replace and maintain.
 
I know the brakes on the C6 Z06 are much more expensive to replace, and despite the much more impressive hardware resume, it doesn't seem to perform much better braking-wise than the C5 Z06 did with its el-cheapo setup.
 
As for oil, my Z06 uses 5W-30 Mobil 1, which I can get at Wal-Mart for about $4.99/quart. Using the oil life monitor, I get about 8,500 miles between oil changes. Oil consumption in 37,000 miles has been 1 quart (it burned a little bit when breaking in - now it doesn't burn anything).
 
Only other maintenance I've done was change the transmission and differential fluids, using Mobil 1 synthetic ATF and diff fluid, total cost about $40, and replaced the fuel filter $50. Repair costs have been zero so far, but I have to replace the smog pump (A.I.R.) check valves ($30 for both), as they are frozen and causing a harmless check engine light. Common problem with aftermarket headers like I have.
 
Really, the biggest expense in owning the Z06 has been the tires: $1,200 for the set of 4, and they last 19k miles.
 
When I cancelled my M3 order and bought the Z06, one of the factors was maintenance and repair expense. So far, the Z06 has been living up to my expectations of being a very low maintenance, low cost, easy to repair sports car.