E46 330i oil top up

Hi folks, apologies in advance for probably quite a dumb question, but I need to top up the oil on my E46. I've never had to do it (it's a couple of thousand miles from it's next service), any idea what kind of oil I need to put in there? Would it be synthetic?

Thanks for any help

You need to use a BMW LL01 Approved fully synthetic oil. The best ones are either Castrol Edge 0w30 or Mobil1 SuperSyn 0w40.

They are what BMW recommend, what your local BMW dealer will use if you service your car there and what I use in both a 60k mile Z4 3.0i and a 160k mile 530i with no issues at all?

Wot he said.

I use the same in my 330Ci

I just hope yours is one of the ones with a smaller oil appetite. Without wishing to be a doom-munger, some 330i's would have no oil left if they were 2,000 miles from the next service and hadn't been topped up since the last.

My indie uses a semi-syn 10w40 so I use the same when topping up. Mobil S from Halfrauds isn't bad value at around £20ish for 5 litres. I haven't worked it out but I reckon I get through just over one of those between each service with a 15k service interval.

Epic thread revival.

But the low oil light is really fairly reliable, certainly works on mine.


Daniel