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So the new EPA guidelines on US gasoline, which were passed a little over two years ago, go into effect starting next year. Those guidelines cap sulfur at <=10ppm -- a 70% decrease, and more importantly (for this thread!) the same limit as in EU gas.
So, my first thought was, "ok, seems like older BMW's on LL-01 should start using LL-04 as of next year; maybe they should also be recoded for what they'd consider 'EU gas', if that's a thing."
But then I read again through the BMW oil recs PDF (the one that says, don't use LL-04 outside of Europe and don't use LL-01 in Europe), and the word "sulfur" doesn't appear anywhere at all in the document.
So, I guess my curiosity is: what did we use to come to the conclusion that the difference in oil recommendations, LL-01 being for US cars and LL-04 being for EU cars, was due to gasoline sulfur content? I imagine folks much more knowledgeable than I came up with that conclusion, and I have no reason to question it -- I'd just like the confidence of knowing where that came from, especially when it would effectively mean using BMW's own criteria to seemingly refute BMW's recs as far as picking the appropriate oil spec starting next year. (Wouldn't they have said something by now, considering the rule's been on the books just waiting to be implemented for over 2 years at this point, and the switchover is 4 months away?)
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