I recently made my first experience with Mapodo, an online shop for motor oils and lubricants. As most of the high quality motor oils are quite expensive here in Sweden I’m always looking for cheaper alternatives. Mapodo was discussed on various automotive forums such as www.autopower.se or www.bmw-treff.de and the people were always very satisfied with their buying experience.

Normally I shouldn’t care about such things as motor oil changes as the bimmer has this 3 years / 80.000 KM free service agreement such as all new BMW’s have. But the oil change intervals are quite “extended” which means that they’ll change oil first after every 30.000 kilometers. As you might have recognized I read a whole lot of stuff about motor oil in the nearer past and came to the conclusion that I will from now on devide the intervals in two 15.000 KM changes instead. This means that I’ll have to pay for every second oil change myself.

That’s were the money comes into the picture, my E87 needs motor oil with the BMW LL-04 specification as it is equipped with a diesel particulate filter and these require “low SAPS” oils. What “low SAPS” stands for and why cars equipped with a diesel particulate filter benefit from these oils will be clarified in a later post, that’s part of my oil mania. Unfortunately my favorite oil (Mobil 1 0W-40) is not LL-04 classified but LL-01 because of it’s not “low SAPS” and I will go oil conform at least as long as the bimmer is in it’s guarantee period.
I chose the ARAL Supertronic 0W-40 this time because of it’s nearly exactly the same oil as the Castrol EDGE Formula RS 0W-40. Castrol and Aral are both subsidiaries of BP and if you take a close look on the technical specification for these two oils then you’ll see how similar they are. The ARAL Supertronic 0W-40 is LL-04 classified as well so there will be no problem with the guarantee.

But it was not only motor oil for the car I bought this time, I bought some 2-stroke oil (~4€ / L is quite cheap) as well. Now you may ask why did you buy that for, but the answer is easy – for the 120d also. It’s a good idea to blend some 2-stroke oil, in relation 1:250, into each tank of diesel in order to lubricate the common rail diesel pump. More on this in a later post about this issue.

Back to topic then, BMW LL-04 oils are quite expensive ~22€ / Liter for Castrol Edge SLX 0W-30 are quite a normal price at your local BMW dealer. Mapodo currently takes only ~9€ that’s less than the half of the price at the bimmer shop. This immense price difference relativizes the cost for my extra oil service tremendously.

The order process and the delivery from Mapodo were both very satisfying and their customer service is lightning fast. All product questions where answered almost directly and the goods was packaged safely.

Thumbs up for Mapodo – highly recommended!

This laptop may be one of the cheapest laptops available right now. The Celebrity by the company Medison costs only 150$ or in Swedish crowns 1032:- SEK, very cheap for a laptop with this technical specification:

CPU
- Intel® Celeron® M Processor 370 (1.5 GHz, 90nm, FSB400, 1 MB L2 cache, uPGA478)

DISPLAY
- 14.0″ WXGA (1280×768) TFT

HARD DRIVE
- 40 GB

DIMENSION
- 333(W) x 243(D) x 24/33.(H)mm (front/back), 2.2Kg with 6 cells Lithium-lion battery

MEMORY
- 64-bit wide DDR data channel, One 200-pin SODIMM socket, supporting DDR 333/400, 256 MB Expandable up to 1GB, based on SODIMM Modules

STORAGE
- One changeable 2.5″ 9.5mm(H) HDD, Supporting Master mode IDE ATA
-33/66/100/133 (Ultra DMA), One changeable 12.7mm(H) CD/DVD Combo

VIDEO CONTROLLER
- VIA PN800 integration, Shared Memory Architecture up to 64MB, 128 bit 3D graphic engine, Support analog monitor pixel resolution up to 1920×1400, Support two displays dual view

KEYBOARD
- A4 size keyboard, Built-in Touchpad with scrolling function

SOUND SYSTEM
- AC’97 2.2 Compliant Interface, 3D stereo enhanced sound system, Sound-Blaster PROTM Compatible, S/PDIF Digital output (5.1 CH), 1x Built-in Microphone, 2x Built-in Speakers

I/O PORTS
- 3x USB 2.0 ports, 1x External CRT monitor output, 1x Headphone jack, 1x Microphone jack, 1x S/PDIF output jack, 1x RJ-45 port for LAN, 1x Line-in jack, 1x DC-In jack

PCMCIA
- 1x Type II PCMCIA socket

COMMUNICATION
- 10/100BASE-TX Fast Ethernet on board, 802.11g MiniPCI Wireless LAN

POWER
- Full Range 65W AC adapter – AC input 100~240V, 47~63Hz, DC output 20V, 3.25A, Removable 6-cell Smart Li-ion battery pack, 4000/4400mAh

SECURITY
- Kensington® Lock

9 guys at work (including me) have decided to give it a try, we ordered a Medison Celebrity and we’ll have some sort of lottery ~16 $ per lottery ticket and the winner gets the computer.

The order page for the online ordering was giving a quite phishing site look-a-like impression so we are well aware that there might be a brick out for deliverance instead of the laptop. We will see, on their customer hot-line they told us the delivery will take about 4-6 weeks – we are very suspicious. I’ll keep you updated about how this thing works out…

The teaser site looks nice but does not tell you anything concrete about the product, the pictures show sewed leather and stuff. As you have limited/reserve/whatever editions of almost everything these days – people buy more and more lifestyle instead of products. We will see what Lenovo has to offer, the teaser implies a leather cover for it which is something new and interesting. They will surely are built on the Santa Rosa technology which is interesting but not revolutionary. I doubt that the new T60/T61 have a metal lid as former T-Series as the T43/42/41/40 had – but ok maybe leather will be even better, just wait and see…

Link via Gizmodo

Link to “Newton Peripherals” the manufacturer of the MoGo Mouse

Buy it in Sweden? Here or here.