How trustworthy are the OEM oil temp & coolant gauges?

[jet_dogg]

I've only read I think one article from that site and my conclusion was that the site is 🗑

You've got the collective knowledge of a forum full of experts with decades of published information here.

It's very simple, just use tws next oil change and revisit the track.

[ridebikes]

You're right.

Which is sad for me because motoIQ was the brainchild of Mike Kojima who headed up Sports Compact Car magazine....the bible of my youth 😁

But yeah, seems like they've fallen off.

[Jimbo's M]

Holy bring back my 1990 4WS Prelude memories Batman! I used to have dozens of these mags saved, they were like my aftermarket gospel. I'm ashamed to admit how much money I put into my car because of that rag.

[Sharocks]

Liqui Moly 10W60 just shears much faster than TWS or Supercar.

If you plan on running it, change your OCI to about 3k miles instead.

Or every other track day if it's just a track car.

[CrisSilberGrau]

The non M gauges have a pretty large buffer in the middle. The M3 gauges are pretty accurate as stock, barely any buffer-- I wouldn't bother coding on the digital display.

And that oil temp is slightly higher than normal but fine for tracking on a hot day. I hope you're still on 10w60. If you haven't refreshed your cooling system with new stock, it might be time to start thinking about it (including the oil cooler), but that current situation isn't alarming.

To my knowledge my cooling system is original. I have a replacement Rogue hose for the coolant tank hard line, I've had a friend crack his after installing a gruppe M intake and the line was not routed below the front beam support. But my rad, hoses, oil cooler and lines seem to be original. I have no history of them being changed. Recently I've seen my coolant temps go beyond mid at the track. The tracks I go to are not super fast, top of 3rd and a little of 4th. Mosport GP I hope will be a bit different. Oil always gets hot but never beyond first dot, I take cool downs when it gets close.

The coolant issue I can tackle with full replacement of everything, FCP would be my bet, because once im there, it all goes, water pump, thermo, rad etc etc.

Oil cooling would be the oem replacement for all i guess? What has the general experience been with temps for oil after this has been done? For reference Toronto summers are quite hot and humid, my track day will be tomorrow and temps will be in the high 30C with the humidex. I've only used two oils TWS and Fuchs 10/60. Im also thinking about doing a cycle with redline 5/50. My oil change intervals are quite short, 3k -4kmiles tops less if I track often.

[tlow98]

You're right.

Which is sad for me because motoIQ was the brainchild of Mike Kojima who headed up Sports Compact Car magazine....the bible of my youth 😁

But yeah, seems like they've fallen off.

yeah, I hate to say it but the MotoiQ stuff is laughable. Product show-case videos with no real reviews or how-to tips. A shame, really.

[enjoy_m3]

What is he going to display the temp on? Very few people have a hard mount for their phone.

Ah I guess you're right. You would have to buy a hard mount to use your cell phone as temp display. Might take some creativity. Here's my mount that I can switch between my cell phone and garmin for track days.

[bigjae46]

The stock oil and coolant gauges are pretty much spot on. I had an aftermarket oil and coolant temp gauges. The oil temp sender was in the oil pan and the coolant temp sender was in the upper radiator hose. The stock and aftermarket gauges were within a couple of degrees of each other.

[George Hill]

Coolant temp gauge reads straight up and down from 85-95*C, it starts to move right at 96*C and when it's getting into the red zone its about 107*C (ish).

In the summer I just use the CAN info from my AiM Solo OR pull up the coolant temp in the BC.

I've had an assumption that Liqui Moly runs hotter and I was hoping to do a test, last weekend but got lazy and it didn't happen. I DID 100% see an oil temp difference on the street when switching from LM 10W60 to Redline 5W50 in our S85 swapped E46 touring.

[Tbonem3]

LM is one of the heavier 10w60s, I'm surprised ppl think it runs hotter, but maybe it does. I could see it retaining heat longer, at the very least.

[George Hill]

LM is one of the heavier 10w60s, I'm surprised ppl think it runs hotter, but maybe it does. I could see it retaining heat longer, at the very least.

No thinking here, I saw it with my own eyes. We were having trouble with the car getting hot in the summertime with the A/C on and it directly correlated to the oil temps being past 210 indicated. Once they were past 210 I needed to keep an eye on the coolant, once we switched to 5W50 redline the oil temps were consistently to the left of 210 and the coolant temp issues got better in most situations. Keep in mind this is a custom car and in an extreme situation, but still I saw the temps change with no other difference than the oil brand/weight switch.

[Obioban]

LM is one of the heavier 10w60s, I'm surprised ppl think it runs hotter, but maybe it does. I could see it retaining heat longer, at the very least.

Not at all an unusual observation that it runs hotter on track.

No thinking here, I saw it with my own eyes. We were having trouble with the car getting hot in the summertime with the A/C on and it directly correlated to the oil temps being past 210 indicated. Once they were past 210 I needed to keep an eye on the coolant, once we switched to 5W50 redline the oil temps were consistently to the left of 210 and the coolant temp issues got better in most situations. Keep in mind this is a custom car and in an extreme situation, but still I saw the temps change with no other difference than the oil brand/weight switch.

IIRC, from the ecu reverse engineering project, the coolant temp buffer (temp range it stays vertical for) on the e46 M3 is 3°.

[Tbonem3]

Or maybe it runs a little hotter cause it's heavier. But maybe LM is good to use if you're seeing lower pressure?

Trying to think of what the point of running LM would be. If high viscosity = higher temps, why don't we run 5-30 like every other BMW? Pressure? As far as I can remember, any monitoring of oil pressure when using a 5w30 or 10w40 has had positive results.

[Obioban]

Or maybe it runs a little hotter cause it's heavier. But maybe LM is good to use if you're seeing lower pressure?

Trying to think of what the point of running LM would be. If high viscosity = higher temps, why don't we run 5-30 like every other BMW? Pressure? As far as I can remember, any monitoring of oil pressure when using a 5w30 or 10w40 has had positive results.

I don't understand why people run LM. Pretty sure because marketing.

Not saying viscosity is the only reason it runs hotter, but, all else equal, lower viscosity is always better so long as its sufficient to never lose oil pressure. I stick with TWS because the benefit from a thinner oil is small and the potential consequence of running too thin of an oil is HIGH. BMW was probably hedging for very hot tracking on a very hot day, with some level of cooling system wear... and that's a level of hedging that I want for my personal use, as well.

[George Hill]

IIRC, from the ecu reverse engineering project, the coolant temp buffer (temp range it stays vertical for) on the e46 M3 is 3°.

That's not correct, the buffer is about the same (if not the same, I can't recall the Non-M), but the operating temp is about 10*c higher on a M vs Non-M.