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      10-03-2012, 09:27 AM   #4
Red Bread
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Drives: Smog machines
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Austin, TX

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Coolant temp tells you when your coolant is up to operating temp, but coolant warms quicker than oil. So by utilizing an oil temperature gauge BMW is giving you more accurate information. You're not supposed to drive a car hard until you have oil temp up to the normal range.

My M Coupe had guidelines, like nothing above 4,000 rpm and no WOT until oil temp got above 200 degrees and no redline until it got to it's normal operating temp, which was around 240 in that car.

Idling is not necessary for cool down as BMW use pumps to circulate coolant and oil after the engine is turned off and it controls the cool down for you. I've walked into the garage after a highway trip with our old 135i and heard the pumps running over an hour after we got home.

Be nice to your engine, go easy on it until you get oil temp and drive nicely the last few blocks of your drive and it won't give you any undue stress.

On the off chance that you plan on tracking your X1, the oil gauge is a great indicator of overall engine temps and can signal when you need to let things cool down. My M Coupe was a US S52 car and it had terrible cooling from the factory, missing the additional oil cooler that the Euro S50b32 and later S54 cars had. The manual said not to operate the engine over 260 degrees and had a red light on the oil gauge at 300. I'm not sure what the operating temps for the N54/N55 are since the gauge doesn't have actual temps, just ranges.
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