Dave Dave Dave, is it so hard for you to admit that your advice was some what lacking? The guy asked which was the TWS equivalent and there was only one right answer to that.
I am sure you’ve heard of the Tribunal case of the Maserati owner that lost against the dealership and mechanical Insurer because a non approved oil was used in the engine once and it blew up?
Whilst that might not impact you personally or majority of people here I am certain you won’t catch a reputable BMW specialist workshop using non approved oil to do a service on a customer car - imagine the uproar lol!!! Heck they’d double their margins on oil if they swapped one product for another! Perhaps you should be telling them all to get off their high horses and to pull their snobby fingers out of their arses for being pretentious?
On a more serious note, I was on three different phone calls with the Castrol technical guy (not saled rep) for an hour over this topic last year and he looked up the formulation (not available to the public of course) and said they are different products - period.
Whilst I agree it need not be an “approved” oil for an engine to work, but it surely can’t hurt? Surely you agree on that? Heck I don’t see you use made in China bushes over Lemforder for your cars in your builds. Double standard are we?! And if you’ve bothered to read past posts you’ll see I actually agree somewhat when it comes to other branded oil of the same weight that meets or exceeds the approved oil standards like Liqui Moly, Redline, Motul ect
But let’s see how staunch you actually are about your cavalier and simply don’t give a F attitude over engine oil ... here’s my offer to you and let’s put your theory to the test ... I’ll buy you an oil of “my” choosing out of my own pocket each and everytime you need an oil change for your E36 M3 and you put that in each and everytime and run it till the next scheduled oil change? Should we see if Chinese oil is just as good and perfectly suited for M engines? And let’s document it for the forum masses shall we? Challenge accepted?