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I'm of the mind that driving habits and environment influence the oil change interval. The 10,000 interval from BMW is only set that way because of costs to BMW for the included change. I'm sure if it made
Financial sense, they'd reduce the interval for better protection of the engine.
Synthetic oils are great at extending life, but if you drive hard often, have a high stress engine, drive long distances at speed, lot of stop and go, or live in extremely hot or extremely cold climates, your change intervals should be adjusted.
I found that my driving style (hard), climate and amount of driving generally requires a change at 5,000 (or less). At that time, I can start hearing the engine a bit more and can just tell a change is needed. In other vehicles, such as my X5M or wife's Yukon XL, I would get some oil burn off at about 4,000 so 5,000 change works there too. Even with my X5M getting the free oil, I always did an intermittent change.
That said, the V12 works differently than the hot V8s and cruises at much lower RPMs so it could be longer. It does require a lot of oil so if you drive a lot in gear, it could get expensive. In your case, if you drive other cars too, I'd stick to the 5,000 mile change and you can be confident you'll always have the protection and correct amount of oil. The most engine wear occurs during start up when there's no oil yet, so I'd rather have as fresh oil as possible to make sure the lubrication is there quickly no matter the weather outside.
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