So you've got an e60 m5 like I do, or you have an e92 m3 or you just have any
other kind of BMW 3-series or M Series car and or you just want to find out the
general health of your engine. How do you know the rod bearings aren't gone on
this car? Other than listening to it, stethoscope. That's one option. You can't
see anything under the hood here. There's nothing obvious going on under the hood.
So how do you check for an engine that's wearing out too quickly like you might
find in a E60 M5, or you might find in that m3 E92s and E90s? They have a
reputation as well because they're basically the same engine. Well I'm going to
walk you through, there is an actual process that you can do that's not
invasive, that you can really get down to how good your rod bearings are
in these cars, and therefore you want to do your checks to make sure that you are
satisfied with the condition of the engine. I'm going to walk you through that.
Let's go.
So if you want to find out where to get that information from, so how do you do
the oil sample checks to make sure you understand the health of your engine.
Well there's a great little place and it is basically called Blackstone. So if you
type it in Blackstone labs oil analysis. So Blackstone oil analysis.
Click on that. Now it takes you to the labs. We'll click on the Blackstone labs.
Now basically this is a great little website. Here now this is a place that
unfortunately if you own an e60 m5 or maybe an e92 m3 or e46 m3 or you know
numerous other BMWs and a lot of times as some more high performance cars, this
is something you may wind up being familiar with. So what this is is a
company that essentially takes a sample of your oil and they run it through a
series of tests and look for certain elements within the oil that would
suggest the condition of your oil, or you know what is happening on the inside of
the motor. There's a lot of times you can't see what's going on inside the
engine, this does not lie. This gives you the facts. So I'm just going to give you
a quick walk down on how that works. Here's a quick you know about us what
are they talking about, what is oil analysis, the people the ASTM, so there's
actual standards that attest standards. So now what is oil analysis? We'll click
on that as a quick rundown. So the thing that we're most concerned with as you
know as a BMW owner we are worried about rod bearings.
Rod bearings is the big thing these guys do for individual tests as part of a
standard test. As you see here. What does a standard analysis include? Well let's
start down here. Flash point test, that essentially is checking for flash points,
so if you have too low a flash point in your oil and during this test what that
usually means is you wind up having too much fuel, and you know you'll have a
fuel issue where you have fuel in your oil. Sometimes that means poor fueling
issues or you're leaking down injectors or some other related mechanical issue
that's allowing gas in your oil. There's a viscosity test, which essentially
is looking for the thickness of your oil. Pretty standard routine test there. The
insolubles test really is talking about the abrasive solids that are
developing from your oil as a result of oxidization or oxidation within the oil.
This kind of suggests of you know the age of oil, poor oil condition
as a whole will be found here. Now the spectral exam is the one that we're
really concerned with here as the BMW e60 owner. This is the information I'm
going to want to understand and what the spectral exam does. It's using a
spectrometer which essentially is looking for the various metals and
additives that are present in the oil, so you know what metals.
For example, there could be copper, lead. Those are the metals in the oil that you do
not want to find trace amounts in your oil. Unfortunately with the e60 when you
start seeing copper, elevated copper elements within your oil, that usually
means you're into rod bearing replacement time. Hopefully you catch it
even before that and that's why this oil analysis is actually good as a
preventative measure to do possibly even annually.
Now that brings you to the question well how do I do this? There's no black
stone lab where I live. That's fair enough. So what you do is you go down
into the product section here and you'll notice there's a few
things you can do. Test kits you click on that, and what that basically
means is they will send, for a cost of twenty eight dollars, they will send you
the kit for free and basically you put your oil in that kit, you send the kit
back to their facility, which their mailing address is included in the
website here. You fill in all the relevant information that they're asking
for, and what you're looking for here of course, you can pick gas, diesel engine,
aircraft, industrial, and so on and so forth. You pick all the relevant
information, give them a little bit of background history in the comment
section, and again as I say they will send you a kit for twenty eight dollars.
And it will ultimately give you the analysis results
of your engine, and that will tell you overall the oil condition of your engine.
So also included here, when you go to this section right here, the
information section, they give you the actual sampling procedures that you are
to follow. So that you're getting the most accurate results of course there's
a lot of information, testimonials, but this is where you're also going to want
to check so under the Services section. You'll check report explanation. Click on
that, and what they do is essentially give you a copy. So gas and diesel report
we'll click on that, and this basically is what that report looks like, and when I
zoom in on this, you're able to see aluminum, chromium, copper, you know tells
you the actual industry standard and where your car is related to
that standard. It gives you the different components of the findings in
the oil, as well as they make a general comment, if you've got elevated
numbers in certain parts in certain areas.
This here will kind of give you a good summary and these guys will not only
give you the numbers, but they will give you some recommendations as well. So
please you guys, make sure you share this video with your friends. Let them all
know that there are options like this, and for sure subscribe to the channel. Thanks
again guys. We'll talk to you next time. Bye bye.