I guess if it's good enough for John Force it's good enough for MINI. You think the MINI oil they sold me is really Castrol? At least if you don't want to or can't get the MINI stuff you can use their recommended oil.....or not.

 

>>I guess if it's good enough for John Force it's good enough for MINI. You think the MINI oil they sold me is really Castrol? At least if you don't want to or can't get the MINI stuff you can use their recommended oil.....or not.
Yes, It is true that both BMW and MINI recommend Castrol full synthetic oil for your MINI. They state it so on the engine and in the manual. It's not the most favored synthetic oil option and many will choose Redline or Amsoil but prices can be higher at discounted sources. When I added a bit of Castrol full synthetic when my oil was a little low at 3000 miles I just went to Walmart and picked up a quart for $4.99 and added half.

When the BMW service dept does the oil change they will use Castrol FS oil.

 

Waiting for Zappa or someone else to jump in and explain why Castrol Syntec is NOT a full synthetic oil... MINI may recommend it, but a bit of research shows the Syntec to be inferior stuff to most true synthetics. Somebody's paying somebody a lot for that recommendation, and I for one choose to ignore it.

 

Castrol has a full synthetic and a 'synthetic blend' both with the "Syntec" name on them (but if you look at the lable, you can tell which is which) ... the full synthetic is fine but those in the know object to its volitility rating: it burns off faster than some others. The owners around here that object to castrol the most also seem to be the people that advocate changing every 4000 miles anyway - so it doesn't matter how fast it burns off it its gonna be changed that regularly .
Spend a bunch on the 'technically advanced' oil or spend a lot on regular changes ... it's up to you ...